I grew up with Lassie, My Friend Flicka, Bonanza and Leave it to Beaver. The silver screen was graced with Disney classics like Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Old Yeller.

As dairy farmers, we’re at the beginning of the food-production system. It’s our raw product that gets packaged by the manufacturers and shipped to the retailers before ending up in the hands of the consumer.

Winter is the season most associated with the issue of a dead car, truck or tractor battery. Indeed, even the way we purchase batteries for vehicles suggests this. Cold-cranking amps (CCAs) are listed on many, if not all, batteries as a means to suggest the battery’s ability to crank a stubborn, cold-natured piece of equipment. That said, summer heat can cause issues with batteries as well.

3M Food Safety launches 48-hour yeast and mold indicator test 3M Food Safety’s new Petrifilm Rapid Yeast and Mold Count Plate is an indicator test that enables the detection of yeasts and molds in as little as 48 hours – faster, the company says, than conventional agar methods.

Distillers grains (DDGS), byproducts of the ethanol industry, are readily available in most parts of Canada and the U.S. Wheat distillers grains are available in cooler regions, while in warmer locations corn distillers grains are dominant.

My colleague and good friend June Grabemeyer, our Michigan NRCS state economist, and I recently visited a lovely dairy farm in northern Michigan. Here is a trip report.

Ajinomoto Animal Nutrition Group Inc., a subsidiary of Ajinomoto Co. Inc., says it will construct a new plant at its Iowa-based Ajinomoto Heartland Inc. (AHI), in order to enhance the production capacity of a rumen protected lysine, AjiPro-L (AP-L), and to expand its sales in the marketplace.

Representatives from Vets Plus Inc. presented Sheila Rogers of Hy Ridge Holsteins LLC, Ridgeland, Wisconsin, with a check for $500 toward hiring a milking service for her dairy. Rogers milks 300 cows in a double-12 parlor and farms 800 acres of cropland.