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Dairy training more “hands on” with new instructor
Dairy Cows
Recent changes at the University of Wisconsin’s Farm and Industry Short Course are giving students more hands-on experience.
Department Chair Professor Kent Weigel says they want to better utilize the research herds for instruction in dairy science, and that could
Dr. Kent Weigel
include special courses at Marshfield. “They could go up to Marshfield and have an intensive dairy heifer raising boot camp, up at Marshfield, because we have one of the world’s best, probably the world’s best dairy research facilities up there.”
Eric Ronk-PHOTO: UW Madison
UW-Madison has dairy herds at the Madison campus, and at research farms in Arlington and Marshfield.
Former Calumet County Extension Agent Eric Ronk now handles core curriculum instruction, with fewer lectures and more learning-by-doing.
UW Madison’s 16-week program offers more than 30 agribusiness courses including Dairy Science. Weigel tells Brownfield the 130-year-old model of having several Dairy Science instructors teach short-course students in their spare time had to change because there are fewer instructors and smaller budgets.
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