The March 12, 2018, issue of Progressive Dairyman features our annual regional snapshots of “the state of dairy” around the U.S. Expanded previews for individual regions are highlighted in this online series.

Editor’s note: This article has been updated with information from Pennsylvania. Another round of letters notifying dairy farmers they are losing a milk market arrived in mailboxes, this time in Indiana, Kentucky and surrounding states. In a letter dated Feb. 26, Brent Bunce, director of Dairy Direct Operations, said Dean Foods would cease buying milk from affected dairy farmers, effective May 31.

This past January, Republican strategist and CNN political analyst Ana Navarro spoke to a packed house at the Dairy Strong conference. She referred to the Republican Party as “a big, dysfunctional family around the holiday table.” Since most farms are family businesses, I, like most in the audience, was instantly hooked.

Whether an owner of a dairy operation or ag-related company, a manager or an employee looking to excel, there are four competencies everyone should work to improve.

Many calves show subtle signs of sickness before it becomes clinical. The “look, listen, smell and feel” strategy will help you identify those calves much earlier and can be used in all calf-raising systems. The key is to closely observe calves in the moment without making assumptions or overlooking small signs.

Spring is just around the corner, which means field work will begin soon and we’ll be cutting first-crop alfalfa in no time. It’s amazing how much work can get done in such a short amount of time, but one process that should receive adequate time is silage packing. In recent packing density analyses, completed by Vita Plus consultants in Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio, roughly 25 percent of the corn silage bunkers surveyed had a packing density of less than 15.5 pounds per cubic foot. A density of 15 pounds per cubic foot has been the industry minimum for a while now and, as packing density decreases, you risk dry matter (DM) losses and losing more money. Let’s take a closer look at that financial impact.

Digest Highlights: Dean plans further consolidation. Foremost Farms’ Michigan plant gains initial bond approval. Find a summary of this and other news here.

McDonald’s announcement it would remove chocolate milk and cheeseburgers from its popular Happy Meal menu drew concern and social media traffic from dairy farmers who have helped finance a long-standing partnership between the restaurant chain and Dairy Management Inc. (DMI) through their checkoff dollars. According to DMI Chief Executive Officer Tom Gallagher, the 9-year-old DMI/McDonald’s partnership remains strong, and DMI is working with McDonald’s to get reformulated chocolate milk back as a menu feature.

The reopening of enrollment for 2018 participation in the Margin Protection Program for Dairy (MPP-Dairy) took on additional urgency with the release of milk price and feed cost information for January. Meanwhile, dairy cows culled in January 2018 were the highest monthly total in five years.

A number of independent Corn Silage Hybrid Testing Programs are conducted across the country. Over the past two years the hybrid evaluation trials conducted in New York, Pennsylvania and Vermont have come together to develop a unified testing network.