Dairy News
The Penn State Extension Dairy Team releases an enhanced iPad version of the mobile app DairyCents.
New corn silage and candy product pose challenges to ration balancing.
It’s that time of year again! Cold weather is approaching and keeping every newborn and young calf healthy might be challenging. Wind and snow can add stress to even the healthiest of calves.
Penn State research has determined that histidine can be a limiting amino acid in high-producing dairy cows fed corn silage and alfalfa haylage-based diets deficient in metabolizable protein (MP). This is primarily a result of the relatively low histidine concentration in microbial protein synthesized in the rumen. When formulating diets for high-producing dairy cows fed MP at or below NRC (2001) requirements, nutritionists should also balance for digestible histidine supply.
Internal parasites continue to plague the livestock industries. Economic costs due to parasitism vary with animal age, stage of growth, degree of exposure, and level of nutrition. Late fall or winter is a good time for dairy producers to strategize with their veterinarian and develop a parasite control program that fits with animal care and planning for crops and forages.
Penn State will be conducting a survey to identify causes of stillborn calves in dairy and beef herds in Pennsylvania. Calves must be submitted for testing within 6 hours of birth. Read on for more information on stillbirths and contact information for participating in this research project.
Penn State Extension Dairy Team welcomes their newest members Ximena del Campo and Heather Weeks.
The Penn State Extension Dairy Team’s mobile app DairyCents is now available for download on Android devices. DairyCents has been available since August on iTunes and has over 600 registered users to date.
Unexpected commodity deliveries and corn silage transitions made October interesting for the Penn State Dairy Herd.
Since the deregulation of electricity generation there have been numerous changes in the price structures for electricity. Take the time to investigate your options and consider changes that could save you money.
Controlling costs is just as important as ensuring the quality and quantity of heifers entering the dairy herd. Understanding a herd’s unique heifer need and availability based on key herd metrics can achieve insight into potential limitations or excess availability of heifers. Controlling these metrics to improve access to replacement opens the dairy business to greater control of quality of heifers becoming their next lactating herd participants.
Holstein herds in Pennsylvania have made progress in reducing the average age of heifers at first calving.
Federal funding is gone, but Johne's Disease isn’t. This article presents some relatively easy and inexpensive management practices that you can use to minimize the level of infection and the impact of this disease in your herd.
Taught in Spanish, this program will educate Spanish-speaking farm managers and milkers about the proper milking techniques and practices necessary to produce a high-quality product. This program will help to increase productivity and profitability on dairies that participate.
Transition to 2012 early corn silage results in drops in milk production and fat test.
Are you already using QuickBooks®? Would you like to take your use to the next level? Then THIS IS A WORKSHOP FOR YOU! Join us for one or more of the workshops in this series to learn about reports and extracting data from QuickBooks® to make managing in tighter profit margins a little easier. This is a hands on workshop, using a computer lab, so you can follow along with a demonstration farm using QuickBooks®.
Once again, dairy product prices have risen considerably in the last month. Corn and soybean prices are much lower than at this time last month, with corn down 6% and soybeans down 13%. Penn State’s measure of income over feed costs rose by 16% in September.
Designed for dairy producers and managers. Dates available to schedule this workshop are: February 12, 13, 14, 21, 26, 28, 2013 and March 12, 13, 14, 19, 21, 2013. 10 a.m. to 3p.m. Registration fee: $40 per farm.
Last minute corn silage shortage puts pressure on early corn supply.
