“With today’s high costs, forage best management practices are required for dairymen,” Troy Brown with Cargill said at the Midwest Forage Symposium in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin, earlier this year. Brown went on to outline the cost, cause and cures for silage shrink. “Cost of shrink today is very significant,” he said.

, held February 6-7 in Stratford, Ontario, brought together dairy producers from five different countries. Hailing from North America, South America, Eastern Europe and Western Europe, the dairy producers shared their differences, similarities, challenges and opportunities.

Along the banks of the Mississippi River in the driftless area of western Wisconsin lies Buffalo County. It is home to valleys of unsurpassed fertility, bordered by towering bluffs on all sides. Nestled in Waumandee Valley is Rosenholm-Wolfe Dairy LLP, a 550-cow and 500-head youngstock operation.

The Central Plains Dairy Expo at the South Dakota Convention Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, is less than two weeks away. The Welcome Reception with a concert by Nashville signer and songwriter Phil Vassar will kick off the event on March 26. The trade show and seminars are March 27-28. Keynote speaker Michael Swanson, a Wells Fargo agricultural economist, will address “Economic Outlook and Opportunities: What’s the Market Telling You?”

The most commonly asked question of any 3-year-old is “Why?” It displays their curiosity to learn more about the things they already know in life. In its third year, the National Dairy FARM Animal Care Program is also busy asking “Why?”

Presenting a nutritionally correct diet is important when caring for a dairy cow, but to assume that it is all that is required in terms of the animal’s nutritional well-being is incorrect. “We need to focus on what the cow does with that feed,” says Trevor DeVries, associate professor in the Department of Animal and Poultry Science at the University of Guelph – Kemptville.