Wisconsin dairyman Brian Gerrits attended a large-herd dairy management conference just one year after the worst of the 2009 dairy crisis had passed.

When he came home, he said he realized he needed to start better managing his dairy’s margins.

Cooling your cows when temperatures start climbing is not a novel idea, but it’s also not an idea to simply discard altogether.

Although we are still a ways from reaching those scorching summertime temperatures, now is the time to think about cow cooling.

The Hoof Supervisor System tablet device launched at World Ag Expo in 2010 now has a related software program that aims to make hoof records a smooth process.

There are pedometers for activity, boluses for rumination and neck tags for both – but listen up, because now there is an ear tag to monitor activity, rumination and temperature. The combination of all three is delivering data that two dairymen are raving about.

It all began five years ago when Gerard Griffioen, CEO of Agis Automatisering in the Netherlands, was visiting Sander Penterman at Dutch Dairy in Thorp, Wisconsin. Griffioen watched as Penterman was temping fresh cows, a chore he said he’d rather not have to do.

Want an early warning system to detect hoof disease or mastitis? Just snap a picture of the cow’s foot or udder.

These and other scenarios may be possible someday with digital infrared thermography.

As crops come off the fields this fall, it will be time to start emptying manure storage and hauling the “black gold” back and forth to the fields. For some, those fields are contiguous to the farm where the tire pressure can be kept low for field use, but others have the challenge of traveling down roads and highways where it helps to have a higher tire pressure.