The African proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child,” could easily be transposed to read, “It takes a village to run a dairy farm.”

Better-managed calf barns are beginning to rival outdoor hutches – the long-held gold standard to calf housing. Dr. Ken Nordlund explained that there are three reasons why interest in calf barns is growing: first, to avoid dealing with inclement weather; second, automatic calf feeders are not feasible for hutches; and third, emerging data shows properly ventilated calf barns are providing health results equivalent to hutches.

I don’t care for the snow and cold of winter much, but I do love this season because everything seems to slow down a bit more than usual.

In no particular order, here are the stories that made headlines this past year. 400,000 SCC doesn’t pass at NCIMS; divides industry Progressive Dairyman Editor Emily Caldwell reported a proposal to lower the somatic cell count (SCC) limit from 750,000 to 400,000 was discussed at the National Conference on Interstate Milk Shipments (NCIMS) in late April.

Sheryl Sandberg’s book, Lean In, continues to make headlines more than six months after its release. This “sort of a feminist manifesto” is doing what Sandberg set out to do – call attention to female leadership, or the lack thereof, in the workplace. Progressive Dairyman set out to examine this subject in the dairy industry today. We asked the following questions of three of the industry’s best women in executive roles.

This one is located on Allen Farms, six miles outside of Oshkosh, Wisconsin.