Springtime on the farm is always a wonderful season, as the earth comes alive again, and the old winter is finally behind us. It’s exciting getting out in the fields and working the land and putting the tiny seeds into the ground, anticipating a bountiful harvest later in the season.

As I travel around the country working with youth to hone their fitting skills, the one area everyone wants to know more about is how to get a straight, full topline and how to complement that with just-right belly hair.

Doing what I do, I get the awesome opportunity to travel all over North America trying to make all kinds of farmers laugh. Some places I perform, crowds are much more reserved.

Tom Kestell likes to joke his family’s physical stature means they’ll never be selected first when choosing sides for a basketball team.

“Age-in’ a cow is ’bout the thing I hate most. Seems like they can tell the instant you cross the line into the strike zone.”

The phone call came in one evening last month. A grass-based dairy farmer, whom I’ve known for years, was calling – there was a problem. Three cows were down; two of them were trembling with something like spasms.

The marketplace for dairy feed additives is saturated with products that claim to improve production, rumen health, cow health or efficiency, among other advantages. Many of these products can be classified as either prebiotics or probiotics.

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include comments from leaders of U.S. dairy organizations. The USDA will roll out another three-pronged aid package aimed at helping U.S. farmers suffering financial damages due to ongoing trade disputes. Details regarding direct payments to dairy producers have yet to be released.

If you look up the word resilience in a dictionary, you’ll find one definition says it’s “the capability of a strained body to return to its original shape after being put under stress.” Another defines it as “the ability to adapt or adjust to misfortune or change.”

Mixing milk powder in water doesn’t seem like a complicated task, but mixing properly is one of the most important things you can do for your calves. Milk replacer tags usually say to mix a specific number of ounces of powder with a specific volume of water. The confusion arises in interpretation of those simple instructions.