Our team of instructors and guest speakers are leaders in the fields of hoof trimming, veterinary science, and nutrition consulting. Not only do they communicate the scientific information in an easy-to-understand fashion, but they also provide practical solutions to hoof health issues that they encounter on a daily basis. Out staff gets results in the field.
A hoof trimmer, hoof-care consultant and instructor, Karl travels throughout the world teaching hoof health and lameness prevention, and consulting with dairy producers to minimize lameness.
Karl grew up on a dairy farm in Switzerland where he attended and apprenticed in various agricultural programs. In the early 1980s he traveled to the United States for his post-secondary education and began working as a herd manager on Wisconsin dairy farms.
He launched his full-time hoof trimming business, Comfort Hoof Care Inc., in 1989, and began designing upright hoof trimming chutes to practically restrain cattle. He invented the Accu-trim® Leg Restraint System, featured on all Comfort Chutes, to achieve the optimum heel-to-toe view of the hoof. Today, Karl continues to provide hoof care services to small and large farms in south-central Wisconsin, averaging lameness rates below three percent. Karl is also a visiting lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine. In 1995, Karl attended and graduated from the Hoof Care Course at the IPC Dairy Training Center in Friesland, The Netherlands. He began teaching this scientifically based method of functional hoof trimming in 1995 through his comprehensive hoof trimming school, Dairyland Hoof Care Institute Inc. “Through my work I have seen cows endure greater stress as they produce more milk and are confined on concrete more often. This requires more frequent trimming by knowledgeable hoof-care professionals that are getting results.
The more I learn, the more satisfying my work becomes. It is rewarding to see healthier cows and lower levels of lameness. As caretakers of dairy cattle, we have a responsibility to do everything in our power to maintain hoof health, which keeps cows productive and in the herd as long as possible. My personal passion and business mission is to SAVE COWS™
Visit www.KarlBurgi.com
We are delighted to have Travis serve as an instructor here at Dairyland. Our association with Travis began in 2000 when he attended the Technical Hoof Trimming Course prior to launching his hoof trimming business in central Michigan. Since then, he has served the needs of both small, family-owned dairies and large, commercial dairies.
Continued education has always been the keystone of his career. In 2003, he was a student at the Advanced Hoof Health Course. He has traveled abroad to attend the Lameness in Ruminants symposiums and conferences both in Uruguay and New Zealand. Further, he routinely networks with hoof trimmers and researchers both in the United States and within the international dairy community.
He has taught at Dairyland for several years in addition to hosting hoof health workshops in Michigan. Travis traveled to Japan where he trained hoof trimmers and on-farm personnel in the art and science of hoof care.
Travis truly cares about cows and strives to not only provide an excellent service but to educate the dairy managers on practices that will keep cows healthy and productive. We are very proud to have him on our SAVE COWS™ team.
With over 40 years of experience in the dairy industry, Mark brings a unique perspective to the Dairyland program. He owned and operated a modern, family dairy farm for over 25 years, achieving high milk production and improving genetics within the herd.
In 1997, Mark made a career change by attending our Technical Hoof Trimming Course and launching his full time trimming business, Super Moo Hoof Care, where he serves herds in south-central Wisconsin. Furthering his hoof health education, he attended the 2003 Advanced Hoof Health Course and joined the team of instructors here at Dairyland.
Mark enjoys working with cows to help them feel better which will in turn, hopefully, helps his clients. As an instructor, he finds it rewarding to "give back" the knowledge he has gained in his trimming business. Additionally, he is proud to continue the family business tradition of having his wife, who also attended Dairyland, working with him since 2005.
In addition to his hoof health business, he values his volunteer opportunities that take him to interesting parts of the world. He has volunteered on over 30 missions through Wisconsin Volunteer’s Mission. He has also had the opportunity to share his agriculture expertise as a volunteer through Overseas Cooperative Assistance traveling to Belarus, Ukraine and China.
