If dairy veterinarians still viewed their primary role as treating individual sick animals, many in the profession would be obsolete. The 60-cow stanchion barn no longer dominates the culture of the dairy industry, and producers have evolved to a new era of dairying. Progressive research, innovative technologies and planned marketing opportunities have helped producers grow with the industry.

This article was #10 of the Top 25 most well-read articles on www.progressivedairy.com in 2013. It was published in the Jan. 30, 2013 Extra e-newsletter. Click here for the full list of the Top 25. In late 2012, dairy producers were introduced to milk-based pregnancy testing, a new method to determine whether cows are bred or open. Maine-based IDEXX Laboratories partnered with Antel Bio Systems to bring the IDEXX Milk Pregnancy Test to the market, while Animal Profiling International, Inc. (API) of Portland, Oregon, launched EasyPreg. Both of these tests determine pregnancy based on the concentration of pregnancy-associated glycoproteins (PAGs), and they do so with a high level of accuracy when samples are taken at 35 days or more after breeding.

Have you considered the potential impact genomics could have on your herd? This is a topic that has probably crossed most dairy producers’ minds. On January 14, 2013, Dr. Chad Dechow, associate professor of dairy cattle genetics at Penn State University, led a webinar focusing on the “potentials” and “pitfalls” of genomic selection. Dechow began by pointing out that everyone has a different perspective on genomics as well as the right and wrong areas in which to use genomics.

Editor’s note: Names have been omitted to protect the innocent and allow discussion to flow freely within the team. We assure you this is a real farm with real cows, real owners, real team members and real problems. Everyone knows it takes a village to raise a child. It also takes a team to run a dairy. From 30 cows to 30,000 cows, a dairy producer cannot do it alone.

This article is the second in a series of roundtable discussions where three forward-thinking producers share protocols and lessons learned. This article features: Greg Hooker of Diamond H Dairy in Chowchilla, California Brian Brown of Sunburst Dairy in Belleville, Wisconsin Justin Risser of Meadow Vista Dairy in Bainbridge, Pennsylvania

Although some dairy producers have a tried and true method of pregnancy diagnosis on their dairies, new and emerging technologies are in the works to help improve efficiency in this area of the reproductive program. In the fall of 2012, milk-based pregnancy tests joined rectal palpation, transrectal ultrasonography and blood-based pregnancy tests as a tool to determine whether a cow is pregnant.

Concerns associated with inbreeding have recently received more airtime than usual due to genomics. Read on to find some of my answers to frequently asked producer questions about this topic.

If you ask most consumers what breeds of cows have horns, many disconnected from agriculture would respond that bulls have horns and cows don’t. This seems logical and hard to disprove because most dairy cows in milking form or in pictures have no horns. The practice of dehorning has been performed over many years to protect cows from injuring other cows and the farmers that care for them. Dehorning is a common practice on dairy farms. However, it is something farmers do not like to do, and even with a variety of different methods, none can claim a pain-free procedure.