Professional heifer growers and dairy producers are faced with the challenge of raising healthy calves, while still paying close attention to rearing costs and profit. Factors that may be considered in selecting a liquid feeding program may include the number of calves fed, economics and cash flow, nutritional characteristics, calf performance targets, resource availability (e.g. consistent sup...

Several Canadian producers have implemented an inexpensive free-access feeding system modeled on Finnish guidelines,18 using formic acid as a milk preservative. The system mimics natural suckling and permits group social behavior. It allows for accelerated growth and changes labor requirements for calf rearing. Anecdotally, producers report less clinical cases of diarrhea and use of drugs for r...

introduction: contamination of foodstuffs with fungi and the toxins produced by them is a very important problem in human and animal feeding. in most villages around shiraz, in small-scale dairy farms, dry leftover bread which is mostly contaminated with fungi is used as a part of food ration for animals. the thin-layer chromatographic method which was used for determination of aflatoxin. inges...

We focus on a deliberate scenario, where milk producers are used as entry sources for a contamination and where milk consumers are the target of the attack. The aim of this study is to demonstrate how the size of damage differs dependent on the use of an optimization algorithm or a random selection of entry sources. The results indicate that with a random selection of entry sources the same res...

The current market demand and price for organic milk is encouraging dairy producers, particularly those on smaller farms, to consider organic production as a means for improving the economic viability of their operations. Organic production systems vary widely in scale, in practices, and across agroclimatic settings. Within this context, case studies of 4 actual organic dairy farms were used to...

As U.S. dairy farms continue to become more productive, increasing demand is a key to improved economic prospects for the dairy industry. One way to expand demand for dairy products is to find new, economically viable uses for milk. Ex ante economic analysis of new uses for agricultural products anticipates the potential market effects of innovations, and provides a basis for evaluating investm...

The primary objective was to compare reported antimicrobial usage between conventional and organic dairy farms. A secondary objective was to contrast selected management characteristics of conventional and organic dairy herds. A questionnaire was administered on site to selected dairy farmers located in Michigan, Minnesota, New York, and Wisconsin. Organic herds (n = 32) were smaller and produc...

For more than 20 years, dairy producers have been using low DCAD diets in their dry cow feeding programs to prevent milk fever and subclinical hypocalcemia during the transition period. The use of low DCAD diets in dry cows has virtually eliminated the incidence of milk fever in most dairy herds. While dairy producers are well aware of the importance of proper DCAD concentrations in the dry per...