One of my favorite phrases is: “We are drowning in information while starving for wisdom.” I am sure everyone has felt this at some point in their life.

How do you use the mountain of information that is at your fingertips every month? How do you find the next opportunity or efficiency in the data you collect? Very few dairy farms have systems in place to measure more information than milk production. Looking at data once in a while will not lead you in a positive direction.

The lactation curve of milk production on some farms can be complicated. The question of how we get more production from cows comes up in many conversations between nutritionists and their producer customers. A “normal” lactation curve can be broken down to some simple basic principles.

As I look at thousands of calving records every month for dairies ranging in size from 100 to 5,000 cows, one thing that is consistent among almost all of them is the wide range of ages that springing heifers calve.