Adverse human health effects resulting from exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls (PBBs) were unknown until the accidental contamination of Michigan dairy farm animal feed in 1973-1974. Human exposure resulted from the consumption of contaminated meat, milk, dairy products, and eggs. In November 1976, the Environmental Sciences Laboratory conducted comprehensive examinations of 933 farmers and ...

Despite dairy farmers’ awareness of the importance of correct bedding for the health and comfort of their cows, they are often frugal with respect to these bedding materials in order to reduce costs. In addition, farmers are currently dependent on the availability and price fluctuations of traditional bedding materials. For these reasons, the scientific literature as well as the trade press poi...

In 1998, Countdown Downunder, Australia's national mastitis and cell count control programme, was created. With funding from the country's leading dairy organisation, Dairy Australia, this programme was originally intended to run for three years but is now in its tenth year. As it was the first time Australia had attempted a national approach to mastitis control on the farm, the first three yea...

Dairy farmers and others have been discussing the use of enriched X-bearing semen (sexed semen) for many years (Seidel and Garner, 2002). Sexing bovine semen is possible because X-sperm have 3.8% more DNA than Y-sperm. This difference can be identified with a flow cytometer by staining the sperm with a fluorescent dye that binds to the DNA. The technique is reasonably accurate (10% error rate) ...

This study to document the prevalence and some epidemiological features of gastrointestinal impaction in cattle and buffaloes was conducted by undertaking key informant interview (interviews of farmers and visits to dairy farms), case study analysis (observation of cases registered under randomly selected state veterinary hospitals and polyclinics) and retrospective study in various parts of Pu...

Energy is considered as an important production factor in many systems and therefore should be managed in parallel with other main production resources including land, labor and capital. In this paper, the energy efficiency scores of some selected dairy farms, using the non-parametric data envelopment analysis approach was assessed. The results for efficient farmers based on two DEA models show...

An on-farm study of 54 representative Wisconsin dairy farms was conducted to evaluate the influence of biophysical and socioeconomic factors on overall feed, fertilizer, and manure nutrient use. This report validates 1) how well data on cow diets, feed analyses, and milk production reflected established feed-milk-manure relationships; and 2) how well farmer-recorded data on manure land applicat...

Mastitis is a costly disease for dairy farmers. Some dairy farmers use herbal products, or phytoceuticals, to treat mastitis. Phytoceuticals have not been approved for this use by the United States Food and Drug Administration, and have not been tested to determine how they impact antibiotic residue detection testing. The current study tested the potential for phytoceuticals to cause positive r...

Some dairy farmers look at their employees as a cost factor, which needs to be kept minimal. Others see their employees as a resource. With proper management, employees can help keep a farm successful in the long run. How a farmer looks at his or her employees determines how employees will be managed and what role labor will play on a farm. If you are the kind of farmer who sees employees as a ...

A study on the effect of topical macrocyclic lactones (ML) against gastrointestinal nematodes (GIN) in Swedish first season grazing cattle (FSG) was performed during the grazing seasons of 2009 and 2010. Herds were recruited through farming press and both dairy and beef cattle farms were invited. A questionnaire revealed that 64% of participating farmers dewormed their animals in previous years...