Progressive Dairy Podcast

In this Progressive Dairy Podcast, Editor Peggy Coffeen talks to Nate Heim, herd manager at Yippee! Farms in Pennsylvania. A self-proclaimed “city slicker,” hear how his childhood job of packing apples served as a training ground for finding efficiencies on the 2,300-cow dairy he’s managed since its startup, and how his efforts are shaving time off of milking shifts to get more turns in the double-20 parlor while maintaining production, excellent cow comfort and a loyal team.

In this podcast, Progressive Dairy Editor Peggy Coffeen sits down with Kristy Pagel from GPS Dairy Consulting LLC to talk about one of the most powerful, yet simple, tools dairy teams can use to boost morale, empower people and take things to the next level in 2021.

Get to know Michigan Milk Producers through one of the organization's award-winning dairies. In this issue, Editor Walt Cooley talks with Tony Jandernoa and Brent Simon. Jandernoa is the District 6 representative for Michigan Milk. As a board member, he works with the show's second guest, Brent Simon. Earlier this year, Simon and his wife, Emily, were named Michigan Milk's young cooperators of the year. The Simons operate a farm with 930 cows and 2,300 acres. Brent is a graduate of the dairy management program at Michigan State University, while Emily has a bachelor’s degree from Davenport University.

In this episode, Editor Peggy Coffeen sits down with dairyman Lloyd Holterman to discuss all things genomics, from the early adoption of genetic technology to developing the cows in the Rosy-Lane Holsteins herd today. Holterman discusses how laser-focused, data-driven genetic selection has enabled him to create a more sustainable cow that that lives longer with fewer health incidents and greater feed efficiency. Learn about his strategy, and hear this dairyman’s thoughts on inbreeding, genetic research and the direction of the industry.

Our guest on today’s podcast is Pauly Paul, dairy management consultant and owner of Complete Management Consulting LLC., a hands-on dairy consulting company that specializes in assisting farms with improving their efficiency and income while decreasing operational expenses.

Aidan Connolly, president of AgriTech Capital, joins Editor Walt Cooley in this episode. This is an exclusive interview and a follow-up to the Global Dairy Tech Startup Spotlight which was held in the first part of October 2020. Connolly played a critical role in pulling the event together. Rewatch the event by going to www.dairystartupspotlight.com. Connolly talks more about dairy tech startups and their role in the industry in the next five years.

Editors and Progressive Dairy podcast co-hosts Walt Cooley and Peggy Coffeen treat this anniversary episode a bit differently. The Progressive Dairy podcast launched one year ago. In this episode, learn more about Walt and Peggy, the interview hosts you hear most often in our podcast episodes.

I’m here today at the Milk Source headquarters in Freedom, Wisconsin, with Jim Ostrom. Jim and his partners John Vosters and Todd Willer co-founded Milk Source in 1994, as the three men united their multi-generational farming heritages to grow what started out as a 30-cow dairy owned by John’s parents in 1965 to what is now multi-site, diversified farming operation. Milk Source operates dairies in Wisconsin, Michigan and Missouri, producing milk that is used to make cheese, butter and other dairy products. In addition, Milk Source also has a Wisconsin calf farm and a heifer-raising facility and dairy goat farm. The operation has received recognition as a leader in improving the environment and the economy, and this year, the partners were named the 2020 Dairy Producers of the Year by World Dairy Expo, an honor that will be officially recognized at the 2021 World Dairy Expo.

Editor-in-chief Walt Cooley and Wisconsin dairyman Derek Orth discuss The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle and how the principles in the book could be applied to dairy farm and employee management. Derek has written before for Progressive Dairy about his voracious “reading,” or rather, listening to books. He says The Culture Code is one of those books he’s re-read or listened to several times.

Valene Lickley and Katharine Lotspeich are the co-hosts of the Millennial Ag podcast. Editor Walt Cooley interviews them as they approach their one-year anniversary of the launch of their podcast. The mantra of their podcast is that no topic is off-limits. This episode lives up to it.

In this episode, we hear from 22-year-old dairy farmer Anna Hinchley. Her desire to return to her family’s dairy in Cambridge, Wisconsin, after graduating prompted her parents to move forward with expanding the herd and upgrading to automated milking. Anna has involved in every step of the barn design process. Hear about the key features of her robot barn here.

In this episode, we talk with dairywoman Melissa Traiser. She is the owner-operator of THF Jerseys, a 45-cow dairy in Somerset, Wisconsin. We talk about how COVID-19 has affected her and her farm. She tells us about an act of kindness from her milk hauler that was specifically meaningful to her and her local dairy community. This episode's sponsor is Cargill Animal Nutrition. Cargill is helping dairy farmers say “thank you” to anyone who has shown them an act of kindness, big or small, through their new distinguished White Heart Award. Winners and nominators will receive a year's worth of delicious dairy!

