The Bullvine

What if the weaning dip you've accepted as inevitable is actually a management decision you're making—weeks before it happens? New research reveals that a single week of scours in a calf's first month can cost you 350 kg (770 lbs) of milk in first lactation alone. That's not a treatment cost you'll see on this month's vet bill. It's a penalty that stays hidden for two years while silently compounding across your herd. This episode challenges the industry's "calves are fragile, budget for treatments" mindset and unpacks what progressive operations are doing differently—from ingredient consistency to stage-matched probiotics to one...

That swollen udder on your fresh heifer isn't "just how it is." It's a disease process — and in a market where replacement heifers cost $3,000–$4,000, it's bleeding money you can't afford to lose. Research published in the Journal of Dairy Science found udder edema in 86% of first-lactation heifers across commercial freestall herds. When you stack up milk loss, mastitis, slow-milkers, and early culls, the bill lands at $3,500–$16,000 per year on a 100-cow herd. This episode breaks down the economics, the biology, and the surprisingly affordable management fix that top herds are using to cut their edema rates in half.Key...

She grew up on a small Wisconsin dairy where the rules were clear: the boys milked cows and drove tractor—the girls did not. She watched decisions being made at the kitchen table, knew the numbers, understood the risk, and loved the business, but was never once treated like a future owner. Years later, that “farm daughter” would build a company worth more than many co-ops combined. This episode steps into that gap between what she could have been on the farm and what she became off it—and asks what your operation might be losing in the same blind sp...

Henry Stevens hadn't seen a cow in years. Illness had taken his sight in middle life. But every morning, he walked through his barn at Brookside Farm, running weathered fingers along toplines and udders, making breeding decisions that confounded rivals with perfect vision. His sons learned to trust their blind father's hands more than their own eyes. In 1912, a cow from his program became the first animal of any breed to produce 1,000 pounds of butterfat in a year. The blind man had seen further than anyone.This is the story of four visionaries who, in just 30 years...

Farmers are three-and-a-half times more likely to die by suicide than the general population, yet the industry still tracks every decimal of SCC while ignoring the metric that’s quietly taking out experienced operators. This episode cuts through the stigma and sentiment to look at farmer suicide as a hard business risk and a herd-health issue, not a side conversation. You’ll hear how stress shows up in your cows before it shows up in your charts, why the current economic math is pushing even strong dairies to the edge, and what a practical, numbers‑driven response actually looks like o...

It's 2 a.m. in July 2020. Marcus and Paige Dueck are standing in their tie-stall barn in rural Manitoba, staring at a machine they've never seen before—a rail-mounted robot that just rolled in from Quebec. The instructions are in French. The factory technicians are stuck at home because of COVID travel restrictions. And their newborn daughter is crying in the house.This was supposed to be the moment that changed everything. Instead, it felt like the moment that might break them."I took a deep breath and hoped we'd make it through the night," Paige re...

Dairy labor turnover now averages 38.8% a year in the U.S., quietly stripping profit, stability, and succession options out of herds that otherwise look “fine” on paper. This episode pulls apart the real economics of churn and then does what most industry talk doesn’t—it shows how progressive producers are rebuilding their labor models from the kitchen table out. If you’ve ever felt one resignation away from crisis, this conversation will challenge your assumptions about robots, wages, immigration, and “just hiring better people,” and give you practical models you can adapt on your own farm.Key Takeaways<...

It's 1973, and New England dairy farmers just pulled off something that wasn't supposed to happen—$30 million in negotiated premiums in less than two years. Then they lost it all. Not to processors. Not to consumers. To each other, chasing nickels when they could have held out for dollars.This episode isn't about nostalgia. It's about a question you're facing right now, every time you look at a new milk contract: What does this do for my cash flow today—and what does it do to my community's bargaining power tomorrow?From a tired kid in a Co...

Most dairy families say they want to keep the farm in the family. But the hard data tells a different story: only about 16.5% of family farms actually make it to a third generation of ownership. The culprit isn't a lack of love for the land or the cows—it's a succession model that was designed for a different era. When a traditional "equal shares at full appraised value" buyout loads $600–$750 of debt onto every cow in a business earning a 2% return on assets, you're not planning a transition. You're planning a dispersal in slow motion. This episode breaks down what...

A barn is burning on a cold February morning. Holsteins are screaming inside, the doors are locked from within, and a Cadillac sits at the road with its engine running while sixty head die in the flames. A few decades later, a semen straw labeled “Roybrook Telstar” turns out to be dishwater—and an Angus calf hits the straw instead of a Holstein. Then a $7,500 cow gets insured for $250,000, and two showmen are dead by their own hands within a week. These aren’t urban legends; they’re real stories pulled from Holstein history. And once you’ve heard how they hap...

