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The dairy industry in a five-state region – Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Texas – has seen a tremendous growth in the past decade, a growth that provides both concerns and opportunities, according to Texas AgriLife Extension Service specialists.
Joining other experts at the High Plains Dairy Conference held recently in Amarillo, Dr. Ellen Jordan, a Texas AgriLife Extension Service dairy specialist, said the five-state area is home to about 450,000 cows, which provide approximately $4.3 billion in annual economic impact.
However, water use by these dairies and in the industry has been questioned, especially after the drought of last year.
Iowa’s legislators have put a proposal to regulate stray voltage on hold – at least for the time being.
According to an article in the Des Moines Register, the legislation would have set “science-based” standards for addressing stray voltage, which happens when electric currents build up in the ground and can lead to reproductive and other health problems in dairy cattle.
While the bills made it through committees on both sides of the Statehouse, the proposals have stalled before making it to the floor in either the House or Senate. Dairy lobbyists claim the bills would make it nearly impossible to seek payment for damages caused by the stray voltage.
On March 5, Todd Bilby, associate professor and extension dairy specialist with Texas AgriLife Research and Extension, presented a webinar on a topic that affects dairy cattle across the country during the summer – heat stress.
The webinar titled “Strategies to Improve Reproduction During Heat Stress in Dairy Cattle” was the first in a series of four webinars relating to heat stress made possible by an Agriculture and Food Research Initiative competitive grant from the USDA.
33 percent of people responding to the most recent FG Poll said that they have noticed or were concerned about winter damage to their forage fields this year, while 67 percent were not.
The 101 bulls that were examined during the bull breeding soundness (BSE) clinics resulted in 89 satisfactory potential breeders and 12 bulls had significant problems.
Confirming what commercial partners and animal nutritionists have known for decades, Novus is continuing to harness the full value of the HMTBa molecule in several species. The growth in demand for the HMTBa molecule is nearly half of the global methionine market.
A boost in demand for HMTBa, in both liquid and dry forms, is a result of targeted market expansion beyond poultry into swine diet formulations, ruminant rations in dairy and beef applications, as well as the ever-growing needs of the aquaculture segment.
