The most costly area of management on a dairy farm after feeding is raising or purchasing replacements. Beginning with the newborn calf, all the way to the freshening first-calf heifer, having replacements ready to enter the herd is a necessary part of the dairy’s herd cycle, and they represent the future of the dairy’s profit potential. It’s been well documented that replacement heifers that enter the herd between 22 and 24 months old can optimize profitable milk production. Other studies have shown that a baby calf that can double its birthweight by 60 days old will be much more productive over its lifetime.

For every dairy producer, the primary objective of good reproductive management is to assure cows calve at optimal intervals and maintain milk production at peak levels of efficiency. However, this requires producers to constantly keep a close eye on their cows, which isn’t always an easy task.

Pneumonia causes the second-highest number of cases of illness and death in young dairy calves, taking a back seat only to scours. Animals that do survive cases of calfhood pneumonia are likely to face a lifetime of diminished performance in the milking string. Research shows that replacement heifers experiencing pneumonia in the first 3 months of life are more likely to: • Experience significantly increased mortality • Have reduced average daily gain • Calve later than unaffected herdmates • Produce less milk in at least their first lactation

The quality of shelter given to heifers during cold weather is vital to their growth rate, performance and overall health. Less-than-optimal housing conditions expose heifer resting areas to precipitation and wind. These areas quickly become damp and muddy, causing wet, dirty hair coats. Add inadequate resting and feeding space to the equation and you create an environment where heifers are stressed and do not thrive, much less meet growth expectations.

The recent political debates over who is Christian and who is not, or who belongs to a cult and who does not, reminds me of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, wherein Gulliver finds himself drawn into a war between the Big Endians and the Little Endians.

It is common in the agricultural industry to operate equipment, like semis and ten-wheelers, to carry tons of weight in feed, forages or even to haul manure. It is critical to know how to be able to stop, and stop evenly, while maintaining safe control of the vehicle. In this article, I would like to focus on a subject that plays a key role in the operation of heavy equipment – air brake systems.

When I was little, I sat on the armrest of the tractor while my father ran the TMR mixer. I asked him many things throughout the course of my childhood, but one of the questions I returned to the most was, “Why don’t farmers protest low milk prices?”

Dairy producers spend a great deal of time, effort and money ensuring dairy cow rations are fine-tuned to the “nth” degree. A few milligrams of this, a few parts per million of that, all to ensure no stone goes unturned in the quest for the perfect ration. Unfortunately, in the process the most important nutrient of all often goes barely noticed and only lightly considered. What nutrient? Water.

Concentration of IgG in colostrum varies according to many factors, including a cow’s disease history, volume of colostrum produced, season of the year and breed. Research has shown that IgG levels vary widely from one cow to the next and range from less than 20 to over 100 mg per mL. The difference between 20 and 100 mg per mL of IgG in colostrum can mean the difference between failure and success in passive transfer of immunity in calves. Measurement of IgG concentrations in colostrum can be very useful in managing colostrum quality and monitoring colostrum-feeding practices.