When it comes to nutritional efficiency, most dairies have room to improve. That’s the finding from Papillon Agricultural Company, a technology-based manufacturer of specialty nutritional products.

For many dairy operations, the vet bill is a line item often considered a necessary evil. It has been established by generations that the veterinary expense is not questioned, pushed or reconsidered.

The Dairy Cattle Welfare Council (DCWC), which formed in 2015 to promote dairy cattle welfare, named Elizabeth Cox, DVM, ruminant technical services manager for Merck Animal Health, as their new president at their annual meeting in June.

Mastitis remains the single-most costly dairy herd health issue in terms of lost productivity, profitability and compromised product quality.

As I watch the new bottles of produce from the garden line the shelves of our storage room, I think of the many days my family and I spent in the garden weeding, watering and fertilizing the plants to have the harvest. Last night, we bottled the beets.

Running a dairy operation today means something completely different than it did 10 years ago. As product prices and government regulations continue to fluctuate, owners like yourself have to find ways to work more efficiently while also reducing operational costs.

The fact we had to play on soccer and rugby pitches was emblematic of how softball was trying to carve out its own modest space in the world of European sports. There would be no diamonds, no bleachers and no hot dogs being sold.

Growing up, I never imagined I would some day marry a dairy farmer. In fact, I really didn’t give farming much thought as a child. I was a child of a wildland firefighter and had deep family roots in the timber industry.

Animals are much more intelligent than most people realize. While cats and dogs know their names, and many dogs will obey certain commands, what about a cow that will carry on a conversation with a person?

I don’t think it comes as any surprise that the best way to fix a problem is to not have it in the first place. I also think there are few things as sickening as that feeling you get when you hear a strange sound coming from your truck or tractor’s engine compartment: