Along with the hope better hay and other commodity prices will improve income margins in 2017, forage producers will likely encounter something else they haven’t seen in a while – rising interest rates.

On Jan. 31, the USDA released the January Cattle Inventory report, which confirmed expectations of a continued expansion of the U.S. cattle herd in 2016. However, the report showed a more robust pace than expected.

How clean is your kitchen? The cleanliness of your kitchen is likely the furthest thing from your mind when you think about cleaning stalls for your dairy cows, but the two areas have a few things in common.

With more herds achieving outstanding milk yields, more questions are raised about how these high yields impact reproductive performance. If your herd is achieving a high milk yield average per cow, do you need to change the way you manage your cows reproductively?

In 2014, Joe and Barb Terpstra replaced a 17-year-old milking parlour with six automatic milking systems because help was getting scarce and the next generation showed interest. In doing so, they were able to use the area that once held their parlour and holding area for a calf facility.

Bovine respiratory disease (BRD) is an economic challenge to dairy producers. It continues to be the major cause of death in weaned calves and can lead to poor performance later in a cow’s life.

Dry cow therapy is designed to treat subclinical infections over the dry period to give cows a fresh start in the next lactation. It can also be used to prevent new infections around dry-off.

Most Progressive Forage readers have not increased their herbicide use in the last five years.