Wisconsin dairy producers now have free access to the latest recommendations on dairy cattle facility design. The Dairyland Initiative, developed by Drs. Nigel Cook and Ken Nordlund at the School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Wisconsin-Madison, combines the most relevant research in health, production and behavior with years of field experience in housing design into a web-based information center and building plan assessment program.

Slips, trips and falls. These are the most common source of injuries in the workplace and make up the greatest number of workers’ compensation claims. Serious injuries include sprains and strains. Water or milk spills, algal build-up on concrete surfaces, oil spills in machine shop buildings, wet feed and manure can all make a surface slippery.

This article was #5 in PDmag's Top 5 most-well read New Technology articles in 2010. Summary: This new bale chopper mounts right onto a skid loader for a one-step method to bedding with straw. The idea came to Roy Marschall, owner of Skid-Chopper, LLC, and his son-in-law, Harlan Poppler, who runs a dairy farm in the Twin Cities, Minnesota, area. The square drum attachment allows the operator to drive into the bale. Once lifted, hydraulic power moves the drum back while gravity pulls the bale over three rows of rotating three-sided blades to chop the straw. The speed of the drum can be altered to change the length of the cut. Two fans are used to blow the straw from the chopper directly into a freestall, bedded pack or collection pile. Fan speed can also be adjusted to control the distance the chopped straw travels. “It can blow up to 30 feet if you want it to,” Marschall says. Because this article was so popular, we asked Marschall some follow-up questions: