Just as summer 2026 was getting started, I stumbled into three situations where cattlemen reported incidence of foot rot in their livestock. Two of the individuals I work with in an advisory capacity – one a dairyman, the other a beef (mostly Angus) farmer. A discussion of foot rot should logically ...

Farmers have a love/hate relationship with phosphorus (P). It’s a dietary requirement for livestock but significant P is excreted in manure and urine. Depending on on-farm conservation practices, P accumulates in runoff and soil erosion and is carried to important watersheds, resulting in eutrophica...

Using winter rye in his crop rotation has freed farmer Sandy Syburg from a chore he never much enjoyed: spreading poultry litter. His biologically active soil now generates enough nitrogen that he no longer needs to import additional fertility onto his farm. Syburg, whose farm has been certified org...

Small ruminants come up with a variety of reasons to have diarrhea. A change in feed, weather, stress or disease can result in a miserable animal with a messy hind end. One cause of diarrhea in young lambs and kids is coccidiosis, but by the time diarrhea is evident, the animal is likely already exp...

Recently I learned a friend named Wendy had purchased her very first horse, and with it came a surprise that I needed to see. Her story was interesting, and we decided to meet this past weekend at the farm to talk while Wendy was doing the morning chores. She had first visited this farm in April 202...

As I’m writing this column early on June 30, the weather forecast for the Utica area spotlighted this headline: “Dangerous heat to hit parts of U.S. ahead of July 4” – with worst hit areas being the Northeast. According to David Robinson, climatologist at Rutgers University, “A heat dome (hitting th...

The American Milking Shorthorn Society brought its 2026 national breed convention to Cortland, NY. Four days of livestock showing, networking, recognition and a little bit of fun concluded with the National Sale at the Cortland County Fairgrounds on June 25. The National Junior Heifer Show took plac...

Full-time Pennsylvania Army National Guardsman CJ Lafferty had some downtime on his last deployment in Kuwait, so he decided to write a livestock-based business plan. He was ready to move out of his suburban cul-de-sac where he’d been dabbling with raising animals – a flock of hens and a few pet goa...

Nearly everyone has heard of a Rhode Island Red chicken, but what about the Rhode Island White? While some non-ag people are familiar with the Araucana, or Easter egg chicken, do they know about the Spitzhauben? Delaware, Dominique and Dorking chickens may share the first letter of their names, but ...