The weather is warming (love those double-digits) and getting off the farm to a meeting seems more likely than it did just a month ago.
Something near you. Check out these upcoming opportunities for both you and your employees:
* David Kohl and Mike Hutjens are the outstanding speakers headlining the 2004 Northeast Ohio Dairy Management Conference being held March 18 at the Raintree Country Club in North Canton.
Kohl, a teacher and professor in Agricultural Finance and Small Business Management at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, will address timely issues for today’s dairy businessman.
What you’ll learn. Take-home tools based on his presentations include tips on troubleshooting your financial bottom line, a 12-step financial fitness test and tips to energize the strategic planning sessions (you should be having!)
Hutjens is back, following up on his 2002 visit to Ohio. Professor, teacher and writer, Hutjens does a fantastic job evaluating nutrition items on the market for dairy production.
He then delivers the bottom line: does the stuff work and is it worth your time and money.
Several newer nutrition items or practices including drenching, biotin and organic selenium will be included in his presentations.
Undecided about the importance of feed efficiencies in your nutrition program? Hutjens will also discuss the what, when, why and how of the feed efficiency issues.
Cost. Registration for the conference is needed by March 12. The best deal: register by March 10 for $25 per person. Registration after the March 10 increases to $35.
Members of the Ohio Dairy Producer’s organization pay a discounted rate of $20 per member until March 10.
* The 2004 Northeast Ohio Dairy Conference, March 18, is sponsored by the Ohio State University Extension, North District and many northeast Ohio dairy businesses.
Registration materials are available from an Extension office, or online at http://north.osu.edu.
For the industry types, wake up to “Ten Golden Rules of Management and Marketing” presented by David Kohl at the dairy industry breakfast served that same morning.
If you have not already received the breakfast brochure, please e-mail me at shoemaker.3@osu.edu and we will get one to you.
* While the Dairy Management Conference is also an excellent training opportunity for employees involved in management or nutrition aspects of your dairy, milkers have not been forgotten.
Short courses. The OSU Dairy Farm Employee Short Course provides participants with the fundamentals of animal behavior and handling, mammary gland anatomy and physiology milking systems and procedures and mastitis control.
The evening discussion will focus on getting along with your employer and fellow workers.
March 23 and 24 (Wooster) and March 15 and 16 (Defiance) are the dates for the short courses.
Spanish language interpretation will be available at both locations.
Registration information is available by calling Tom Noyes at 330-253-3667 or Jan Elliot at 330-287-7511.
Hope to see you and your employees at these programs in March.
(The author is the northeast Ohio district dairy specialist with OSU Extension. Send comments or questions in care of Farm and Dairy, P.O. Box 38, Salem, OH 44460.)
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