Brent Duncan of Franklington, Louisiana, is most grateful this Christmas for normal weather. To a dairy producer in the Louisiana panhandle, cool temperatures and wet fall days are critical for winter survival. Both have been fantastic this fall, and optimism has replaced survival as the theme on Duncan’s dairy this Christmas.

The new discovery of a lethal gene may explain why pregnancy rates in dairy cattle have dropped sharply in recent years, a University of Wisconsin – Madison researcher says.

PACE success reaches new levels with November sire summary Accelerated Genetics continues to maintain an active lineup full of leading genetic sires in all breeds that graduate from the PACE young sire program. Topping Accelerated Genetics lineup for both Net Merit and TPI™ is PACE graduate 014HO04099 Billion. Eighteen daughters were added to his type proof, bringing this high-ranking sire to the elite +2.00 PTAT level. Billion also increased significantly on his Udder Composite (UDC) at +1.63, and his Foot and Leg Composite (FLC) at +2.44.

Here’s a short Christmas story about a fictional character named Jimmy. Hope you enjoy! It wasn’t like I really meant to argue with Mom and run away. Mom’s not the arguing kind, but when she announced we were going to have one more foster kid come to our home, I couldn’t take it. We had seven adopted kids already who came from foster care.

Susan Lee of Jerome, Idaho, was inducted into the Idaho Dairy Hall of Fame at the United Dairymen of Idaho 2006 Annual Meeting held in Boise in November.

The immune system that protects the body from infection is composed of two main branches, the innate branch and the adaptive branch. The innate branch provides the first line of defense against an attack by infectious agents and includes such components as skin, mucous membranes and neutrophils. The adaptive branch includes cells that can adapt and specifically target many different invaders.

In recent years, several estimates of embryonic mortality in cattle have been made. Embryonic mortality is generally defined as loss of the conceptus which occurs during the first 42 days of pregnancy, which is the period from conception to completion of differentiation when organ systems develop.

Most individuals who work with large domesticated livestock will encounter situations where an animal is unlikely to respond favorably to treatment. The likelihood of treatment failure, the potential for animal suffering and the presence of drug residues are considerations that can make euthanasia of an animal the best available option. This [article] is designed to aid producers, livestock market operators, animal transporters and veterinarians in making the appropriate decisions regarding euthanasia of cattle.

Feed is the single-largest expense in milk production. Many other livestock industries use feed efficiency as a benchmark for performance; however, dairy producers have only recently started to evaluate feed efficiency. Differences in production systems prevent a straightforward comparison of feed efficiencies. The following [article] discusses how to measure and use these values.

Dairy farmers with milking parlors built in the 1970s and 1980s need new facilities to improve milking efficiency. However, a new milk barn can cost from $125,000 to $300,000.