When my adviser informed me he thought I should take a course in animal welfare offered here at Purdue, I was more than a little nervous about what stood in front of me. Having spent my entire life in the dairy industry, I had many preconceived notions about animal welfare, based largely on the efforts of extreme animal rights groups such as PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). In my mind, the dairy industry and animal welfare were two diametrically opposed forces destined to perpetual disagreements, with little hope for harmony. I now see this could not be further from the truth.

During times of low milk prices, it is important to analyze the price of the feedstuffs you are using and fine-tune the management of various aspects of the dairy. What is the level of milk production on the dairy? Use or start a spreadsheet to monitor daily herd milk production. On a daily basis, keep track of the number of fresh cows, cows dried, cows died and cows beefed. Each month, weigh the cow’s milk. By tracking this information, you will be able to know your baseline for production and how it changes day to day according to feeding, environment or management changes.

Yesterday as I was sifting flour into my new batch of bread, I smiled as I remembered how my mother taught me to make bread when I was nine years old. She didn’t give me a recipe card with neat measurements and full-color glossy photographs to show me the end result. She simply said, “This is how Grandma taught me to do it.”

I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for city girls who marry into an agricultural way of life. They are expected to learn, understand and participate in a culture that is as alien to them as the life of a New York cabbie, a San Francisco homeless person, or Donald Trump’s butler. But, to their credit, most of them try.

A story according to Rolf Flake: A horse thief was arrested. He had a good lawyer and was found not guilty. “Does this mean,” he asked the judge, “that I get to keep the horse?”

Complaints about the smell of farms in Ottawa County, Michigan, have wafted away on the wind, thanks in part to a tri-fold brochure. Nearly three years ago, the county first produced the brochure, titled “If you are thinking about moving to the country,” which included a small panel where people could scratch and sniff an accurate whiff of cattle manure.

Many concerns at feedlot operations are directly linked to pen maintenance and manure management. Odors and dust problems, animal health and performance, water runoff and protection of groundwater and surface water are all interconnected within confined feeding operations.