Health issues, a dwindling labor force and aging facilities pushed Rick and Cathy Balzer to consider an alternative option to milking cows in a tiestall barn, something they had done for the past 40 years.

Milking equipment is the most important piece of machinery on a dairy and requires regular maintenance and updating. No milking equipment comes with a lifetime warranty and has to be on a regular monitoring program.

It’s a question most dairy producers ask when looking to make the switch to robotic milking: How will this impact my milk production?

Recently, I had a conversation with a friend about prayer. She said, “I don’t want to bother God about my problems; I want to do things on my own.” At first glance, that is a noble sentiment, but I realized that she didn’t understand the purpose of prayer, and as I thought about it, I wondered if I did either.

The farm equipment industry offers a wide variety of three-point- mounted and trailed types of granular fertilizer spreaders. Most brands of spreaders feature single or double spreading discs to deliver the product onto the field.

When I was in seventh grade, I picked up a book laying in the corner of a classroom called A River Runs Through It. The first paragraph was short and about a boy growing up with religion and fly fishing, and how in his family there was little distinction between the two.

As we make our journey through our blessed lives, we all experience various seasons of life. No matter what season of life you are in, we all experience challenges mixed with great joy. Recently, I have found that embracing my season of life is the key to my day-to-day endurance and survival.

I am often asked: How do I know if a dairy producer has any restrictions in their milking path? Would it make any difference if they did? Some of the farms posing these questions are getting 100 pounds of milk on average with a low somatic cell count.

Well, spring is in the air. The days are warmer, things are starting to green up again – and just last week I had a group of bird watchers show up at the farm. I inquired if they needed to borrow some birdshot. They looked at me like I had a talking parrot on my shoulder.

In 2010, we had a vision to create an online resource for dairy producers that assisted with the construction of facilities designed to optimize the well-being of their dairy cattle.