Submitted by Mark Varner,
University of Maryland
1) Western Canada Dairy Seminar Proceedings
Seminars are often the best way to stay current with the fast
pace of developments in dairy production, but it’s difficult to find
the time to attend every seminar. The Western Canada Dairy Sem
inar is held every March in Alberta, and is one of the top dairy sem
inars in North America. They always have several top
presentations concerning various aspects of dairy cattle health,
and the proceedings from the conference are outstanding. Users of
the site can search for papers on their topic(s) or browse by topi
c/author.
www.afns.ualberta.ca/wcds/
2) Johne’s Information Center
Johne’s is an economically important dairy cattle disease that
has the potential to threaten the positive image in the eyes of the
consumer that is currently enjoyed by dairy products. It is in the
best interest of dairy producers to eradicate Johne’s from their
herd, and the Johne’s Information Center is the best site on the In
ternet devoted to a dairy-related disease.
www.vetmed.wisc.edu/pbs/johnes/index.html
3) Dairy Publications by the Univ. of Florida
Universities have a long tradition of providing high quality
research-based publications concerning dairy cattle, and that trad
ition continues into the new millennium. One of the states with the
best set of publications on-line is the University of Florida. They
have a special section, Reproduction and Health, that has a com
prehensive set of publications, with some new fact-sheets concern
ing metabolic diseases of dairy cattle.
www.edis.ifas.ufl.edu/MENU DS:REPRODU C
4) Nebraska Veterinary and
Biomedical Sciences Newsletter
The University of Nebraska newsletter leads the way for dairy
health-related veterinary newsletters. Important changes in policy
are announced and the site contains summaries and interpretive
reviews of cattle-related veterinary publications. This newsletter is
intended for the well-informed reader and provides an outstanding
entre into the latest scientific advances in the expert-reviewed re
search literature.
www.unl.edu/ianr/nvdls/newslet.htm
5) Consultant: A Diagnostic Support System
for Veterinary Medicine
Dr. M.E. White, from the Cornell University College of Veteri
nary Medicine, has been a pioneer in applying the computer princi
ples of artificial intelligence to veterinary medicine. He has made
his pioneering program, Consultant, available for users on the
WWW, which represents the first of many programs that will
likely become available.
Consultant has been run on various types of computers over the
years, and its database of information has been expanded to in
clude over 500 signs or symptoms, over 5,000 diagnoses, and about
18,000 literature references.
http://www.vet.cornell.edu/consultant/consult.asp
Animal Health Web Sites
6) Penn State’s Dairy & Animal Science Home Page
Penn State’s Dairy and Animal Science Department have been a
pioneer in publishing their information on the Internet, and their
latest revision of the Department’s home page makes it one of the
best on the WWW. Some of the highlights include the “Monitoring
Dairy Heifer Growth” publication that sets the standard for Hol
steins in the US, the Dairy Digest newsletter, outstanding publica
tions concerning dairy reproductive problems. Team Dairy
information, the proceedings from the Mid-Atlantic Dairy Man
agement and Dairy Feed Industry Seminars, an on-line computer
program that calculates the expected net revenue from one unit of
semen, and some fun items like sending an e-mail postcard of a
cow to a friend.
http://www-das.cas.psu.edu/
7) Ken Bailey’s Dairy Outlook
Dairy marketing is playing an increasingly important role to the
profitability of dairy farms. Before herds can make informed deci
sions concerning various health-related issues, the overall financial
picture of the dairy farm must be considered. Dr. Ken Bailey
started providing a weekly analysis of trends/opportunities in
dairy marketing when he was at the University of Missouri, and
he’s continued that trend since coming to Penn State. Besides his
weekly analysis and graph of milk prices, Ken provides Microsoft
Excel computer spreadsheet that examines various dairy market
ing strategies and includes links to other valuable sites.
http://www.aers.psu.edu/dairyoutlook/
8) Jim Quigley’s APC Calf Notes
Dr. Jim Quigley started making his very valuable calf-related in
formation available via the WWW when he was at the University
of Tennessee, and he’s continued that approach since joining the
American Protein Corporation. Now with the name APC Calf
Notes, Jim maintains the most complete set of calf-related infor
mation on the Internet. A separate health and management section
has fifteen outstanding articles in just this section, and there are
special sections for colostrum and colostrum feeding, calf starters
and rumen development and liquid feeding for calves
www.americanprotein.com/calf/calfnotes/APCcalfnotes.htm
9) Net Vet’s Cow Links
When you start using the Internet, most people begin by examin
ing what’s available. Dr. Ken Boschert, a veterinarian at Washing
ton Univ. of St. Louis, is the pioneer in providing an up-to-date
comprehensive set of links to the various sites on the Internet. He
termed his site “Net Vet,” and it’s won most of the awards for
WWW sites. Ken maintains his Cow Links, and it’s one of my rec
ommendations for people just getting started on the Internet.
http://netvet.wustl.edu/cows.htm
10) Dairy-L Home Page
Dairy-L is an email list serv that brings together dairymen and
industry representatives to address the latest issues in dairying.
The Dairy-L home page has information on subscribing, searching
the archives of past messages and getting the most out of Dairy-L.
http://www.wam.umd.edu/-markv/dairy-L.html