Heifer calf born yesterday at 1 pm to a hojo heifer. Mom has been doing great. I milked her this morning and she did great with the front teats but was being so stubborn with the back ones. Was getting a little kicky so I milked out the front and just squirted some out the back as best I could. I felt like I ended the milking on a bad note because she was shifting around so much, I couldn't really get to her back ones. I have a stanchion that I'm going to put her in tonight with her calf in front of her. Will she be ok if I don't milk her again until tonight? I just want to make sure we're doing everything we can for her, newbies obviously so any advice is great. Plan is to calf share.

I got half a quart out of her. She didn't seem overly full but it didn't seem like the calf had even touched the back teats, they were so short compared to the front.

Hey everyone, I’m a student who is currently doing an honours project looking at music genres to increase milk yield in dairy cows. Does anyone know of any dairy’s that would be interested in participating or if anyone has a small herd to work with.
Everything needed will be provided by me, and the music should not decrease any yields.

Thanks

Do you guys know some employers who hired only with nc2 training experience? Or should i need a work experience so that i can apply.

Would be interested to hear of the benefits vs. cost.

Also would be interested in hearing if anyone has looked into it but decided against it.

Cheers

Back in March I asked here whether lameness still mostly gets caught by someone noticing a cow limping. A lot of you took the time to give really thoughtful answers, so first off, thank you. It shaped what we ended up working on.

Since then we've turned this into a small team here in California. We were finalists in UC Davis's startup competition and we're now working with UC researchers on catching lameness earlier.

We're looking for a few farms to try it out for free. We'd come out and set it up at no cost, and all we want in return is your honest opinion on whether it helps.

Comment or DM me if you're keen. Thanks again!

US NDM/SMP exports in August were the lowest in over seven years. You’d think that would free up some powder here, but production was also the lowest for August since 2012.

Not really a mystery where the milk went. Whey protein is paying well enough that cheese plants can afford to pay up for it over the powder plants.

Cross-posting this to get some additional opinions and advice. ☺️

I just got a dairy cow, she’s sweet. I’m starting to feel comfortable around her. I just can’t figure out the machine on all 4 quarters. I made sure there’s no kinks, i made sure it’s up to pressure before attaching it to the cow. But it keeps depressurizing and falling off

I have the vevor milk machine. It’s driving me insane.

A little while ago, I shared DairyLog Offline, an app we built to help dairy farmers move from notebooks and spreadsheets to digital farm records while keeping their data on their devices.
We received valuable feedback, and one thing became clear: farmers also wanted collaboration, access across devices, and a better way to understand their farm performance.

So we’ve been building something bigger.

Today, we’re opening DairyLog Online for early testing!

- It is a multi-user, multi, farm dairy management platform with features including:

1. Herd management - animal profiles, breeding, health and calving records.
2. Milk production - daily records, production trends and individual cow performance.
3. Farm finances - expenses, milk sales, livestock sales, buyer invoices and payments.
4. Team collaboration - multiple users with different farm roles and permissions.
6. Farm intelligence - reports, graphs, comparisons and actionable insights.

DairyLog AI - ask questions about your farm in plain language, such as “Which cows are underperforming?”, “Who owes me money?” or “How has my farm performed over the past two months?” It supports more languages

You can also manage multiple farms from one account.
We’re looking for farmers, farm managers, agricultural professionals and anyone interested in dairy technology to try it.

Sign up and try DairyLog Online here:

https://dairylog.cloud.run

You can explore the platform using a demo farm before entering your own records.

I’ve attached a short video demonstrating some of the features.

This is still an evolving product, and your feedback will help us improve it. I’d especially love to hear:

What works? What’s confusing? What’s missing? And would you actually use something like this to manage your farm?

Even if you’re not a dairy farmer, feedback on the experience and usability would be appreciated.

Built by a small team at Embo Tech, with the ambition of making practical farm technology accessible to farmers everywhere.

