Anyone traveling through the Midwest will see a large assortment of silos: big, small; green, red, blue.

Key points - When evaluating cost-effective feed ingredients remember we are feeding two animals; first the rumen bugs and then the cow.

Several years ago, I taught, “Writing your Life History” for Northland Pioneer College.

Ah, what a tangled web we weave in our search for market niches.

Modern dairy herd management practices have increased the frequency with which animals must be handled. Animals must be isolated and restrained for physical examination, vaccination, artificial insemination, pregnancy checks, treatment, dehorning, calving, etc. on a regular basis. Animal handling is critical because each cow in the herd may be handled 40 to 50 times per lactation.

Amazing progress has been made in the nutrition and management of dairy cattle during the last 20 years.

It has been said, the first thing to plant in setting up a managed grazing system is fence posts.

There has been much made of the adaptation of machinery to handling cattle.

Dear editor, I’m writing in regards to a column/article in the June 17 issue by Ladd Siebert titled: “Are we trimming our dairy cows correctly?”

When our fields are green, I enter them and search for myself. In 16 years of writing this column, I am often drawn to write about my field visits.