Growing up on Aghaloma Farms in Knox, Maine, Cheryl Carson never thought she’d stay on the family farm. After graduating high school, she left for college to pursue an education first as a vet tech – and later as a paralegal.

When Karagen Stone started working at Keene Dairy in Belfast, Maine, in sixth grade, she enjoyed it – but it wasn’t until the breeder showed up that she really became interested.

At World Dairy Expo in October, Marilyn Hershey, a dairy farmer from Pennsylvania, was selected as the 2017 Dairy Woman of the Year.

Raising calves in the Florida heat is no easy task, but Lindsey Rucks is rising to the challenge.

“What’s your why?” Heath Slawner, a member of Simon Sinek’s “Start With Why” team, asks. “And by why, I mean what’s your cause? What’s your purpose? What inspires you in the morning to wake up and go to work?

Timely euthanasia is perhaps one of the biggest challenges for farmers and veterinarians. Many times, there isn’t a definite answer. Euthanizing the animal too early could mean a missed opportunity, but doing it too late means unnecessary animal suffering.

Placing a high emphasis on animal welfare doesn’t just make the public happy; for two producers it has yielded great dividends in the form of improved reproduction, increased milk production and streamlined SOPs.

You vaccinate your cows and heifers, but are they immunized? Not necessarily. To get a good immune response, you need to set your animals up correctly.

The Dairy Cattle Welfare Council (DCWC), which formed in 2015 to promote dairy cattle welfare, named Elizabeth Cox, DVM, ruminant technical services manager for Merck Animal Health, as their new president at their annual meeting in June.

One California dairyman is expanding his definition of “milk quality” beyond somatic cell count to better capture what customers and consumers are really looking for in his products.