When placed strategically and used consistently, boot wash stations help protect vulnerable animals, reduce cross-contamination and promote a culture of care and responsibility.

For those of us born during the last millennium, we will remember how wonderful it was when the concept of total mixed ration (TMR) was introduced. Mixers with capabilities of taking all the ingredients and creating one feed. But we still must outsmart the bovine beast that looks for the goodies, and that means sorting.

As modern cattle feeding continues to evolve, trace minerals will remain small but mighty players in the story of efficient, sustainable beef production.

Beyond Meat, that company that makes fake meat, is in need of some serious veterinarian care. The stock price has gone from $181 a share to less than $3, and they are hemorrhaging cash faster than a dairy with $13 milk and $400 corn.

Barn Gothic explores how my dad, my grandfather and I tried to be fathers and sons to each other while our livelihood fell apart, including the times that we failed. It chronicles the specific dramas of our farm, from dealing with accidents to the sinister actions of banks and other institutions trying to take the farm. It recounts the extraordinary lengths my father went through to keep farming, as well as how we tried to figure out who we were and what redemption there might be in what we were doing.

Lameness continues to be one of the most persistent challenges in modern dairy herds. Herd manager Skylar Gericke, overseeing both Triple G Dairy and LegenDairy – owned by the Gingg family in Buckeye, Arizona – has firsthand experience.

It is difficult to remember what it was like to lie in my sleeping bag in my front yard on a warm summer’s night and gaze up into the night sky where billions of twinkling dancing stars suspended in the velvet blackness light up the glory of the heavens.

As dairies have grown, the game has changed for operation managers as well. Issues like lameness are no longer an afterthought because we have learned a dairy cow’s hoof health is directly tied to her performance and the dairy’s profitability.