Feeding dairy cows has always called for feedstuff flexibility, but that’s especially been the case in recent years. Variable feed quality, feed availability challenges and roller-coaster feed prices have driven dairy producers and their nutritionists to explore alternative ration ingredients while trying to protect cow performance and maintain profitability.

With feed prices high, many nutritionists and producers have become focused on reducing shrink of feed ingredients on the dairy (i.e., reducing waste of feed). However, these discussions frequently focus around the total volume of feed and do not take into account the nutrients within the feed.

Troubleshooting a problem on a dairy is a multi-faceted endeavor. Usually, no one specific area will tell the whole story, and most of the time the problem started weeks ago.

Dairy cows that are fed flaxseed produce more nutritious milk, according to a new study by Oregon State University.

Last summer, I was driving down the road, and to my horror, there was an American flag being blown about on the street. It was covered with mud, and the only way I recognized it was the patch of stars and stripes that looked up from the dirt.

Some things never change. The land, the clock, calendar and weather forecasts have always been the major influences in everyday farming.

It would be inaccurate to not mention the first thing I noticed about him: He was wearing purple pants. I marked this down as yet another difference.

One of the biggest upheavals in food production in the last 10 years was the result of one of the tiniest imaginable scares. It would be comparable to one single Aborigine threatening the U.S. with a flyswatter, and our government issuing every homeowner a 50-caliber machine gun to defend themselves.