Perhaps you recall the editorial from our January issue where I talked about choosing “one word” to live by in 2017, and perhaps you chose your own. My word for this year is “fearless” and, with the help of an 11-year-old, I am finding out just what it means for me.

Dairy farmer leaders of the national dairy checkoff learned a lot from watching the United Kingdom struggle to manage crisis communications in the aftermath of BSE and foot and mouth disease outbreaks in 2001.

A full room of farmers and agribusiness professionals gathered in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on Feb. 15, but unlike most meetings and conferences, they were not there to hear about milk price projections or the latest trends in transition cows.

Recall your feelings the last time you arrived at a meeting – conference, board of directors, lunch – at an unfamiliar location. What were your emotions? Did you know where to park? Did you know where to go? Did you know what to expect?

Employees are your business. Without the right employees and a productive work culture, your business cannot be as successful as possible.

During the process of setting up our herd management software, I spend a lot of time in the pen with herdsmen learning their record-keeping systems. As a standard, we customize our program on the dairy’s computer and on the staff’s mobile devices to their procedures, specific to each dairy farm.

The generational makeup of society and the workforce is rapidly changing. The baby boomer generation is comprised of about 78 million people born between 1946 and 1964. This generation is six years into the retirement age and will continue to retire for about the next 15 years or so.

As I travel from farm to farm, I often notice that a dairy farm manager or owner’s description of their colostrum and newborn protocols is different than what I hear when I enter the maternity barn.

With nine essential nutrients and 1 gram of protein per ounce, milk provides outstanding nourishment with every sip. Perfected by nature over millennia, milk and its byproducts have long been studied by nutritionists and food scientists alike.

Many calf raisers have placed great emphasis on weight gain, measuring success by average daily gain and doubling birthweight in the first 56 to 60 days. While weight gain is important, it doesn’t always equate to structural growth.