Are the best animals in your herd really the best and why knowing matters
You inherently know who the best animals in your herd are, but what if your gut is wrong? On average, animal misidentification occurs approximately 18% of the time.
Three essentials your dairy won’t get far without
Keys, wallet, cell phone are the essentials you won’t get far without, but with them, accomplish anything. What are the equivalent essentials for managing your herd?
The first step to managing BLV
With USDA estimating 94% of all dairy herds in the United States are infected with BLV; chances are your herd has it! BLV is incurable, but not unmanageable.
Avoid these (costly) mistakes
After 40 years in the industry, Retired CentralStar Consultant, Julie Ainsworth shares a few key lessons that routinely emerge and still exist as opportunities on dairies today.
New Transfer of Passive Immunity Standard
There has been a long-standing definition of successful transfer of passive immunity, stated as 10 grams of IgG per liter of serum, 24-36 hours post colostrum feeding. The United States Department of Agriculture has raised the standard.
Prioritize, Execute, Repeat
The progress made in reproductive performance on dairies is truly impressive. Today, it’s more commonplace to find herds with pregnancy rates over 30%.
How many heifers should you raise?
The goal of reproduction has shifted from creating a replacement, to creating a fresh cow; the calf, or many of them, are simply the byproduct.
Reaching for Genetic Potential
Whatever happens to a calf day 1, week 1 or month 1 of its life determines if it will live up to its genetic potential. This statement is true for both replacement heifers with tremendous milking...
New Milk Fever Research
Despite the wide-spread adoption of negative-dietary cation-anion differential close-up diets, an estimated 25-50% of newly freshened 2nd lactation and greater cows will experience...
PCR Is a Game Changer for Mastitis Management
Midwest-based CentralStar Cooperative pioneered testing of dairy herd information (DHI) milk samples for the management of cow herd health and disease...