New members, Welcome! Suggestions and a Request for New Members

[administrator]

Hi, I wanted to personally welcome new members and let you know a little more about dairyforums. This site was started by me, John Osthus. I'm not with any company or university. I'm just a computer-geek sort of guy who has spent about 20 years working at various agricultural communications jobs for companies like Dow, Chevron, ICI, John Deere and Monsanto. I launched this forum because I wanted to help the dairy industry after meeting so many wonderful producers, vets and nutritionists during my last job and learning first-hand about some of the blessings and challenges that com with dairying. This forum is my way of trying to give something back and help the industry overcome some of the unique challenges it faces.

I grew up the son of a country vet, and we lived a mile from the last dairy in my county -- a herd of about 50 Jerseys. We used to stop at the McCleary's farm to pump water from the well by their back porch and watch Queeny the border collie work the cows. I remember dad pointing out how the dog dropped when the cows kicked, just missing the hoof. Dad switched over to small animals way back in 1973, just before his central Illinois clients switched from cattle to corn and beans, and I lost my "job" cleaning his boots after farm calls. I didn't grow up on a farm, but I lived 1/4 mile across a pasture from town. I went to school with kids who farmed and I wish I would have been born one generation earlier so I could have farmed to. I much prefer the quiet countryside to the city, and I would love to have been a producer. Working in agricultural marketing has been a real privilege.

After finally getting a chance to work with dairy farmers, and visiting with dairy producers who have 10 cows and producers who have two rotary 80s, I realized that there is no other business quite like dairying. I remember seeing dairies standing empty in some areas, and being built in others, and being curious what made the difference. My hope is this forum will help dairy people and professionals stick together and be stronger by sharing information, ideas and conversation with each other. With dairyforums.com, my hope is that your "dairy neighborhood" can become a lot larger and stronger.

That said, I have a BIG favor to ask new members or guests -- this forum is brand new. That means many of the topics posted here now are starter topics that were posted by me, and I'm asking new members to help get the ball going please.

Please throw out some discussions of your own and help get this forum going. I can promise you that once this forum has enough posts to keep itself going, it will be very valuable to you.

If you have suggestions for the forum, or you need help with something information-wise, please post a thread here. Or feel free to email me directly at josthus@dairyforums.com.

Thanks!

[johno]

Using this site is simple, and easy. When you post, you will see handy formatting tools above the place where you type your message. You can preview your post if you want, and edit it for a while later if you change your mind about something...

I am a member of several other forums like this one for my hobbies like cars and photography for example. When a forum gets going it's a great way to share information and stick together as a community.

Thanks for visiting!

John

[Sarah317]

John - Just read this for the first time. I enjoyed reading about your experiences. Thanks for starting this online community .

[FayeFarms]

DITTO! John has done a lot of background work and donated much of his personal time to offer this opportunity for dairy farmers to help each other. What used to take 10 years to learn from other farmers at sales, meetings, or across the fence could be learned in a few months on a dairy specific site like this. In today's world, a dairy farmer could avoid thousands of dollars in losses by learning from other dairy farmers whether a practice or product works or not.

Only thing is.....Takes Two To Dance.

[johno]

Thank you so much for the kind words.

I am so grateful for the many stalwart regulars around here who have kept this thing alive.

Truth be told, I kind of coasted on this the last couple of months so I could spend time with my daughter Ava during the summer. I am destined to get another job again sooner than later, and I really wanted to focus on her. I knew that would be OK for a while with me just doing server backups etc, since I belong in the background anyway.

Now I am turning my attention back to the forum full time. The nice folks at Dairy Today were kind enough to give me a nice link from their site, and I will be approaching other organizations to offer this forum to their members.

I think Dairyforums.com will get stronger the more producers and industry professionals we get in here. I have written a number of national leaders in dairy research at universities, and been pretty much ignored so far, so I'm not sure whether they will ever see this as a useful outreach tool, or if it's just going to take some time. Who knows, maybe those folks could learn something around here?

Anyway, I would be very grateful if you would share news of this forum with any organizations you belong to. Or your friends.

I belong to a car forum that's set up a lot like this one, and it is very valuable as a way to share information and virtually meet people.

Meanwhile, thanks again for your support, and for your encouragement. It feels good to be a part of this growing community.

best regards,

Johno

[Dairyexpert]

Don't worry sir,
We will make the forum an active one by posting as many number of threads as possible. But the problem is with low membership and even with the available members, it seems, as I have guessed many people are not logging on to it as frequently as possible b'cos of their preoccupation in dairying activiites... There is no reply to postings in many cases. These areas have to be addressed so that the forum gets back to its liveliness.

[administrator]

Thanks for the offer to help.

There's no doubt dairy producers are busy people.

A bit of history: this forum is a year old and started with zero budget and zero ad/PR spending. we get traffic only by word of mouth. Any ideas how to get traffic with zero budget and I'm all ears.

Actually, it's getting more lively, and there are a number of faithful members who are keeping it going.

If word spreads and it takes off more, great. If not, the market spoke.

I'm OK with either road. But I have a preference.

best regards,

john

[andersfarm]

Hi,
I am new to the forum although my girls use Nancy Drew Interactive and it has basicaly the same user set up so they have been helping me.

I am so glad someone started a Dairy Forum. I was raised around cows and my favorite breed of cows is the Jersey, (which I own only one). My daughter owns a Holstein/Angus mix heifer, and my youngest daughter owns a Herford/Santa gertrutis mix steer that she hopes to show next year in 4-H.
I hope this forum keeps going and I wish all the dairys could come back that have had to shut down. There is only a few dairys left where I live and when I moved here there was one in every town.

Just wanted to say thanks Dairy Forum!!!

[Desertwinds]

Hi I just signed on just in time for our season. We are looking for Jersys in Arizona for 4-H kids and having a hard time. any suggestions?:r We have owned a Holstein,Brown Swiss, and a Jersy. Dylen liked the Jersy best!! We currently own a 2 1/2 year old Holstein Heifer. 1500lb baby. She was born at the university of Arizona ag Center. too big to handle another year!! Great to talk to cow people!!

[Waldershrek]

New guy here. This is exactly what I've been looking for. I'm working on starting my own dairy operation and have been looking for a place I could ask questions and opinions and couldn't find one.....until now.

[Felix]

Hello, Faye Farms, I am Felix Gorges from west Sedgwick. I've heard about your grazing from De-laval, Roger Murphy, and latest Matt Berstien. I am converting my holstein herd to crossbreds for better grazing and less grain consumption. I hope to be more in contact in the future.