In the opening scene of Death and Nightingales, Beth is awoken by the bawling of a distressed animal. While in some ways it may be the call of the beast inside her, it is also, in actual terms, a cow with bloat. She slips the trocar in her dress, finds the cow in the brush and pierces its side to give it relief.

We all know how busy dairy life can be – whether it is harvest, haying, spraying or just milking – and we often do not get to take a break from working those 365 days. At least not on our small farm, where there is only my dad and me doing all the milkings anyway.

In layman’s terms, what does IOFC mean? Producers and nutritionists use this formula (income over feed costs) to determine the farm’s profitability and identify changes to help increase efficiencies. Feed cost can be up to 65 percent of a dairy operation’s cost of production.

Weather this time of year can change in a hurry. So how many of you, as dairy producers, have heeded the warning and taken the time to prepare for the upcoming winter?

The cooler mornings lately remind us that it is time to make sure the trucks and equipment we rely on to finish harvest or feed cattle need to start and run when we need them.

I got roped into having a farm tour for my niece’s third-grade class. I’m not complaining about trying to educate these young minds on agriculture. I’m not venting about the “helicopter” moms wiping my entire farm down with Clorox wipes.

A small milk price increase combined with mostly steady feed prices to boost the September 2016 U.S. average milk-income margin. The increase reduces the likelihood there will be any Margin Protection Program for Dairy (MPP-Dairy) indemnity payments for the September-October pay period.

Consumers are bombarded with food company marketing messages and negative information campaigns from activists. Through all the noise, consumers make food-buying decisions that impact family farm economics, on-farm production practices and the availability of proven technologies.

The Matsche family from Birnamwood, Wisconsin, recently expanded their dairy with the addition of new barns and an 80-cow rotary milking parlor. Take a peek here to see inside the office, the parlor and the pens.

There are challenges every dairy faces. Oftentimes you problem solve, think you have the problem fixed, only to discover a new problem.