If you ask most consumers what breeds of cows have horns, many disconnected from agriculture would respond that bulls have horns and cows don’t. This seems logical and hard to disprove because most dairy cows in milking form or in pictures have no horns. The practice of dehorning has been performed over many years to protect cows from injuring other cows and the farmers that care for them. Dehorning is a common practice on dairy farms. However, it is something farmers do not like to do, and even with a variety of different methods, none can claim a pain-free procedure.

Read the latest from several genetics companies and the changes to their genetic offerings and current lineups of dairy sires, following the release of the USDA dairy sire evaluations in December 2012. Visit each company’s websites for complete listings of their sire lineups. Select a link below to jump directly to a specific section: • • • • • • • • • • •

I’m passionate about agriculture and enjoy being around others who share the same enthusiasm.I believe it’s important to actively participate in agriculture organizations.

HOW WE MET: I met Mike on a flight from Salt Lake City, Utah, to Minneapolis, Minnesota. He was on his way to his nephew’s wedding there. Mike’s extended family owns a landscape business near the Hallmark Meat Packing plant that was the subject of an undercover video release in 2008 by HSUS. The video showed slaughterhouse workers mistreating culled dairy cows. Mike told me he knows animals are treated much better on-farm than the video depicted and that he doesn’t sympathize with the efforts of HSUS and others to convince consumers otherwise.