A proposal to bring whole and flavored milk back to school lunchrooms has been introduced in the House of Representatives.

In June 2017, we embarked on what was going to be a roller-coaster ride for the next 16 months. It was that summer our dairy equipment company representative took the family on our first tour of robotic milking barns. We had started on the journey to modernize our dairy. As we went through the planning and construction, we learned many things. I want to share with you some of the things that we learned.

USDA staff began the task of collecting and reporting a mountain of data that went unreported during the partial government shutdown. One of the first reports updated was November 2018’s Margin Protection Program for Dairy (MPP-Dairy) calculations, released about a month later than scheduled, on Jan. 31, 2019.

The USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) released a revised schedule of reports affected by the partial government shutdown. Due to a lapse in federal funding, NASS staff members were unable to collect data and compile the reports during the shutdown.

A day in the life of a dairy farmer involves wearing many hats. One of those hats is that of human resources. No matter the size of your farm, as long as you have employees, you need to be thinking about human resources.

Editor's note: The original version of this article has been updated to include a newly revised schedule of USDA National Ag Statistics Service reports impacting MPP-Dairy margin calculations for November and December 2018. With the partial government shutdown ended – at least temporarily – the USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) could soon be putting final numbers to the Margin Protection Program for Dairy (MPP-Dairy).

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It didn’t take long for USDA’s Risk Management Agency (RMA) to get the Dairy Revenue Protection (Dairy-RP) program back up and running. RMA began posting quarterly premiums and endorsement cost estimates on Jan. 28, the first full day after the partial government shutdown ended. With that information, firms offering Dairy-RP policies can resume selling quarterly endorsements.

Dr. Ben Shelton (Rocky Creek Veterinary Services) moved his dairy from Apex to Olin, North Carolina, in 1992 with 400 cows on 450 acres. Today, the farm has 1,400 cows with 2,200 acres, where Shelton also owns and operates Rocky Creek Vet Service on the farm.

How cows eat and ruminate is just as important as the nutritional composition of the feed in front of them. Make the most of every minute at the bunk by understanding dairy cow behavior and incorporating that into daily herd management.