World Dairy Diary coverage of World Dairy Expo is sponsored by:
There were a record 755 companies exhibiting at World Dairy Expo this year, which made it difficult to visit them all, but we did what we could!
One booth I visited was Arm and Hammer Animal Nutrition where I talked with president Curt Siverling who says it has been a challenging year for them along with the rest of the dairy industry, since they are primarily a dairy nutrition focused company. Curt says the economic situation has forced many producers to make some “irrational ration decisions” that will eventually have to be reversed. “What’s encouraging to us, however, is even in this very difficult time, we continue to get dairymen to begin using some of our products for the first time,” Curt said. AH offers seven different branded products, starting with the original sodium bicarbonate buffer where the company started, all of which they back up with university studies that prove return on investment for producers.
Listen to my interview with Curt here:
[audio:http://zimmcomm.biz/wdexpo/wdx09-arm-hammer.mp3]
I also stopped by the Novartis Animal Health booth to talk about Healthy Heifer™, a new heifer management program designed to maximize the long-term value of dairy replacement heifers through established health and management protocols. Director of Veterinary Services Dr. Doug Scholz says they just launched this program last month. “We try to take a full management approach,” Doug says. “They need to use reproductive vaccines, vaccines to prevent calf scours, but really the program is much deeper than that. Doing the proper nutritional management, proper animal husbandry management, proper deworming – its really an encompassing program.”
Novartis feels that veterinarians need to be the knowledge source for producers, so the program requires the involvement of the herd veterinarian for enrollment. Listen to Doug explain more about Healthy Heifer here:
[audio:http://zimmcomm.biz/wdexpo/wdx09-novartis.mp3]