Dairy Farming Articles

Most recently, Fetzer Farms installed DairyBOS, the Dairy Barn Operating System, into their cow barn. The system is designed with our veterinarians to optimize their herd health and productivity all year long, through automated ventilation, cooling, lighting, and continuous environmental feedback. It gives Fetzer the connectivity and controls they need to efficiently and precisely manage their ...

Nov. 26, 2020

By VES Environmental Solutions

Through a dairy ventilation system designed with adequate intake, recirculation, and exhaust fans Fetzer’s heifers receive optimal fresh airflow at their ...

Nov. 26, 2020

By VES Environmental Solutions

Fetzer Farms operates a double-20 parallel DeLaval milking parlor as well as its own calf and heifer facilities in Elmwood, WI. Their animal environments need to accommodate unpredictable summer humidity and heat, followed by below-zero winter temperatures and shorter daylight ...

Nov. 26, 2020

By VES Environmental Solutions

The Next Frontier in Lactating Sow Nutrition Advances in research regarding the nutrient requirements of the lactating sow have academics and producers alike realizing the need for feeding precisely to the needs of the herd, which can vary considerably from published values. For example, in the Swine NRC (Nutrient Requirements of Swine, published by National Research Council in 2012) gilt and ...

Nov. 20, 2020

By Jyga Technologies

Why Do Farmers Use Net Wrap? Ever wonder how hay is Stored in Cattle Fields? Farmers use Net Wrap, which is often made out of plastic or twine. Plastic Net wrap and twine are used to hold Hay Bales together until it is time to feed cattle. It is a quick and convenient way to gather, load, and unload Hay Bales. In fact, when stored and applied properly, Net Wrap can maintain most of ...

Nov. 18, 2020

By Maxilator Equipment, LLC

T2C-Energy will install its mobile TRIFTS demo unit at Alliance Dairies’ manure digester in September 2018. T2C-Energy will commission, debottleneck, and troubleshoot the process with live biogas. Funding for this operation is provided in part by our equity partner, US Cleantech and the US Department of ...

Oct. 31, 2020

By T2C-Energy LLC.

When thinking about achieving cow comfort, our focus at VES revolves around the engineering, design, and layout of fans, lighting, soaking technology, and high-pressure fogging within a barn. Those elements comprise the core of what we do, but it’s not everything. Consider this: 88 percent of milk consists of water, so ensuring plenty of fresh drinking water is available to cows at all ...

Oct. 29, 2020

By VES Environmental Solutions

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, at least for chocoholics! Halloween is the perfect excuse not to be judged for indulging your sweet tooth. Despite COVID-19, candy sales are picking up rather than slowing down. According to the National Confectioners Association, Halloween chocolate sales are up 25.3% this year compared to 2019. With all this chocolate flying off store shelves, it ...

Oct. 27, 2020

By MadgeTech, Inc.

Probiotics for chickens are widely added to poultry feed and drinking water. These beneficial bacteria help to improve poultry’s growth, health, and nutrition. The main objective of adding probiotics in feed is to optimize nutrition and health. Different food additives used for poultry production helps to meet nutritional needs. Over 2000 years ago, Hippocrates said that “all ...

Oct. 1, 2020

By Invivo Biosciences, LLC

Feed efficiency improvement in farms is a global challenge because: Feed efficiency is important for farmer’s profitability Available surface for agriculture and feed/forage production is decreasing Human population and food demand are increasing in quantity and quality (animal proteins) Feed costs are increasing (direct and inputs) In the future we should produce more goods with ...

Sep. 16, 2020

By TIMAC Agro Italia

In a perfect world, every barn would be a new build where ventilation could be entered into the formula throughout the design, engineering, and building process. That fantasy, as you may have guessed, sure isn’t what we at VES work with on a day-in-day-out basis. The reality is that a large swath of the ventilation consultations and installations we do at VES are actually retrofits ...

Sep. 14, 2020

By VES Environmental Solutions

Now we can see that many dairy farms, chicken farms and other farms are going to buy organic fertilizer equipment. Why? First of all, because the organic fertilizer production equipment can treat the manure of livestock and poultry into organic fertilizer, which fundamentally solves the pollution caused by the manure of livestock and poultry, so that the environmental problems in the farm can be ...

Sep. 1, 2020

By Zhengzhou Huaqiang Heavy Industry Technology Co.Ltd.

At VES, there are few aspects of cow care that fester in our craw more than ignoring the impacts of heat stress on dry cows. It’s a critical period in a cow’s lactation cycle that deserves every ounce of care and attention as all others and can have long-term implications on a herd if ignored. Dry Cow (n.) – A late gestation, non-lactating cow. Often considered an afterthought ...

Aug. 26, 2020

By VES Environmental Solutions

Seaweed in cattle feed to reduce greenhouse gas from burping dairy cows Seaweed could contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. The research project Climate Feed will develop seaweed feed supplement with funding from Innovation Fund Denmark. There’s a huge potential in reducing cows’ emission of methane and, consequently, greenhouse gases. The major part of ...

Aug. 19, 2020

By Ocean Rainforest

A modern free stall zero grazing unit was built during 2012 for a herd of Holstein Friesian cattle located in Mweiga, Kenya. In free stall design, each cow is accorded individual attention in feeding, monitoring, comfort, proper ventilation and free passage. The unit has a capacity to hold 200 mature ...

Jul. 28, 2020

By Nocart Ltd.

The Art of Feeding is techniques that require a person to observe or to act. This is what moves an average feeding department to excellence. In the last couple of weeks my brother in law was helping me put up a fence. He is a retired manager for a major dairy processor. In our discussion he talked a lot about a 1996 research study that was commission by Coca-Cola to look for incremental sale ...

Jul. 13, 2020

By DHI Computing Service, Inc.

We hear a lot about how to protect yourself and others right now… and it is especially important to me because I am in a high-risk group (over 65 with underlining health conditions). In the Dairy Industry, we deal with high-risk groups every day–cows that have just calved and newborn calves less than 75 days of age. Herd immunity threshold (percent of animals that are immune) ...

Jul. 13, 2020

By DHI Computing Service, Inc.

If you are like most producers, at one point or another you toy with the idea of re-designing your feed center. Today there are lots of good examples of indoor feed centers and it yields the question, do I need a fancy feed center? If I take the plunge what will it do for me? Before jumping to a re-design, perhaps an efficiency audit is in order... What is a feed center for? The main purpose ...

Jul. 13, 2020

By DHI Computing Service, Inc.

Most financial statements identify feed followed by labor as the items that cost the most on a dairy. Taxes, wages, and benefits are included in the financial definition for labor; however, I rarely see training and training time included. To me the investment of time and training raises the value of an employee, especially those that have been with the dairy for a long period of time. The ...

Jul. 10, 2020

By DHI Computing Service, Inc.

Shrink is a fancy word that only means the difference between what was fed… and what was actually measured going into the feed center. It is a huge economical drain for most dairies. It is an interesting problem that results from the lack of precision of bringing feed into the feed center and storing it properly. We usually just talk about the missing feed, however there is also ...

Jul. 10, 2020

By DHI Computing Service, Inc.