Twenty-eight years ago, Charles Owen, a horse farrier by training, began his amazing journey to unlock the mystery of laminitis. Starting with an idea of how laminitis originated, Owen spent the next 17 years researching his theory and another 11 years testing it.

Keeping accurate health and production records is an important practice that can help producers make meaningful decisions while troubleshooting transition cow issues in their operations.

The average Class III milk price for January to April of 2018 was slightly above $14 per hundredweight, well under the cost of production. That has forced dairy farmers to seek management strategies to increase income, cut costs or both.

The 2014 National Animal Health Monitoring System (NAHMS) dairy report shows that on average, 5.6 percent of all full-term pregnancies terminate in a dead calf. Dead on arrival (DOA) or stillborn calves are defined as being full-term but not surviving beyond 48 hours after birth. This average indicates there is a lot of room for improvement in the dairy industry.

Whenever farmers get sick, have a fever or sprain an ankle, there are countless options of aspirin or ibuprofen to take for pain relief. However, when a dairy farmer’s animal experiences pain through disease or injury, the options are extremely limited.

One of the most frustrating situations for a dairy owner is to find a dead or dying cow and not understand the cause. In the case of sudden death, hemorrhagic bowel syndrome (HBS) should be considered, especially if you own a large, high-producing herd.

On July 22, 2017, New Zealand’s Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI) confirmed the first detection of Mycoplasma bovis (M. bovis) in New Zealand in a dairy herd in South Canterbury, a region on New Zealand’s South Island.

Twenty-one countries have eliminated bovine leukemia virus (BLV) from their cattle populations. The U.S. is not one of them. Years ago, it deemed the effort cost-prohibitive.

Chances are, you don’t spend a lot of your day thinking about the various bacterial or other microscopic species that inhabit your dairy. And much of the time, these unseen organisms don’t affect your herd to a point that warrants your attention.