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of Progressive Dairyman is our annual "Women in Dairy" issue, and like last year, we reached out to friends of our Facebook, Twitter and Proud to Dairy networks to give a shoutout to their favorite dairywomen. Want to add yours? Click here to email Web Editor Emily Caldwell or below.
The online version of this article from page 20 of the print magazine features additional responses and text.
I need to give a shout out to my wonderful wife, Sonja Rasmussen. On Oct. 1 2011, she gave up her "in town" job to be on the farm full time. It has been a great year. She was involved before, but now I truly have a partner helping me manage this dairy.
She has taken a very active role in milk quality. We have dropped our SCC to premium levels and all our milkers have defined and written SOP's. I feel she has helped me regain control of our farm and I don't think I could have done it without her.
—Mike Rasmussen, Edmore, Michigan via Facebook
In 2009, female veterinarians began outnumbering their male counterparts. Food animal medicine continues to be male-dominated but female numbers are on the rise. In 2006, food animal-predominant veterinarians in private practice were 17 percent female. That number has grown to 19 percent as of 2011, according to American Veterinary Medical Association market research statistics.
It’s a trend that many in the field expect to continue.
“We have been seeing a shift toward mostly female students in the past several years from when we began receiving preceptors eight years ago in our practice’s mentoring program,” says Dr. Angela Daniels. “I think that the current male predominance in food animal medicine is coming from established practitioners because, certainly, the number of people entering into food animal practice appears to be heavily dominated by women.”
In our March 21st issue of this year, Progressive Dairyman launched a new column written by dairywomen. The first contributor of what we now call “HERd management” was Emily Zweber of Elko, Minnesota. Over the past eight months, we’ve featured an additional eight female voices through this column.
We asked our contributors to open up about their farms and their opinions about a dairywoman’s role in the industry today.
See responses from Terri DiNitto of Marcy, New York; Ellen Durrer of Modesto, California; Karma Fitzgerald of Shoshone, Idaho; Kim (Wilson) Grewe of Cumberland, Wisconsin; Brenda Hastings of Chardon, Ohio; Holly Hull of Preston, Idaho; Ashley Messing-Kennedy of Bad Axe, Michigan; and Joanmarie Weiss of Frankenmuth, Michigan.
This article was #18 of the Top 25 most well-read articles on www.progressivedairy.com in 2013. It was published in the Nov. 21, 2012 print issue. Click here for the full list of the Top 25.
This roundtable, the final in a three-part series, featured five Midwest producers using automatic calf feeders. The producers described factors they considered, challenges they had with installation and lessons learned with the feeders.
We asked the producers: Q. If you were given unlimited resources (time, labor, money, land, etc.), what is one change you would make to your calf-raising program and why?
In this new series of articles from Progressive Dairyman, three forward-thinking operations share protocols and lessons learned as well as what’s on the horizon. The first article in this series focuses on calf and heifer raising. Watch your mailboxes in 2013 for future discussions featuring A.I. and breeding decisions, feed and nutrition management and manure handling.
On December 7, 2012 from noon to 1 p.m. CST, Dr. Mark Thomas will present, "Feeding Systems for Group-Housed Dairy Calves."
Thomas is a partner in Countryside Veterinary Clinic, LLP in northern New York. The practice employs eight veterinarians and services about 200 clients.
According to the DAIReXNET site, his presentation will focus on optimizing nutrition in a group setting, including tips on practical concepts for ad libitum and acidified feeding.
Aaron Kochman of Lauren AgriSystems talks with PD Editor Emily Caldwell about the ParlorPro app. The app itself is free but features a teat-scoring module for $20 a year that allows users to standardize their herd's teat scoring based on guidelines from the National Mastitis Council. PD
The 49th All-American Dairy Show was held September 15-20. The event features 23 shows in six days with more than 900 exhibitors from across the U.S. and Canada. The show also has a strong focus on youth with the Premier National Junior Events, the nation’s only four-day event for youth at a dairy show.
Activities include a showmanship competition, a dairy management contest and dairy judging forum, a dairy judging contest and a junior national show. Organizers of the event are already gearing up to celebrate the show’s 50-year history next year at the Golden Anniversary Jubilee, to be held September 7-12, 2013. PD
An on-farm assessment program developed by Novus International Inc. and the University of British Columbia (UBC) Animal Welfare Program, led by Drs. Marina von Keyserlingk and Dan Weary, is cracking the code in measuring, tracking and improving animal welfare.
The acronyms in C.O.W.S. stand for Comfort, Oxidative Balance, Well-Being and Sustainability. Those performing the assessments look at a number of factors including facility design, lying behavior, stall maintenance and the health of hocks and knees.
For the first time in more than a decade, COBA/Select Sires offered facility tours and a parade of bulls at an open house for customer-owners on August 10 at the Select Sires Inc. headquarters. While the A.I. company has hosted several smaller groups over the years, it has not held an event of this size, with more than 700 attendees, since the 1990s.
