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Imagine what our landscape must have looked like, not really all that long ago. Tens of millions of bison roamed the American plains in clusters so large one could have seen them from space.
These immense, grand herds would devastate each valley they came through. A flowering meadow would turn into a moonscape overnight. If a valley was lucky, it would see a full year or more before the bison returned, so it could attempt to recover from such an onslaught.
Question: What is the purpose of freestall bedding? Answer: To provide a cow a clean, dry resting surface.
Especially, this means creating an environment where exposure of teat ends to attack from mastitis-causing pathogens is minimized. Veterinarians and your family doctor alike will tell you: Minimize exposure to minimize infection rates.
I often wonder what our children are losing in this everything-at-your-fingertips society. We watch the television, Internet and movies, where every aspect of the story is spelled out in surround-sound, airbrushed living color and amplified music.
Tier 4 regulations for off-road diesel engines in order to create cleaner air is not a new issue. We’ve all watched the agricultural equipment industry – specifically tractor manufacturers – change their engine packages drastically over the past few years to meet the stringent regulations from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the European Union.
Age: 47 years old
Location: I live in Jonesboro, Arkansas, with my wife, Stacy, and my children, Will and Delaney.
My background in agriculture includes ... before being elected to Congress, I began my professional career as an agri-reporter on television and radio news outlets.
I eventually owned and operated AgWatch Network, a farm news network heard on 39 stations in Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, Mississippi and Kentucky.
I have often written about Comprehensive Nutrient Management Plans, or CNMPs. I do so again in this article by providing three comments, which address how we might make them better.
Why? I am assigned the task of reviewing CNMPs written under a USDA – NRCS contract; the review includes a thorough examination of the document coupled with a field site review.
What will it take for an industry like dairy to avoid going the way of the pork industry? In John Frey’s latest column, he reviews four basic functions of business management identified by the Harvard Business Review as critical to the future success of an individual dairy farm business, or any business for that matter.
Click here to read the full column at the Center for Dairy Excellence website.
“With today’s high costs, forage best management practices are required for dairymen,” Troy Brown with Cargill said at the Midwest Forage Symposium in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin, earlier this year.
Brown went on to outline the cost, cause and cures for silage shrink.
“Cost of shrink today is very significant,” he said.
The author of this post, Raechel Kilgore Sattazahn, is a marketing officer with AgChoice Farm Credit and farms with her husband, Doug, and his family at Zahncroft Dairy in Womelsdorf, Pennsylvania.
She blogs about ag issues at http://gobeyondthebarn.wordpress.com/
It’s an instantaneous reaction for those of us in agriculture. The minute someone says they are a farmer, we immediately begin questioning them about how many cows they have, how many acres they farm and all of the subsequent questions.
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