Tag Archives: dairy cows

Ten years in the making

UD alumna Windle sets off on professional journey with feed company

After a decade at the University of Delaware, Michelle Windle is beginning her professional career with Vita Plus, a premier agricultural feed company located in Madison, Wis. And to think that it all began with her knocking on the doors of professors in the Department of Animal and Food Sciences during her junior year as an undergraduate looking for a job. 

As fate would have it, Windle ended up knocking on the door of Limin Kung Jr., the S. Hallock du Pont Professor of Animal and Food Sciences, and he offered her some hours in his laboratory. “To tell you the truth, at the time I had bright red dreadlocks. I don’t know what he saw in me, but I’m glad that he did,” said Windle.  (more…)

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Got Milk? Climate Change Means Stressed Cows in Southern U.S. May Have Less

“Cows are happy in parts of Northern California and not in Florida” is a good way to sum up the findings of new research from the University of Washington, said Yoram Bauman, best known as the “stand-up economist.”

Bauman and colleagues found that the decline in milk production due to climate change will vary across the U.S., since there are significant differences in humidity and how much the temperature swings between night and day across the country. For instance, the humidity and hot nights make the Southeast the most unfriendly place in the country for dairy cows.

Their study combined high-resolution climate data and county-level dairy industry data with a method for figuring out how weather affects milk production. The result is a more detailed report than previous studies and includes a county-by-county assessment — that will be available to farmers — of the impact climate change will have on Holstein milk production in the U.S. through 2080. (more…)

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