This episode is with regular Progressive Dairy columnist Tim Moffett. Tim is a dairy-farmer comedian. You can find his humor in every issue of the magazine on the inside back cover. Tim has had some time on his hands due to COVID-19 and its prohibition on large gatherings. Thus, many of his scheduled performances have been canceled. He’s itching to get back on stage. During this episode, Tim talks about his upbringing on the farm and brought a few humorous clips from his live performances. He tells the back stories of those jokes.

Canadian dairyman Ben Loewith milks 450 cows in Ontario, Canada. He’s about 2 two hours west of Buffalo, New York, or just a bit southwest of Toronto between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. Loewith’s cows are 100-plus-pound producers. Average isn’t something he’s interested in; the highest achievable results are more fascinating to him. Loewith likes to learn about protocols and processes that produce high performance in dairy cows more so than specific cow pedigrees. He uses a “Good Book,” as he calls it, to help him understand how week-to-week changes affect the results he sees on his farm.

Dairy Management Inc. CEO Tom Gallagher joins Editor Walt Cooley for a discussion about how the dairy check-off has navigated the COVID-19 pandemic. Gallagher talks about where dairy promotion may go in the future, as well as the changing landscape for fluid milk processing and promotion.

This episode’s guest is Dr. Tom Earleywine. He is the Milk Replacer Director of Nutritional Services at Land O'Lakes. He joins Progressive Dairy Editor Walt Cooley to talk about weaning and how it’s changed over the last several years.

Vir-Clar Farms near Fond du Lac, Wisconsin has elevated the accuracy of feed storage, mixing and delivery with an innovative feed center featuring an automated kitchen and on-site grain storage that saves them time and money. The 2,000-cow dairy is owned by Gary and Rose Boyke, along with their son J.R. Boyke and daughter and son-in-law, Katie and Grant Grinstead. We’re here at Vir-Clar today, sitting down in the feed center office with Grant. It was actually Grant’s experience in the pork industry that brought to the table concepts of efficiency, automation and accuracy that make this system work on their dairy. Let’s hear from this self-proclaimed “pig guy” about how the automated feed center came to be, and how it’s working out at Vir-Clar Farms.

When prepartum cows are fed a negative DCAD diet, inducing a mild compensated metabolic acidosis, calcium status is improved, resulting in healthier, more productive cows. Recently, some nutritionist have been feeding even lower-DCAD diets (more anions) to acidify cows more deeply than the majority of published research. At these higher, more extreme levels of acidification, cows may walk a fine line between being OK and being overwhelmed by uncompensated metabolic acidosis. Progressive Dairy Editor Audrey Schmitz spoke with Tim Brown to hear more about DCAD myths and the optimum level for negative DCAD diets.

Today’s episode provides summaries of three different articles we’ve published this past year on manure management. Listen in to find out how to improve nitrogen efficiency from farm to field, what can be done to get the most value from manure and which manure system will make a good addition to your farm.

Ray Bohacz of the Idle Chatter podcast and farmmachinerydigest.com joins Editor Walt Cooley to introduce himself to readers and share three tips for preventative maintenance that will help avoid machinery breakdowns. Bohacz has published more than 3,000 technical articles about machinery in his career. His columns recently began appearing regularly in Progressive Dairy magazine.

Hannah Vander Poel is a female dairy farmer using social media to advocate for the dairy industry. Under the Instagram name @IDdairygirl, she shares the joys and challenges of dairy farm life from Northern Sky Dairy in Castleford, Idaho. Vander Poel can be found elbow-deep in daily work on the 1,000-cow dairy, a sister-site to her home farm where her parents reside, Sky View Dairy, in Bakersfield, California. In between breeding cows and herd data entry, she balances taking classes toward her accounting degree as a satellite student at Boise State University. Vander Poel was a featured speaker on the Innovation Stage at the 2020 Dairy Strong Conference held in January in Madison, Wisconsin. There, she shared her social media experience and inspired other dairy farmers to do the same. Progressive Dairy Editor Peggy Coffeen sat down with Vander Poel to hear more about the hows and whys behind her social media advocacy.

Some estimates indicate that by 2040, just 5% of farms will produce 75% or more of America’s agricultural output. But who will be in that 5%? Aimpoint Research seeks to answer this question. The firm has conducted new, landmark research revealing the psychology of the farmers who are most likely to lead the industry in 2040 and both the internal and external factors impacting their success. Brett Sciotto, president and CEO of Aimpoint Research, is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and a former army intelligence officer. He revealed findings from the firm’s research at the 2020 Dairy Strong Conference held in January in Madison, Wisconsin. Who will be the “farmers of the future”? Sciotto shares more with Progressive Dairy Editor Peggy Coffeen about the psychographic segmentation of the current farming population, which groups he believes will remain in business over the next 20 years, and how that impacts interactions within the agri-food supply chain.

