Romer Labs, a global food-safety diagnostic company, introduces its new AgraStrip Total Aflatoxin Quantitative WATEX test kit. The new water-based method will allow food, feed and grain producers to test for aflatoxins without using organic solvents, such as methanol, which are expensive, flammable and must be disposed as hazardous waste.

This article was #5 of the Top 25 most well-read articles on www.progressivedairy.com in 2014. It was published in the Sept. 4, 2014 Extra e-newsletter, then Oct. 1, 2014 print issue. On Aug. 20, a special groundbreaking event was held for the construction of North America’s first installation of an automatic rotary parlor. The 72-stall rotary parlor being built at Mlsna East Town Dairy in Cashton, Wisconsin, will also be the largest robotic milking system in place worldwide, states Matt Daley, president and CEO of GEA Farm Technologies North America.

For years, dairy educators and researchers have emphasized the importance of getting colostrum into newborn calves. “What’s changed in the last 15 years is that we’re finally seeing dairy producers making colostrum a priority,” says Dr. Jonathan Hess of Hess Vet Service West, based in Hagerman, Idaho. “People understand that if you feed good colostrum to calves, it can have a direct effect on reducing death loss.”

Getting younger people and skilled workers into dairy is a struggle not only in the U.S., but even more so in Europe, according to Dr. Nicola Blackie, keynote speaker during the Kentuckiana Dairy Exchange evening program near Campbellsville, Kentucky. She spent a month at the University of Kentucky, seeing how dairy is done in the U.S. and furthering her research on locomotion (mobility) scoring. She said the dairy industry in England is losing cow numbers and people.

Schaefer Ventilation Equipment, manufacturer of ventilation and thermal comfort products, has launched the Twister by Schaefer line of oscillating circulation fans.