During the Western Regional Dairy Challenge held in Twin Falls, Idaho on March 4-6, 50 students from five universities across the Western states were acquainted with a dairy and the problems that can come from family farming on a large scale.
“It’s a strength that they are able to work together as well as they are,” said John Day, veterinarian with Dairy Health Services. “[They need to] look at how these issues can be addressed to fix problems that affect one enterprise but are happening in another enterprise.”
Colostrum has been proven to be one of the best resources a dairy producer can provide for their future herd. By feeding one gallon of high-quality colostrum within one hour of birth, a calf can receive the nutrients and immunoglobulins it needs to get off to a healthy start. Yet many times this precious fluid is exposed to a number of bacteria before it reaches the calf, and instead of boosting a calf’s immune system, the antibodies are immediately needed to fight off diseases introduced in the same feeding.
Standards and benchmarks have been of interest to producers for many years. Whether financial, production-based, health-related or otherwise, our human nature is to always want to know “how we stack up,” especially with others in the same business. Last fall, the 
Liquid manure is a valuable source of nutrients and organic matter for crop production and may be applied by a variety of methods including irrigation, surface spreading and shallow subsurface injection. With a low nutrient concentration, liquid animal manure may be applied at relatively high volumes, but it is generally recommended that it not be applied at rates that exceed the soil infiltration rate, nor exceed the amount needed to bring the soil to field water-holding capacity. Liquid manure discharges from agricultural drains have been reported in soils with subsurface (tile) drainage due to macropore flow.