I don’t like to be the bearer of bad news, but the sky over dairyland looks to be very stormy with good possibilities of tornados. There is a lot of milk being shipped from U.S. dairy farms right now. Unless the demand for dairy products increases markedly, potential disaster may be looming. As I write [...]
So many changes in life, from politics, technology, cost of living, cost of operating a business, and of course the weather. All of this “noise” should not define your management style, but your management style will define how you react, or don’t react, to many of these changes. If a sound management style is not [...]
It has been a month since the Super Tuesday election. Boy, it has been peaceful these past few weeks. Amazing how the barrage of robo-calls subsided after March 6. However, it won’t be long before we are once again inundated with campaign advertisements citing the merits of each candidate as we move closer to the [...]
I receive many invitations to speak at dairy conferences across the country. I try to participate in these conferences whenever my schedule allows because I learn a lot from listening to other speakers and talking to conference attendees. Recently, I participated in a dairy conference where Dr. Mike Hutjens was also a speaker. Disappearing breed [...]
COLUMBUS — Close to sixty percent of the cropland in the north central region of the United States (including Ohio) is rented. Leasing methods, laws and rental rate discovery are important topics to land owners and land operators. The North Central Farm Management Extension Committee has recently updated several lease bulletins and lease templates that [...]
A good start on having a profitable dairy farm is a high milk price; however, the fundamental need is astute management of the cows, facilities, personnel, and the flow of funds. Management practices Good managers need information on which to make decisions, rather than it “just feeling right from the gut”. Information can be gathered [...]
“Chill in the air, calves get fluffy hair.” Sounds like something from an old almanac, but I just made it up. While some calves seemingly do get a long and fluffy hair coat overnight, the more important cue of that chill is for calf feeders to feed baby calves more. Good calf feeders know, however, [...]
I cannot believe that February is already half over. I know local farmers are working hard to finish up their farm taxes and are attending many of the great OSU Extension workshops being held across the region. Today, I would like to provide information on a bovine calving management workshop and about the financial and [...]
What a winter we have had so far. I think many of us would like for winter set in and the ground to freeze until spring. Dealing with all the rain and mud has made things difficult.
After eight years of sitting through hours of lectures and experimentation on animal welfare issues I thought that it was time to share some of my thinking in this column.
