Dairy Performance

By Jim Lewis I learned the concept of stockmanship at a very young age as I helped my grandpa bring up cows from the pasture.  After years of working in the dairy industry, the importance of correct animal handling is even clearer to me. Stockmanship is defined as the interaction between man and animal. Poor

By Dr. Al Schultz Since they became a huge part of human medicine in the 1940s, antibiotics have saved millions of lives, but we are getting increasingly worried because they don’t work as well as they used to.  Although the pharmaceutical companies are developing new strategies to address this issue,  the man-versus-bacteria war continues onward.

By Dr. John Goeser Let’s take a look at the last few months.  First, we had a warm and dry winter.  Next, summer came early in the upper Midwest with March temperatures in the 80s.  Then the chilly temperatures came back for most of April.  We even saw frost return to some areas.  This roller

By Ann Hoskins Biosecurity refers to those measures taken to keep diseases out of populations, herds or groups of animals where they do not currently exist or to limit the spread of disease within the herd. The responsibility for farm-level biosecurity belongs to the herd owner and it starts at home with your protocols. A

By the Vita Plus Loyal Dairy Team Managing your forage program is a challenging job and has many components. Selecting the right hybrids, managing your equipment or custom harvester and selecting the proper harvest time are all very important, but, when the weather breaks and the tractors are running, are you paying close enough attention

By Dr. Bruno Amaral With an uncommonly warm March, we’re already starting to think about keeping cows cool.  Now is our chance to strategize and get ahead of the heat. We all know the value of heat stress abatement for milking cows as temperatures spike in the summer and milk production drops.  But the value

By Dr. Neil Michael Managing fresh cow performance is a challenge.  When ketosis becomes an issue, cows start slowly and you can expect significant losses due to direct treatment costs and lost future income. Contributing factors Much of the variation in how well cows go through transition can be explained by changes in cows, feedstuffs

By Dr. Eric Schwab Consumers and processors in the Upper Midwest demand solids to produce high quality dairy products. But how do we produce high solids milk without giving up production? First, let’s take a step back to understand why milk solids play such a big role in the milk check.  World demand for dairy

By Chris Wacek-Driver “Quality forages…where sound nutrition starts” has become a founding principle for Vita Plus consultants as we work with you to put up high quality forages. A key to reaching that goal is improving aerobic stability by inoculating with the world-leading Lactobacillus buchneri 40788.  Benefits of this inoculant include less heating, fewer yeasts

By Bob Hagenow Team meetings are always interesting because everyone brings different experiences and communication styles to the table.  Naturally, this can lead to conflict as different personalities favor different approaches for solving challenges.  It can also serve as a great opportunity to capitalize on the different perspectives each person brings to the team.  In

By Bob Hagenow We can’t deny that things like email, texting and Facebook have increased our ways to connect with one another.  But are we truly communicating with each other to get things accomplished and avoid mistakes?  With all the tools we have to “talk” with one another, we still gain great value in bringing

By Al Gunderson Browse the Internet on your tablet or smartphone and you know we’re living in a global world where information flows across borders seamlessly.  That applies to economics too. The Greek debt crisis plunged the whole Euro zone into crisis and affected our U.S. markets.  A huge, global trading company placed a “bet”

By Spence Driver Over the last five years, nearly 55 percent of the average milk income over feed costs has been derived from milk protein yield and 40 percent has come from milk fat yield.  That means that only about 5 percent of that income is derived from milk volume. Clearly, that means that increasing

By Cody Yanzick Calf raisers invest a lot of time and energy into optimizing calf performance.  Good feed management with young heifers can help to keep that momentum going as calves get older.  Here are a few tips for introducing, feeding and monitoring heifer TMRs. Choose the right size mixer. Most calf raisers mix small

By Jon Rasmussen and Dr. Neil Michael Critically reviewing a few fundamental cow behaviors can positively impact cow health, performance and the overall attitude of employees.  Here are some good areas to watch during your next walk among your cows. Flight zones When you walk into a pen of cows, how do they react to