Dairy Health Management
Abstract
Since I am specializing in dairy practice, my wife gave me an article the other night which said "a specialist is a man who learns more and more about Jess and less until he finds out everything there is to know about nothing! " As some of you probably know, my practice extends over quite an area in the Southeast and I have active clients from Arkansas to the Carolinas and from Tennessee to Florida. This entails a lot of travel. My profession is related entirely to dairy practice. I work with large herds across the Southeast and I feel like the Southeast is one of the up and coming livestock areas of the United States. I hope to be part of our improved livestock industry in this area. I think that probably there is not anybody in this room that could not help a large dairy farmer or a large beef cattle farmer or any large livestock operation (or small farmer for that matter either). I think it becomes a matter of being able to apply the scientific knowledge or that we have not done what we know should be done, so I find personal evaluation and human motivation become a great part of my praci1ice-not knowing what to do but how to get it done, and maybe 10% or 15% of the time we can get done what we would like to get done. I would like to get in on as much of the business end of my clients as I can. I think that not only is veterinary medicine and health management a part of it but we need to know a lot of his total business management in terms of cash flow, etc. Dairymen in our area, as a group, are one of the worst to overcapitalize I think I ever saw. It seems they always have to have that new silo and that new tractor. None of the items that they just think they have to have to increase the cash flow, and it takes cash flow to pay debts. We are in the dairy business at home. We milk about 700 head and we know there is a lot of money in the dairy business. I have not had much out, but I know there is a lot in there. I find that personal management or human motivation seems to be a great part of my practice.
