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When it comes to hiring a new employee, what are the top three traits you’re looking for? Do these traits differ between entry-level positions and middle management? And finally, how did you decide which traits are most important?
The desired characteristics for choosing employees is probably almost endless, so I won’t bother trying to provide a comprehensive list of possible choices. And I also won’t claim that there are any right or wrong answers to the above questions (although I’m a huge fan of trustworthy, productive and disciplined) ... that’s up to you to decide.
The following is the second article in a series about different activity monitoring systems currently being used on dairy operations. Click here to read the first article in the series, "Activity monitoring system researcher: ‘This is the right way’"
In 2008, the Chinese government said it would like to increase the recommended daily intake of dairy protein per Chinese citizen from 100g to 300g. Can you guess how many more dairy cows would be needed in China to meet that need? It would be the equivalent of 65 million additional lactating dairy cows in China.
What would those numbers look like if we were in the U.S., using higher-producing, more efficient cows? Only 12 million more cows would be needed. I hope when you read those numbers, the first word that comes to your mind is “opportunity” for our dairy industry.
A giant statue of a warrior on horseback stands in the place de Jaude, the central square in Clermont-Ferrand, France. This is no figure sitting on a stationary horse, but of a man with sword drawn, the horse in full gallop. The image is so vivid it is easy to imagine it rapidly moving on.
Sculpted by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, known to Americans as the man who designed the Statute of Liberty, the great rider is Versingetorix, (vers-n-ge-to-rex) “Great Warrior King,” a man that united the Gallic tribes (in what is now more or less France, Switzerland, Austria and Germany) against a foreign invader.
First, I am a Braves fan. I’ve written of my devotion to Atlanta’s major league baseball team before. (Click here to read my 2009 editorial "Recharged by the Tomahawk Chop.")
The transition period of a dairy cow is one of the most crucial and vulnerable stages of a lactation cycle. During the last three weeks before calving through to the first three weeks of lactation, your cows’ metabolic needs dramatically increase.
How the animal copes with this high-energy transition can have a drastic impact on how well she will perform throughout the remainder of her lactation.
Research has shown that at the time of calving, a cow’s requirement for calcium increases fourfold, glucose demand triples and protein requirements double.
TRENDING TOPIC ARTICLE: HERD HEALTH
This article was featured as one of our most popular herd health articles. to jump to the article below.
University of Wisconsin’s Garret Oetzel and Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica, Inc.’s Brian Miller drilled down on the causes and effects of hypocalcemia. Many readers were likely surprised to learn that when combing clinical and subclinical cases, incidents of hypocalcemia in a 2,000-cow herd can cost a producer more than $60,000 a year.
Oetzel is still providing information about the disease. Click here to read a recap of his presentation at the Four-State Dairy Nutrition and Management Conference in June, where he said nutritional management is the key to prevention.
One of the foundational elements of successful and profitable commercial dairy farming is the continuous entry of fresh cows into a milking herd. The fresh cow that’s in proper health will be the most cost-efficient cow on the dairy – having the highest feed-conversion-to-milk- production efficiency.
Herd profiles that show low days in milk (DIM) indicate there are more cows freshening in a herd than there are cows headed for the dry corral. Even in the most desperate of economies, fresh cows are critical to keeping the business solvent.
“Corn grain is a seed first, then a feed,” to paraphrase Pat Hoffman, professor at University of Wisconsin (UW). The starch in corn seed contains energy the seed uses to sprout and grow.
The energy (starch) is protected for overwintering by a coating of zein (prolamin) protein. The zein is resistant to digestion by rumen bacteria, which must break through and degrade the protein coating to access the starch.
How important is it to know your forage quality?
Forage quality directly affects milk production and, therefore, your bottom line. The higher the quality of your forage, the more forage you can feed, supporting higher milk production and eliminating the need to purchase supplemental fiber.
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