Every dairy producer’s goal is to have uncomplicated calving. But their practices aren’t always conducive to reducing dystocia risk. Eutocia, or normal birth, requires prevention and preparation and is dependent upon many factors.

When cows just aren’t performing the way they need to be, the ration often takes the blame. Your nutritionist may need to make some adjustments, but before they do, it might be a good idea to take a look at what is happening to that ration when the formulation moves from theory to practice.

Here’s the assignment: Find the lost milk. Where are you going to look? When Cornell students focused on this task, helping a New York dairy producer – one who had an exemplary calf program and whose cows should have been producing 15 pounds or more milk per day than they were – they found it. The lost milk was in the heifer barn.

Best practices for keeping feeding equipment clean in the calf barn, including protocols for proper sanitation and culturing, were presented during a panel discussion at the Cornell Calf and Heifer Congress 2016.

With all of the data available to today’s dairy producers, the value of that data is easily lost in the shuffle. Data is raw material that should be used to “drive understanding,” Robert Goodling Jr. said in a Penn State Dairy Nutrition Workshop session.

Every dairy farmer knows that high-quality, pleasant-tasting milk can’t come from unhealthy cows. Keeping cows healthy is the first, best step toward milk with a sweet, clean taste. Having healthy cows with low somatic cell counts goes a long way to avoiding milk with a foul aftertaste, off-flavors or unpleasant odors.

Established in 1967, the 450-acre, second-generation Mor-Dale Farms in Myerstown, Pennsylvania, has been owned by Ralph Moyer and his wife, Crystal, since 1991.

Consumer demands may be fickle and often are not based on a realistic view of livestock production. Yet today’s consumer focus on animal welfare should factor into dairy producer decisions. While market demands have to be taken into consideration, farm management decisions must be based on the science behind animal health and welfare.

Heather Dann of the Miner Institute defines cow comfort as being “a function of the cow’s management,” which has both social and environmental components. Comfortable cows are able to naturally balance their basic needs for rest, rumination and feeding. When these needs are met, cows are healthy and productive.

In today’s total confinement dairies, cows don’t graze. They eat grains, typically fed as a portion of a TMR designed to optimize their intake of protein and energy, provide needed nutrients and maximize milk production.