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When it comes to working with Hispanic dairy employees, never make an assumption. That was the key message and theme behind the panel discussion, “Managing Hispanic labor … is it about the culture or is it about the rules?,” held during the Midwest Dairy Expo November 27-28 in St. Cloud, Minnesota.
More than 75 producers and dairy industry members attended the one-hour session moderated by Jorge Delgado, on-farm support manager for Alltech.
I have been a proponent of annual budgeting for quite some time. When my clients first hear me advocating the development of annual budgets, they usually have one of the following reactions:
“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”
This is a very popular, well-known quote and the root of its meaning is critical to a robotic milking operation.
The balancing of amino acid (AA) levels in dairy rations has been in the news, useful commercial products have been introduced and formulation software has been updated. What are realistic expectations today for AA balancing? The answer rests with research results, what is measured on-farm and transition considerations.
Since dairies come in all shapes, sizes and profit levels, it is nearly impossible to predict what profitability “looks like” at a glance. Is the most profitable business the one with the highest production? Nicest cows? Best reproductive numbers? Most land base? Healthiest heifers? What profits “look like” can vary somewhat from dairy farm to dairy farm – but studying a variety of dairy farm businesses over time can help to distinguish patterns for higher profits on dairies. This area of “profit patterns” has been the focus of recent Penn State research.
Founders typically want to know where their income streams will be after they let go of power and control of management and/or ownership. They also have marital conflict about home residence issues and how to be fair to non-business heirs.
Editor’s note: Names have been omitted to protect the innocent and allow discussion to flow freely within the team. We assure you this is a real farm with real cows, real owners, real team members and real problems.
Everyone knows it takes a village to raise a child. It also takes a team to run a dairy. From 30 cows to 30,000 cows, a dairy producer cannot do it alone.
This article is the second in a series of roundtable discussions where three forward-thinking producers share protocols and lessons learned. This article features:
Greg Hooker of Diamond H Dairy in Chowchilla, California
Brian Brown of Sunburst Dairy in Belleville, Wisconsin
Justin Risser of Meadow Vista Dairy in Bainbridge, Pennsylvania
Although some dairy producers have a tried and true method of pregnancy diagnosis on their dairies, new and emerging technologies are in the works to help improve efficiency in this area of the reproductive program. In the fall of 2012, milk-based pregnancy tests joined rectal palpation, transrectal ultrasonography and blood-based pregnancy tests as a tool to determine whether a cow is pregnant.
Concerns associated with inbreeding have recently received more airtime than usual due to genomics. Read on to find some of my answers to frequently asked producer questions about this topic.
