Thanks to House bill 22, which will take effect Sept. 20, livestock owners will have less risk of automatically being held liable for damages when their animals escape and run loose on public roadways and on other’s property.

This spring has been more stressful than most. With what seemed like endless rain and critical planting decisions to be made with imperfect information, I don’t think there is a farmer in Ohio who didn’t experience more stress this spring than during an ordinary planting season.

In our part of the world, 38 inches of rain is very common annually. Some of this rain doesn’t soak in and must go somewhere — and there’s the problem for land owners and managers. You have instantly become a responsible party.

With high school graduation season upon us, now is a time when you may receive a call or knock on your door from a young person wanting to work on your farm. Young people often have a desire to work on farms and many are excellent employees. However, as an employer, there are certain rules [...]

What a difference a year has made. Last year we were in the middle of one of the nicest spring planting seasons on record. Now, this year’s spring is making a run for the record books as one of our all time worst springs.

They are barely able to walk and yet they pick up the end of rope halter and make their first debut in the show ring. We can hardly wait to watch them grow up and move closer to the other end of the halter. Yet turn around and they are graduating from eighth grade, high [...]

A cow is like your car’s engine: She needs a radiator to get rid of the heat produced by her metabolism. Cooling cows is a challenge, but one you can’t ignore.

It’s a great time to think about employee motivation. Dark, rainy, muddy days make for long work days around the farm.

Questions and issues from families about transferring their farm businesses to the next generation continue to come into my office, with several calls and on-farm meetings in the last few weeks. Maybe it’s the weather or tax season, but whatever the reason, at least families are giving the topic consideration. Attorney needed Most farm business [...]

Before building a freestall barn, our cows were housed in tie stalls and loose housing. As you might find in many tie stall barns, ours had cow trainers. Cow trainers look like a thin metal upside-down “T” hanging down from a hot wire strung above the stalls. Their job is to get a cow to [...]