In this sponsorcast episode, guests from Dairy One discuss how forage testing can impact overall milk quality in herds. Speakers Dan Button, Mike Reuter and Kenlin Martin have a roundtable-style discussion on what impact they’ve seen from farmers who want to improve the feed given to their cows and how it ties to milk production.

Dairy One has partnered with iYOTAH to help farmers bring together data from across their farms with a new technology tool. In this podcast episode, Kari Spaan, CEO of iYOTAH, and Matt Newman, director of Dairy One's Integrated Farming Solutions group, discuss this new software and how it's making an impact on dairies. From cool features to real-life applications, Blue Board is a tool worth investing in!

Milk quality is an ongoing battle for many dairy farms. Just when you think you’re on top of your somatic cell counts, the next bulk tank report arrives saying it went up again. And since many cooperatives provide premiums based on milk quality, this is a problem that is costing you money.

The safe consumption and distribution of milk and dairy products is highly regulated to keep customers safe. All farms are required to submit milk bulk tank samples for testing to ensure that there are no antibiotics present in the milk. When a milk tanker is contaminated, it costs farms and milk cooperatives money. That’s where services offered by a milk analysis laboratory come in to help prevent this problem from happening for dairies.

There isn’t much need to turn on the TV and listen to talk about athletes; farmers don’t have to look far for creatures that fall into that category. The dairy cow is a prime athlete found on farms across the United States. Every day, she works to produce milk and manure that farms use in numerous ways. To keep her powered up, her diet or ration is a vital daily deliverable for herd managers.

Milk Urea Nitrogen or MUN is a way to see if a dairy farm’s feeding program is a success. A MUN screening test can be performed on a milk sample collected from a cow.