Daryl Schraad Des Moines, Iowa President Kemin Animal Nutrition and Health – North America

Form-A-Feed introduces the PerFourMax product line for young dairy and beef calves. PerFourMax incorporates four areas of nutrition for young calves: milk replacers, calf feeds, heifer feeds and dairy-beef feeds. The company states that research and field trials have shown that using the PerFourMax product line, which supplies nutrients above young calves’ requirements, results in a more productive lifetime performance.

The National Ice Cream Retailers Association held its 79th Annual Meeting and Convention Nov. 7-10 at the Embassy Suites in Greenville, South Carolina. Several of the association's members are dairy farmers who opened ice cream stores on their farms as a way to supplement their income. Two of these producers – Jim Mitchell of Woodside Farm Creamery in Delaware and Carl Chaney of Chaney's Dairy Barn in Kentucky – won awards in the association's annual Ice Cream Clinic Review.

A University of Wyoming herd of replacement heifers lost 25 percent of its calf crop to abortions and lost pregnancies after vaccinating pregnant heifers with modified-live vaccines (MLV) containing infectious bovine rhinotracheitis (IBR) virus, according to an article recently published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (JAVMA). A case report detailing the onset of abortions in the university-owned and well-managed herd was featured in the Pathology in Practice section of JAVMA, which spotlights diagnostic case studies.

A unique two-year research project is being undertaken by Diamond V and the National Animal Disease Center (NADC) of the USDA – Agricultural Research Service (ARS) to examine the impact of antibiotics, dietary supplements, and stress on the microbial communities and host mucosal tissues of the swine intestinal ecosystem. The goal is to identify alternatives to traditional antibiotics for use in reducing the antibiotic resistance gene reservoir and food borne pathogens in farm animals.

A new junior animal scientist program helps kids learn more about science and the animal world. Children ages 5 to 12 can explore science careers and study the lives of pets, farm animals and zoo animals. All junior animal scientists receive a full year subscription to Jr. Animal Scientist magazine. The magazine has great resources for learning at home or in the classroom:

With the recent interest in California joining the Federal Order pricing system, the management and board of directors of California Dairies, Inc. have taken a proactive step to investigate what impacts might be expected as a result of adopting federal milk pricing regulations. CDI has commissioned a comprehensive modeling study of a California federal milk marketing order, the first of its kind. Dairy Farmers of America Western Area (DFA) and Land O’Lakes (LOL) have agreed to join CDI and participate in the study.

Minnesota raw milk dairy farmer Michael O. Hartmann pled guilty on Oct. 15 to two misdemeanor counts: illegally selling raw milk and raw milk products, and selling other foods such as beef and pork without a proper license. The two counts Hartmann pleaded guilty to were part of a nine-count complaint which alleged that he had continued selling unpasteurized milk and other dairy products, as well as unlicensed meat products, despite an embargo and other state actions forbidding him to do so.