The general approach for dairy feeding in Israel today is to maintain two feeding groups: one for early lactation and another for the rest of the milking cows. In family farms, the one-diet method is the most popular. Ad libitum feeding, mainly with a TMR and minimal transfer of cows between groups, is the preferred feeding method in Israel.

I had the opportunity to travel to Singapore and Vietnam with the U.S. Dairy Export Council April 13-22. Our travel group consisted of two council staff members, four Dairy Management Inc. board members (who are also dairy farmers), a USDA representative and two dairy trade media reporters, including me.

Around 8:30 p.m. on the night of Aug. 28, 1981, Gary Burley came home from visiting a neighbor of his and found the lights on in his barn. As he went out to see what was going on, he found his wife, Betty, very excited that their first cow had calved and was fresh to milk.

Just north of the Illinois border in Gratiot, Wisconsin, Sara Aide and Duane Segner’s 600-head dairy goat farm, Never Enuf Dairy, rests off Highway 78. Every morning at 4:45 a.m., Aide and Segner begin the busy day of feeding, milking and caring for their animals.

Event: Fire Injury or losses to cattle: 17 newborn calves; 1 cow Insured: Yes Total covered losses: Full coverage

Robotic milking systems provide an incredible amount of data by measuring more than 100 variables per cow per day. For some, all of this new information can be overwhelming to the point they’d rather not even look at it. For others, they are so eager to explore the data they spend an excessive amount of time overanalyzing information and lose sight of the data that is most important.

Oregon Dairy Farm LLC in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, is the 2015 Dairy Beef Quality Assurance (BQA) Award winner. Oregon Dairy Farm is an impressive example of best practices in dairy production as well as a model of how dairy producers can help bolster consumer confidence by producing high-quality beef from dairy cattle.