A ventilation and cooling concept borrowed from calf barns is delivering fresh air and relieving holding area heat stress at Mystic Valley Dairy near Sauk City, Wisconsin.

At Paul Dotterer and Sons Inc., modifications made to the holding pen have cows cooler and more comfortable. The 940-cow dairy located near Mill Hall,Pennsylvania, chose to invest in better cow cooling for their holding area last year.

Freestall barns are constructed to provide cows with shelter from winter winds and summer solar radiation. But beyond that, for cows to meet their genetic production potentials and for farms to maximize profitability, cow comfort is of utmost importance.

With winter behind us and warmer days coming our way, this is the time of year when you should be checking your fans to ensure they are working at their best. Spending the time now on preventative fan maintenance can, and will, save you a lot of trouble and money down the road.

We’ve all been there: lying on the couch after a nap, searching for the remote control between the couch cushions and, instead of the remote, we find a quarter, a popcorn kernel, a few blocks, a missing sock ... or something worse.

Sand is considered the gold standard for bedding dairy freestalls. It is commonly used to bed freestalls because it does not support significant bacterial growth, has a low water-holding capacity and shifts with the cow to provide a comfortable surface on which to lay.

Building a new freestall barn on your dairy is a major investment that requires careful planning and decision-making. One of those decisions is whether to move forward with a steel-frame or wood-frame barn.

Eighteen months into a new facility with a robotic milking system, Lehi Creek Farm in Berks County, Pennsylvania, is happy with their decision to reduce labor and improve cow comfort by investing in technology that will take the family dairy farm into the future.

If you have started to examine ways to reduce your energy costs on the farm, you have probably found a lot of information about ways to cut energy use. Some of this information can be confusing or conflicting, especially when you are trying to find out which practices give you the best “bang for your energy buck.”

It’s not only about the cost associated with building new infrastructure. It’s also about the cost, in lost potential, of continuing to utilize old facilities. If your dairy isn’t meeting reproduction, milk production or income goals, or if you are culling cows due to health concerns, finding out why and evaluating your options is needed.