2022 was the first year Sydney Bullard was a dairy youth exhibitor at World Dairy Expo (WDE) and the experience ignited motivation within her to work more closely with the show animals and assist them in reaching their full potential.

Breeding strategies today have never been better positioned to tailor to each dairy’s unique regional, climate, cultural milk market and personal preferences for success. See what cows with 200,000 pounds of lifetime milk to date have in common.

The dairy and beef industry can collaborate to solve the challenges associated with feeding dairy cross calves today.

Proactively strategize with your dairy’s key stakeholders to maximize cattle marketability in case the time comes to sell the cows.

There is a widespread misconception that dairies must wait to see financial returns from genomic testing — that cash-strapped dairies can’t justify the investment for potential long-term gains. A close look at the numbers produced from a carefully considered genomic testing plan tells a different story — one of increased efficiency and more immediate returns. But how?

As a dairy geneticist, I am trained to preach precision breeding for high genetic gain. Therefore, mixing multiple bulls in one semen straw felt counterintuitive. But the dairy industry is not what it was 50, 30 or even 15 years ago.

“Can we address environmental concerns and meet consumer preferences by breeding more environmentally friendly cows?” So far, the answer is “yes.”

Studies by scientists at the University of Minnesota and their USDA-ARS collaborators indicate that a unique herd of unselected Holsteins, maintained at the University of Minnesota since the mid-1960s, has a very strong potential to help reduce mastitis in future generations of Holstein cows.