Dairy Herd Management
Dairy Farm Management Teams
A team of professionals meets monthly, quarterly or as often as farm prefers. As goals, actions and responsibilities are decided, county agent works to keep process progressing and help family reach their goals.
Grow Wisconsin Dairy Team - To help dairy producers continue to look forward to improve operations and profitability, the Grow Wisconsin Dairy Team is creating a Dairy Farm Management Team program for Wisconsin dairy farmers. The team approach will help dairy farmers fortify their management tools for increasing profits. This is a dairy producer program and a farm management resource.
Grow Wisconsin Dairy Team Website
Dairy Management Team Program Information
Application (PDF)
Application (WORD)
Feeding and Nutrition
Cow College Opportunities to Improve Starch Digestibility on Dairy Farms (pdf)
Results of UW-Madison Corn Shredlage Feeding Trial 11-2012 (pdf)
Feeding Cull Potatoes to Dairy and Beef Cattle (pdf)
Feed Comparative Values Calculated from Protein (UIP), TDN, Fat, Calcium and Phosphorus – Feeding is one of the biggest parts of animal production. Use this spreadsheet to look for competitive values of commodities and deliver programs on nutrition for dairy workers.
Feedval4 Feed Comparative (2011) (xls)
Tiling Mangers to Improve Dry Matter Intake and Clean Ability – Over the years concrete mangers deteriorate leaving rocks and gravel exposed. Cows tend to lick over the rough areas and a build up of feed tends to smooth out the feeding surface. This feed becomes rotten and the area becomes hard to clean, thus wasting expensive feed and reducing dry matter intake. Dairy producers have tried fixing this problem with concrete patches, plastic liners and laying tile on top of existing concrete. Patches tend to break up again, plastic liners get water and feed underneath them and then smell and become hard to clean because they are hard to seal to the concrete. Laying ceramic tile in a layer of sand mix concrete is a cost effective way to solve the problem and using recycled tile from the ReStore reduces the installation cost. – more – Tiling Mangers to Improve Dry Matter Intake and Clean Ability.
Tiling Mangers to Improve Dry Matter Intake and Ability to Clean (pdf)
Calf Care Management
Calf Management is taught in the Dairy Worker Skills program. Calf health is presented to 4-H youth and producers.
Dairy Workers Training Promotion article posted by extension.news on September 27, 2011 in Agriculture
Dairy Workers Training Promotion Presentation (ppt)
Heifer Management
Understanding Genomic Results, S. Nellis, K. Kester, P. Hoffman and K. Weigel, UW-Madison Department of Dairy Science, posted February 14, 2013 (pdf)
Dairy Heifer Genomics101, S. Nellis, K. Kester, P. Hoffman and K. Weigel, UW-Madison Department of Dairy Science, posted February 14, 2013 (pdf)
Uthanasia – Guidelines for Captive Bolt Uthanasia for Cattle and Calves
- English (pdf)
- Spanish (pdf)
- Uthanasia Log Form
Files to Download
Cow Cull Spreadsheet (xls)
Cost Comparison of Dairy Herd Diseases Spreadsheet (xls)
DNA Testing – Can you use it? (pdf)
Dairy Cattle Feeding Issues with High Moisture Corn, Snaplage, and Dry Shelled Corn (pdf)
Fall Grain Rye Factsheet – Fall Forage Rye for Dairy Heifers and Dry Cows (pdf)
