At the age of 23, Tony P. Lopes is managing employees twice his age. As the operations team leader for his family’s multisite dairies, this California dairyman credits his family, mentors and educators with putting the passion for dairying on his heart.

Providing 4-H dairy youth the chance to purchase a purebred dairy calf and start their own herd is the cornerstone of the Heritage Calf Project, an effort initiated and kept alive by a committee of local dairy farmers, industry representatives and county fair supporters.

When we look at reproduction on today’s dairy farms, we find more and more of them performing at a higher level than ever before. I can remember when we first started using pregnancy rate (PR) as the main measure for overall reproductive performance on dairy farms.

Since the introduction of Ovsynch more than two decades ago, dairy cattle estrous synchronization programs have been revamped, tweaked and refined in the quest to boost dairy cattle fertility and optimize reproductive management programs.

During synchronization protocols, there are a variety of products which are used to manipulate the estrous cycle. Synchronization protocols are not “band-aids” and should not be used to overcome mismanagement. To achieve desired results, cows should be healthy, ready to breed and in appropriate body condition.

“My dad taught me that if we take care of the cows, they take care of us,” says Chris Heins, sixth-generation dairy farmer in Lafayette County, Missouri.

Milk and dairy products made from grass-fed cows are hitting grocery store shelves. Adding a grazing component is not only a consumer-friendly approach, it is also a viable economic one for many dairy farmers today.

One hundred percent grass-fed milk is a relatively new – or at least re-emerging – focus for dairy farmers in the U.S. Unlike certified organic dairy practices, no grain is allowed to be fed, so these cows make milk from pasture alone.

Sometimes farm kids look at things totally different than other people do. Such is the case in what happened many years ago in my Sunday school classroom when I was a small child.