Dr. Michaela Kristula, of the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine, began her presentation on mastitis management by telling dairy farmers that they are the most important factor in controlling mastitis in their dairy herds. High-quality milk is within your reach, she said, if you simply establish a protocol for managing mastitis and make sure it is routinely and consistently followed.

Heifer mastitis is a disease that threatens production and udder health in the first and subsequent lactations. An integrated strategy to prevent and control heifer mastitis should include goal setting, assessment of the current farm systems, application of appropriate farm-specific interventions and monitoring of outcomes.

Dairy cattle breeding professionals convened in Baltimore, Maryland, for an open meeting of the Council on Dairy Cattle Breeding on Aug. 5, where they heard updates and learned of new developments among the organization.

Record milk and beef prices and rising replacement heifer prices offer commercial dairy producers options to manage their herd inventory. Herds with adequate supplies of replacement heifers have greater opportunity to cull low-producing cows and take advantage of high beef prices.

Researchers and the dairy science community joined together in July in Kansas City, Missouri, for the 2014 Joint Annual Meeting held by the American Dairy Science Association (ADSA) and the American Society on Animal Science (ASAS).

There are many tools available in the toolbox of livestock managers that can be used to maximize reproductive efficiencies. One of these tools is blood-based pregnancy tests. Over the last 10 years, this technology has been gaining in popularity as a tool to find the open cow.

Dairy producers and their advisers spend a great deal of time and effort to develop protocols that standardize the routine actions needed to care for dairy cows. By their definition, these standard operating procedures, or SOPs, should virtually eliminate variation in performance of daily dairy activities, regardless of who completes them.

The economic returns from breeding are unique because the genetic gains are permanent and cumulative, and as New Zealand grazing herds have found, efficiency and profitability can both be achieved with a long-term approach focused on the right objectives and performance indicators. While genetics can deliver greater efficiency and profitability, they are only part of the equation. For animals to express their genetic potential to the fullest, the right environment needs to be created.

Worldwide, dairy producers have put a great deal of focus on improving efficiencies through standard operating procedures, herd nutrition and reproductive strategies. But now producers are looking for additional ways to improve herd performance. One of these new trends in reproduction is a concept called Advanced Reproductive Management (ARM).

The definitive goal of breeding is to select favorable traits that will prevail in the next generation, and crossbreeding could be one way to do that.