Eighty percent of all problems arise in the transition period – 80 percent. Problems like milk fever, ketosis and metritis are a direct result of shortcomings in dry cow management. This is cutting cow lives short. Why don’t we take better care of our pregnant ladies?

Achieving a heat detection rate between 68 and 75 percent, conception rate as high as 40 to 48 percent and a pregnancy rate range between 30 and 37 percent is attainable, and top dairy herds out there are doing it.

You may not think of yourself as the CEO for your dairy because you don’t wear a tie or have a corner office, but you are a chief executive officer. Once you’ve come to terms with your C-suite status, I would recommend you read a recent article from the Harvard Business Review.

Published: April 20, 2017 e-newsletter Brian Houin, Homestead Dairy LLC in Plymouth, Indiana, and Wes Obert, Legacy Dairy in Fort Branch, Indiana, were recently featured on a panel at the Indiana Dairy Producers Forum, held Feb. 1-2.

During the last year, the topic of trade policy has been part of nearly every major political discussion, both on the 2016 campaign trail and on Capitol Hill. For America’s dairy community, the conversation about our trading relationships closest to home is a tale with two very different perspectives that run counter to the commonly heard narrative suggesting our biggest challenge lies south of the border rather than north.

The 2016 summary of Dairy Herd Improvement (DHI) test-day results revealed somatic cell counts (SCC) were down compared to a year earlier.

The effort to bring the California dairy market under the Federal Milk Marketing Order (FMMO) umbrella started in 2015 and will certainly end in 2017.

“Human resource management has to be recognized as a very important part of what we do,” said Rick Zimmerman, executive director of the Northeast Agribusiness and Feed Alliance.

The most common question asked by a dairy farmer to his or her broker is some variation of, “Should I lock in my milk price?”

The basis of a dairy’s profitability – calvings and subsequent milk production – depends on the successful detection of cows in heat and correct insemination (technique plus time).