PDPW'S 2014-15 LEADERS were elected during a recent board meeting. Fellow board members elected Keith York, Merry Water Farm, Lake Geneva, Wis., to serve as president. Mitch Breunig, Mystic Valley Dairy, Sauk City, Wis., was named vice president; Kay Zwald, Bomaz Farms, Hammond, Wis., secretary; and Charlie Crave, Crave Brothers Farms, Waterloo, Wis., treasurer. Other individuals serving on the PDPW Board of Directors include Brian Forrest, Maple Ridge Dairy Business, Stratford, Wis.; Marty Hallock, MarBec Dairy, Mondovi, Wis.; Walter Meinholz, Blue Star Dairy Farms, DeForest, Wis.; Linda White, Kinnamon Ridge Dairy, Reedsburg, Wis.; and Jeremy Natzke, Wayside Dairy, Greenleaf, Wis. These fellow dairy producers are always willing to listen to you and your ideas. Please contact them at any time; they are your neighbors. 

TWO STEVE'S JOINED PDPW'S ADVISORY BOARD: Steve Kelm, University of Wisconsin-River Falls, River Falls, Wis., and Steve Schwoerer, Badgerland Financial, Fond du Lac, Wis. The "Steve's" graciously accepted PDPW's invitation to give their time and expertise as part of PDPW's four-member advisory team that advise, counsel and serve as a sounding board during PDPW board meetings. Kelm and Schwoerer replace retiring PDPW advisors Roger Swigart, senior client solutions team leader for AgStar Financial Services, and Tom Vander Heiden vice president of growth and development with Midwestern BioAg. PDPW thanks Swigart and Vander Heiden who retired from their advisory positions for their insight and direction and welcomes Kelm and Schwoerer to the team.  

MISS A BARNSTORMING SESSION? NO WORRIES. You can still participate as we are conducting a teleconference session planned for Thursday, April 17. So what's a Barnstorming session? It's where you can share what's on your mind regarding your dairy, your future and how PDPW can better serve you, the next generation and the dairy industry. Pre-registration is as easy as calling 800-947-7379 or going online to www.pdpw.org.

ANNUAL SELF-CERTIFY COMPLIANCE TIME IS HERE. If you have a conservation plan or system in effect on highly erodible cropland and have not converted wetlands. USDA loan applicants are required to certify conservation compliance and wetland compliance. The conservation compliance section of the 2014 Farm Bill requires farmers participating in USDA program to control erosion on highly erodible cropland, and avoid converting wetlands into cropland for commodity crop production. The 2014 Farm Bill added the federal subsidy for crop insurance to the list of USDA benefits that require conservation compliance. The new crop insurance eligibility requirements will take effect beginning with the 2015 growing season. USDA program participants unsure about the status of their conservation plan or system should contact their local NRCS office. A variance to the conservation compliance requirements is allowed when a program participant is working with NRCS to plan or revise their conservation plan. 

WANT TO BOOST POST-FRESH PEN SUCCESS? Then consider following these five tips offered by Dr. Gary Oetzel, University of Wisconsin - Madison School of Veterinary Medicine, at last month's Professional Dairy Producers of Wisconsin Business Conference. 

1. Provide plenty of headlocks in the post-fresh pen. Headlocks should be set so every cow can lock up. While most headlocks measure 24 inches, Oetzel says each cow needs 30 inches of bunk space. 
2. Time the first milking of the day with fresh feed delivery. "This has to be consistent," he explains. "Parlors break down, mixers break down. But if you get off-sync on this one, you are going to pay in cow health and performance, plus you will have more trouble identifying your sick cows."
3. Look for feed "holes" left by each cow. He urges producers to monitor appetite by walking the length of the pen in front of the cows before walking behind them and conducting this walk five to 10 minutes after the last cow has returned from the parlor. 
4. Look beyond the bunk. Oetzel said employees should be cultivated and rewarded to observe individual cows, zeroing in on visual signs of sickness-the eyes, ears, stance. If a cow that normally locks up after milking lies down, examine her. 
5. Check out the rearview. Walk behind cows and evaluate vaginal discharge and manure consistency.

A GREAT SHOW-N-TELL CALF HEALTH SCORING CHART is just a click away. Developed by the School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Wisconsin, the chart is comprised of two pages. Page 1 allows calf health team members to write down individual calf information, with separate columns for animal ID, age and scores for nasal discharge, eyes and/or ears, cough, rectal temperature, total respiratory eval and fecal consistency. Page 2 explains the health scoring criteria-and even provides a photo and a description for each situation. Using nasal discharge as an example, a score of 0 would be given to a calf with "normal serous discharge," a 1 for "small amount of unilateral cloudy discharge," a 2 for "bilateral, cloudy or excessive musus discharge" and a 3 assigned to "copious bilateral mucopurulent discharge." Each condition has a photo that illustrates the description. It's an easy-to-follow look-and-assign-a-score tool. Check it out by clicking here.

SMALL LAPSES IN PROTOCOL just before or immediately after calving can lead to new mastitis infections that begin early in lactation. To that end, Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica Inc. urges dairy producers to stay on top of three key areas:  

• fresh-cow milking procedure; 
• environment immediately before, during and after calving; and 
• dry tube administration. 

BI personnel point out that the milking procedure for a fresh cow is vital and advise dairy producers to use clean milking equipment, always pre-dip, clean the teat end before milking and make sure post-dip coverage is complete. They note that a clean, dry, comfortable environment is an absolute must for pre- and post-calving pens. Plus, with a recent study showing that 94 percent of infections occurring during the dry period were caused by Gram-positive organism, they say proper administration of a first-generation cephalosporin intramammary tube with proven effectiveness against Gram-positive organisms is preferred.