At the beginning of 2020, the American Association of Bovine Practitioners (AABP) updated its guidelines for how dehorning should be done on dairy farms. The national organization first established guidelines for this practice in 2014. One significant update in the dehorning guidelines is the recommendation for pain mitigation. Progressive Dairy Editor Walt Cooley spoke with AABP’s Executive Director Fred Gingrich, DVM, about the changes and what they mean on-farm.

If you’ve ever been around a dairy cattle showring, or picked up a purebred publication, there's a good chance you know the name “Budjon.” One of the most well-known prefixes in today’s registered cattle business, their lengthy list of showring achievements include: 6 Premier Breeder banners from World Dairy Expo5 National Show Supreme Champions200 All-American nominations among the Holstein, Jersey and Red and White breeds100 All-Canadian nominations across all those three breeds as well But don’t let the showring fame fool you. The Budjon brand isn’t only about trophies and ribbons; they have adapted their focus to become known as a premier boarding facility for elite genetics, and they continue to diversify and re-structure to create a permanent place for themselves in an ever-changing dairy industry. So how are they doing this? Listen to Editor Peggy Coffeen’s interview with the farm to find out.

Editor Karen Lee sits down with DeLaval president and CEO Joakim Rosengren to hear his views on sustainability, the future of milking equipment, dairy on an international stage and what motivates him during tough times. Rosengren also shares a couple of interesting, yet short-lived, milking equipment innovations that can be found in the company’s museum in Sweden.

Editor Walt Cooley and ag economist Marin Bozic of the University of Minnesota discuss macroeconomic factors that will likely influence the upcoming decade. In this episode, Bozic touches on the importance of a trade deal with China, the increasing automation of jobs in the U.S. economy, U.S. energy independence’s rearranging of geopolitics and the potential impact of the USMCA trade deal being ratified.

Editor Walt Cooley and Professional Dairy Producers Executive Director Shelly Mayer remind listeners of the reason for the season and challenge all to be grateful for their individual “super power.”

Illinois dairyman Andy Lenkaitis converted his home farm Red Shirt Holsteins to robotic milking in 2017. He is also an environmental sales engineer and works for GEA. He assists dairy farms that are transitioning from conventional to robotic milking. In this episode, he talks about his own robotic milking transition, what he’s found is helpful to producers going through their own transitions and the biggest challenges he sees in most transitions to robots.

In this episode, Editor Peggy Coffeen talks with the Dr. Gordie Jones about a dairy barn design concept he contrived called the all-seasons hybrid barn.

Editor Walt Cooley interviews magazine contributor Andy Junkin. He calls himself a specialist in the decision culture of farmers. In short, he’s a farm family consultant. He’s written several books based on his experience consulting with farms. His most recent book is called Bulletproof Your Farm. It’s a workbook of sorts on how to get your family meeting regularly.

In this episode, Editor Walt Cooley talks with the new principal partners of Vault Ag about forward contracting and risk management in the dairy industry. In October 2019, Rice Dairy LLC in Chicago, Illinois, and Commodity Risk Management Group in Platteville, Wisconsin, announced a partnership between the two businesses to create a single brokerage company that will service the agriculture and dairy industries under the banner of Vault Ag Holding Company LLC. I got a chance to sit down with Pete Turk and Mike North to discuss risk management and forward contracting.

Automated milking systems are changing the way today’s farms function. As more and more dairies adopt the technology, the industry is adjusting its tried and true methods and there is always something new to be said on the topic. Today’s episode provides summaries of three different articles we’ve published this past year on incorporating robots. Listen in to find out whether you should retrofit or build new to accommodate automated milking systems in your barn. Find out the best techniques to train fresh cows for robotic milking success. Lastly, learn what the signals cows are giving you in an automated system mean and how to respond.

Minnesota dairyman Michael Johnson has been using eartag activity monitoring from CowManager for four and a half years. In this episode, he talks about his experience installing the technology, his results and advice for other dairymen who may be considering similar technology. Johnson operates Trailside Holsteins in Fountain, Minnesota, and milks 600-cows.

The pro-livestock, non-profit organization Animal Ag Alliance annually attends the Animal Rights National Conference to discover trends in strategy and tactics among anti-animal agriculture groups. (No, they don’t use undercover tactics to get in.) Kay Johnson Smith, CEO of the Animal Ag Alliance, recaps in this episode what the alliance heard and saw at the 2019 event held in Alexandria, Virginia, and what it means for dairy farmers.

In this first-ever episode, listen to Progressive Dairy editors Walt Cooley, Karen Lee, Peggy Coffeen and Dave Natzke discuss what you can expect from future podcasts published by the magazine.