Jim Dickrell

Jim Dickrell is the editor Dairy Herd Management and is based in Monticello, Minn. He has 27 years of publication experience, and also operated his family’s Wisconsin family dairy farm for three years following graduation from the University of Wisconsin—River Falls. He also holds a Masters Degree from Hamline University, St. Paul, Minn.

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Warm milk is necessary to maintain calves body temperatures and conserve energy.
Individually housed calves can take up to two days to find feed and water when they are first comingled with others at weaning.
There are some sources of feed shrink you might not think of that can be causing substantial losses in terms of feed used, ration formulation and poor performance.
Without intervention, 40% of calves that need more than minor assistance at birth will die.
If cows come into the dry period overconditioned, which is likely if they took longer to get pregnant, they’re already preconditioned to breeding delays in their next lactation.
Health records key to estimating costs of BRD in your herd
When cows are forced to compete for feed, they consume fewer, larger meals with reduced feeding time.
Freed up labor needs to be redirected toward cow management to make robot milking successful.
USDA reporting increasing numbers of crossbred dairy cattle.
Crisis management drill hones ability to respond to emergencies.
Neil Michael, director of technical services for ABS Global, says many herds consistently achieve pregnancy rates of 20% to 25%, with many commercial dairies already exceeding 35% to 40%. He lists eight influencers of reproductive success that every dairy should monitor.
“Genomics is a big step forward, but we still need daughter information,” says says Kent Weigel, University of Wisconsin dairy geneticist. “We’re not yet at the stage where we can identify the next sires of sons without using conventional genetics tools.”
With balance sheets in tatters and equity levels at record lows, crop insurance has renewed importance this year.
A three-year, $1.6 million project on six Wisconsin dairy operations is shedding light on management practices that control odors and emissions—and those that don’t.
It’s almost accepted as gospel that a high somatic cell count (SCC) cow in a small herd can throw off the entire bulk tank even if the rest of the herd is doing well. When it comes to large herds, the conventional wisdom is that a few high-count cows can get diluted by their herdmates.