Some Udder Thoughts

Introduction.

On my drive home today from a Michigan vacation with my wife, I saw many farmers in their combines out at work in the fields. Stay safe and drive slowly! If you drive up on farm equipment, be safe, courteous and respectful. If you’re in the combine, grain cart, or tractor – stay safe and get through harvest in one piece!

What’s new in dairy science?

Sometimes, when perusing the dairy science literature I come across data that is a great reminder of some management fundamentals. Today’s article reminded me how critical hoof health and hoof care is for lactating dairy cattle and profitability.

A group of researchers out of the United Kingdom and Europe investigated hoof health and lameness effects on dairy cow milk production. The data were from 11 farms, 6,050 cows, and included 2.1 million daily milk production records. A rigorous database, for sure! They utilized mixed model statistics to investigate associations of lameness with milk production. Their results were quite clear.

First, the cows averaged 33 kg/d of milk across the 11 farms. Each farm utilized footbaths and conducted lameness screening as part of their management protocols. In this database, they observed an incidence rate of 31 hoof-related disorders per 100 cows per year. What about the association with milk yield? The average milk yield loss for a hoof health disorder was 1.5 kg/d. The more severe cases had greater production losses; cows that were treated for at least 1 d for their hoof-health condition made 2 kg/d less milk than their healthy counterparts. Additionally, the investigators demonstrated that milk production declined well-prior to the hoof disease diagnosis.

Hoof care is critical! It is not only important for animal welfare – but a wise investment for farm profitability. It behooves us to take care of our cows’ feet!

Read the entire article here: https://doi.org/10.3168/jds.2025-26658

Leadership, growth, and development.

I am writing this section today as a reminder for myself. Never forget to listen or how to listen well!

To be honest, I am embarrassed that I needed the reminder. Just ask my students – I tend to hop on a soap-box from time to time and try to dispense knowledge or wisdom like candy from a candy machine. Whether what I have to say is valuable is a discussion for another day. When I hear myself rambling, I try to quickly stop and listen to whomever I am chatting with.

Why is listening so important? For starters, being a poor listener makes for poor company and a poor listener is probably a poor teammate, friend, leader, or partner. Why? Because people who don’t listen don’t learn. And those who listen learn a lot! Learning and growing by listening will make you a better person over the long haul.

A reminder to listen well is especially important for people getting comfortable in leadership positions. Just as you get comfortable and think you have a handle on your role, you begin to build confidence, or arrogance if it’s too much, and you stop listening to your team. You probably spend more time instructing than listening. It makes sense to a degree. That is your job. As a leader you likely have to give direction and give orders but if you forget how to listen those orders and directions will be increasingly misguided, misplaced, or just plain wrong.

Notice yourself this week. How much do you listen? Are you the first to speak or the last to speak? When you listen – how are you listening? Are you absorbing, thinking, and learning? Or simply responding? I can tell you from personal experience that I have not been listening as well as I’d like and I plan to get back on track!

Final Thoughts.

One of my newer pastimes is reading philosophy so I’ll share a relevant quote here that has been attributed to Epictetus – “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak”.