Dairy News
Penn State Extension dairy educators across the state as well as faculty and staff from Penn State University’s departments of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, Dairy and Animal Science, Crop and Soil Sciences, and Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences have combined their expertise to create an innovative program designed to identify key opportunity areas limiting the profitability of Pennsylvania dairies.
Energy and odor combined with state and federal cost sharing programs have increased the interest in using controlled anaerobic digestion to stabilize dairy manure and produce biogas.
Bovine Virus Diarrhea virus (BVDv) is a bovine enteric virus with a worldwide distribution.
A key factor in extension education is to take university research results and apply them in a practical manner to our dairy clientele.
Having a productive and profitable herd without a lot of planning, a lot of paying attention to detail, and without all members of the farm team working together
The basic bedded pack can be a quick and simple way to house a variety of dairy cattle including young heifers, dry cows, milking cows and special needs cows.
Based upon a survey of Pennsylvania dairy producers, the major reasons listed by those who do not use artificial insemination for their heifers are the perception of lowered conception rates with artificial insemination (AI), difficulty or time involved with estrous detection, location of heifers was inconvenient for reproductive management and lack of restraint facilities.
Understanding milk flow patterns of individual and groups of cows can help you to evaluate how well people, cows, and equipment are doing in harvesting milk on your dairy.
The Animal Improvement Programs Laboratory at USDA recently published a comprehensive analysis of the trends in age at first calving and calving intervals for the five breeds of dairy cattle from 1980 to 2004 (J. Dairy Science, Jan. 2006). These are important factors contributing herd profitability and reproductive management has become a major challenge to many dairy producers.
Having clear and concise job descriptions in place is vital for employee success on the farm. But even though job descriptions are important, most producers don’t want to take the time to write them.
Oral rehydration solutions are used to replenish fluids and electrolytes that are lost during the course of diarrhea. Also known as electrolytes, these solutions are a convenient way to treat calves with diarrhea.
Results of this study showed that the heifer raising operation could serve as a clearing house of S. Typhimurium var Copenhagen and perhaps other Salmonella serotypes.
One can get a whole new perspective while trying to locate a new dairy complex on a proposed site.
Most veterinarians and dairy producers are familiar with the use of blood mineral concentration determinations as an aid in disease diagnosis. Although it is useful to know what is responsible for a disease process, a preferred option is to determine if a cow is metabolically unstable and will ultimately succumb to some disease process.
Grasses are one of the predominant forages harvested in the northern and western regions of Pennsylvania.
Energy prices are going through the roof again this fall and winter! The best way to guard against high prices for energy is to make your farm and home more energy efficient.
With weaning, it is essential that adequate rumen development has occured. Without a fully functional rumen, calves will be unable to utilize nutrients provided in the post-weaning dry feed diet. The result is a growth slump for one to three weeks after weaning.
Stray voltage allows everyone to blame a variety of common dairy herd production problems on something out of their control and to discount other obvious changes or improvements under their control that could help cow productivity and thus farm profitability.
We are all aware of the dire constraints we may be facing this winter because of the dramatic increases in the prices of all forms of energy, except electricity. Fortunately, the autumn weather has been quite mild thus far, so we have not needed too much fuel for space heating purposes yet.
Diagnostic tests such as the Johne’s ELISA are used to tell us something about the “true” status of the animals being tested.