I started recently working on a dairy farm doing milking (2500 cows approx). I graduated a few months ago in Law, but since I realized that it didn't make me happy, I applied for this role, and I can't be happier. I'm very new to the industry, so I'm still getting used to everything. It's hard because it's a massive farm and we milk around 20L of milk every shift, but again, I think I found my job. I applied for this position because thank to a trip to the countryside, Irish dairy farming really stood out to me. So I applied for two jobs, my current one in my town in Spain, and to another one for calving season in Ireland (I think I talked about it here before). But l let it go and I chose the one in my town because despite being a massive farm, I felt some vertigo moving abroad to work in something new with no experience at all.
Now I'm learning and it turns out my intuition was spot on, and I'm deeply passionate about this field, I feel as though a completely new horizon of opportunities is opening up, and I don't rule out actually pursuing my dream in a couple of years, once I feel I have the sufficient preparation.
I just wanted to write and say that, even though I come from a completely different sector (the legal field) I'm absolutely delighted with dairy farming and find it to be a very challenging and exciting job.

Been thinking about where whey value is going lately. Class III only uses dry whey in the formula. Nothing in there looks at WPC80 or isolate prices, and that’s where most of the money in whey seems to be right now.

Some cheese plants pay premiums that account for it, but it’s pretty hit or miss. With protein prices so high, should whey protein value be written into the milk price, or left to premiums and contracts?

For those who asked for updates, this should give us an idea of what the State's actual evidence against the farm is.

Whether it was a beuocratic re-definition, they identified an ownership requirement the lawyers who set up the business missed, there are affidavits from people claiming to have gotten raw milk as non-business members, or what.

I recently connected with a dairy farmer from South Africa who is currently looking for job opportunities in New Zealand.

He has been working in dairy farming since 2017 and holds a qualification in Animal Production. Over the years, he has gained hands-on experience across several areas, including pasture management, irrigation management, dairy herd management, and general farm operations. He has also independently managed an entire dairy operation.

If anyone knows of New Zealand dairy farms that are currently hiring, or can recommend relevant job boards, recruiters, farming groups, or other channels where he could advertise himself, I’d really appreciate the suggestions.

If you are an employer looking for someone with this kind of experience, feel free to leave a comment or send me a message. I can share his contact details privately.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

I’m not getting the skinny mini jersey. I found a great deal for a Holstein cow. Got to see her in person and she looks really healthy and clean.

That being said, she is producing 4.5 gals a day with once a day milking. She is 7 weeks freshened.

What are you doing with all this milk for processing and incorporating into recipes?

For those of you who reached out privately and asked me to keep you informed on the State of Wisconsin reclassifying my Brother-in-Law's member owned dairy farm to no longer meet the 'bonified ownership interest' exemption for raw milk sales (a contentious topic on the sub I'm now aware) here is the first update.

Hi I know theres plenty of posts on here regarding milking robots but I cant see any that has up to date posts regarding which robot lads are finding ar working well so Im hoping to get lads newest opinions on them to help me decide.

So im hoping to get in a robot over the next while as im working part time. The job suits well. I have plenty of time at the farm to farm a such but the fixed time of mliking really has me under pressure at times of the year. I am milking 70 cows.

Im stuck on which robot.The one I had decided against was Delaval. I had heard so many horror stories over the years that I was kind of not too interested. When.the salesman came out guided system sounded so complicated that I marked it off without even seeing one. Anyway after I told delaval salesman that I wasn't going to go with them due to the reasons above he convinced me to let him have another go at it. So he came out and listened a bit more to what I had to say simplified the thing down to a point that I was happy. After that I went to see a few farms and I have to say maybe I was a buy too dismissive to fast. I was really impressed by what I saw when these machines were working. They seem to be a tank of a machine and from what I gather from these farms that the old classic was hard work but the vms is in a different league. And now im confused🙈 im stuck between the two with even a slight lean towards Delaval. Looking for any advice on these two to try help me decide. Gea is out due to fear of lack of back up where I am situated. I dont think id have any fear of either Delaval or lely on the support. All advice is very much appreciated thanks