“Alternative therapy” is a nice, ambiguous term for almost any remedy that falls outside the familiar realm of antibiotics and stitches. Highly conditioned athletes like NFL stars and Olympians have been using treatments like acupuncture and Reiki for years, and now dairy cows, highly conditioned athletes in their own right, can benefit from a little acupuncture as well.

When Laurie Winkelman isn’t running rations for her dairy farm customers, she’s running miles – and lots of them. The dairy nutritionist is lacing up for her fifth Boston Marathon next week, which will be the 26th 26.2-mile trek she’s completed thus far.

Ninety-seven percent of all U.S. farms are family-owned farms, according to the USDA. It’s a rarity for people from outside the ag industry to take an interest in farming or dairy, and when they do, it takes a lot of work to break into the industry and put down roots.

Health issues, a dwindling labor force and aging facilities pushed Rick and Cathy Balzer to consider an alternative option to milking cows in a tiestall barn, something they had done for the past 40 years.

“Angels don’t always come in white robes with wings; angels also can come as little Brown Swiss heifers.” —Anita van der Laan

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Chad Sime was ready to quit grazing. It was labor-intensive and stressful to him and his cows. He says there was no “natural flow” to it, and the inconvenience of moving cows was actually hampering his decision-making when it came to things like soil conservation.

Farmers markets represent several different opportunities for dairy producers. For some, they provide a chance to branch out and expand business, and for others they’re a great point of contact for outreach in the community.

For many years, the Fry family in Chestertown, Maryland, was able to straddle the line of conventional farmer and organic farmer. In 2000, the family began producing organic grain and forage because Horizon had moved one of their dairies to nearby Kennedyville.

Milking 2,000 cows and growing 4,700 acres of crops on the other side of the equator is vastly different from dairying in the U.S. James Mann of Donovan’s Dairy opened up about the dairy business in Australia at the recent Great Lakes Regional Dairy Conference held in Frankenmuth, Michigan.