General Management
Housing
Producers housed dry cows in loose housing (52%), free stalls (39%), and other types of housing (9%). Most producers (82%), housed the high producing group of lactating cows in free used it on selected cows in their herds while 3% had used it on all eligible cows. Twenty-five percent of the producers reported using BST at the time of the survey.
The number of extension meetings attended by each producer in the year prior to the study averaged 1 + 2 (range, 0 to 15). The majority of the producers (62%) had not attended any extension meetings in the year, while 13% attended only one meeting.
Reproduction
For those producers responding, the breeding protocol for their cows in the five years prior to the study was exclusively artificial insemination (AI, 65% of herds), AI and bull (29% of herds), and exclusively natural service (5% of herds). The breeding protocol for heifers in the previous 5 years was exclusively AI (54% of herds), AI and bull (31% of herds), and exclusively bull (14% of herds).