June 4, 2025, started like any other morning at Outlook Dairy in Lovington, New Mexico. Cows lined up. Units clanked on. Spanish and English mixed over the familiar hum of the parlor. By sunset, 35 of 55 workers were gone—detained or terminated in a single federal enforcement action. Production had effectively ceased. The owner's own words: "We're barely able to keep going."But this isn't a story about politics or policy. It's about what happened next. It's about the neighbours who showed up before anyone called, the teenagers who traded summer break for scraping alleys, and the quiet ways a co...

She was the kid in the baby blue trailer at the edge of an Iowa cornfield, standing at the fair fence line, watching the dairy princesses ride past on the float she’d never be allowed on. Her dad farmed corn and soybeans, not cows, so the crown—and the butter bust—were “never in the cards.” Two decades later, after twelve years of “not yet” in Nashville, that same “corn kid” walked into a working Land O’Lakes member dairy farm with a guitar on her back and cameras rolling. By the time she crouched down to talk to the calves and st...

Most herds still treat the 1.2 mmol/L ketosis cut-point as a hard line: if a fresh cow tests over 1.2, she gets drenched—no questions asked. The problem is, the economics and the latest research strongly suggest that this blanket rule is quietly draining $25,000–$35,000 a year from a typical 500-cow herd while still missing the cows that matter most. In this episode of The Bullvine Podcast, we unpack why the “treat every cow over 1.2” strategy is outdated, how timing, parity, body condition, and system type completely change what a BHB number means, and what a modern, data-driven ketosis playbook looks like for...

The drought had already taken the cows. Then came the day the office closed and thirteen people waited to hear if they still had jobs. In another barn, a wife’s empty chair at the kitchen table made the next milking feel heavier than any pail. Somewhere else, a young breeder was told, “You’re not good enough,” by the very people who were supposed to believe in him. This episode drops you into those moments—when walking away would’ve been easier, maybe even smarter on paper—and follows the people who chose to stay, persist, or show up for someone...

Most of us were taught to trust our eye and our “kind” when picking Holstein heifers. But what if breeding by coat color and style is quietly costing you real money in 2025? In this episode of The Bullvine Podcast, we dig into genomic data, heat-stress research, and beef-on-dairy economics that challenge some of the most deeply held assumptions in dairy breeding. You’ll hear how the genes that control color are not the genes that drive milk and fertility, why genomic selection has doubled genetic gain while accelerating inbreeding, and how a smarter semen and replacement strategy can unlock more t...

Picture this: a two‑month‑old heifer shoved into a gunny sack, riding home on the back seat of a car from a Kansas wheat farm. She’d just sold for seventy‑five dollars in a package deal, placed 21st out of 22 the first time she ever hit a show ring, and almost stayed a 4‑H project no one outside the county fair would remember. That calf became Snowboots Wis Milky Way—EX‑97‑3E‑GMD—and the brood cow behind one of the most influential sires of the 20th century. This episode walks through the decisions, risks, and near‑misses that turned “ju...

Your ration balances perfectly on paper. Your genetics are proven. So why does the bulk tank keep coming up short? A groundbreaking 2024 AI study reveals that the rumen microbiome—not your feed ingredients—accounts for 36% of the variation in feed efficiency among Holstein cows. That's a factor as powerful as genetics and diet combined, yet most operations aren't managing it. This episode exposes the three everyday management gaps quietly draining your tank and lays out a four-phase playbook that progressive herds are using to recover $500–700 per cow annually. If you've ever blamed the ration when the real problem was the ro...

Your calf starter's guaranteed analysis says "molasses." What it doesn't say is whether this batch contains 39% sugar or 67%—a swing documented in peer-reviewed research that represents one of the widest compositional variances in animal nutrition. This episode challenges a dangerous assumption most producers make: that identical feed tags deliver identical nutrition. They don't. And for operations investing $5-6 per day raising replacement heifers, that hidden variability may be the difference between calves that survive and calves that thrive. If you've ever noticed performance dips that don't match management changes, unexplained intake variability, or inconsistent weaning results—this episode reveals what...

In 2006, Francisco Rodriguez didn't own a single registered cow. He was a kid from the Colombian hills who fell asleep studying North American bull catalogues, dreaming of championships he had no business chasing. Seventeen years later, cars were honking and crowds were literally chanting his cow's name as Shakira claimed Supreme Champion at World Dairy Expo. But standing there on the colored shavings, Francisco wasn't thinking about the banner. He was thinking about his wife's words a few years earlier: "Francisco, I'm done." This is the story of a man who learned that breeding world-class cows and building a...

By 2035, roughly 15,000 U.S. dairies will be doing the work that nearly 30,000 did a generation ago. By 2050? We're looking at well under 10,000 herds. This isn't worst-case speculation—it's the middle of the road, based on the same 4% annual decline USDA's Economic Research Service has tracked for over two decades. In this episode, we introduce the Bullvine Dairy Curve: a structural forecast and decision-making framework that shows exactly who survives consolidation—and who gets priced out. If you're running a dairy operation today, this episode lays out the math, the paths, and the five questions you need to answer before the...