What started as an idea for three brothers to combine their dairy herds and build a new facility has led to one of the most automated precision dairies in the country, with robotic milking, cow monitoring, sand-bedded flush system, flexible stalls and a robot that delivers sand bedding to the freestalls.

Early January. Most of the country is concerned with things like, “Did the water to the house or cattle freeze up last night? Will it freeze tonight?”

If an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, then spending a little time on forage harvester maintenance this winter will pay off handsomely come next season. A well-tuned self-propelled harvester will result in fewer repairs, less downtime, better forage quality and fuel savings.

It will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me well, but I was running late. I had to make the 230-mile drive to the Salt Lake airport to catch a flight to Dallas on my way to Tulsa.