"As both an instructor and a hoof trimmer, I have a responsibility to those entering the hoof trimming business as well as my dairy clients." Mark’s passion for the dairy industry makes him a valuable member of our SAVE COWS™ team.
We are very proud to have Rick as an instructor at Dairyland for the past ten years. He has worked in the dairy industry his entire life and brings that unique expertise to our program. In the past nearly 30 years, he worked as a herd manager on various size dairies before owning his own dairy farm in south-central Wisconsin. In 1998, he attended the Technical Hoof Trimming Course and launched his hoof trimming business while operating his dairy farm. Prior to attending the Advanced Hoof Health Course in 2003, he began trimming full time, serving clients with both large and small dairy herds.
Rick has assisted in all aspects of the Dairyland program; teaching the Technical class in addition to classes at University of Wisconsin-River Falls and the University of Wisconsin, School of Veterinary Medicine. He routinely travels to Turkey teaching on-farm staff about hoof health. Through his work, these dairies have reduced lameness from 40% to less than 5% by following Functional Hoof Trimming techniques.
As an instructor, Rick values the opportunity to help people succeed in the hoof health industry which in turn helps the dairy owners succeed. He believes the opportunities for continuing education and networking through Dairyland are invaluable. "My favorite part of being an instructor is watching the students grow through the week. I encourage them to contact me anytime with questions or come and work with me for a day to fine tune their trimming skills." It is this attitude that we highly value on our SAVE COWS™ team.
Jim has been providing technical service and management expertise to dairies since 1983. In 2003, he started and was owner/operator of Five-Star Dairy Consulting, and more recently was a founding partner in GPS Dairy Consulting. Jim provides comprehensive independent nutrition and management consulting to larger dairies, focusing in the areas of forage management, feeding and bunk management, ingredient procurement and inventory management, herd performance monitoring and financial evaluation, cow comfort and facilities expertise, and heifer management. His consulting also involves training, leadership and people development, commercial development and product evaluation, and technical support in the area of nutrition and herd management.
A Wisconsin native, he received his undergraduate and graduate degrees from UW-Madison in dairy nutrition. Previously, he was a Technical Service Specialist with Monsanto Dairy Business for over five years. Before joining Monsanto Dairy in 1998, Jim was the Dairy Technical Service leader for Vita Plus Corporation for 12 years, which included 5 years of also leading beef feedlot technical services. His training in nutrition is balanced with professional experience and training in commercial development, product management, business management, and coaching.
Visit: GPS Dairy Consulting website
Nigel Cook is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Food Animal Production Medicine section of the University of Wiscons-Madison, School of Veterinary Medicine. He qualified as a veterinarian in 1992 and worked in a large food animal clinic in Southern England for four years before moving to the Royal Veterinary College, Hertfordshire, where he spend three years as lecturer and head of the Large Animal Ambulatory Clinic. Since 1999 he has been in Wisconsin, providing a milk quality troubleshooting service to farms, teaching veterinary students, and developing research related to the influence of the environment on hoof and udder health.
Dr. Cook manages the Cow Comfort and Well-being Program with interests in a variety of subject areas related to the impact of the environment in which we keep our dairy cows on their health and behavior. Current projects include the effect of stall design on lame cow behavior, the effect of heat stress on stall use and lameness, interrelationships between hoof lesions, air quality in livestock buildings, the effect of pen moves on transition cow health and the development of a variety of transition cow health monitors.
Dr Cook's principle responsibilities include teaching the Mastitis Problem Investigation and Basic Skills in Production Medicine clinical rotations in final year, lecturing on mastitis, lameness, and welfare, training students how to hoof trim, while providing a milk quality and facility troubleshooting service to farmers in Wisconsin and neighboring states.
Dr. Cook's primary clinical interests are focused on the impact of the environment on the well-being of the dairy cow. He provides a troubleshooting service to the dairy farms of Wisconsin for problems related to milk quality, clinical mastitis, lameness, and poor reproductive performance. He is also involved in appraising dairy facilities and offering advice on remodeling barns and building new barns to improve cow comfort and the care of dairy cattle.
Visit the FAPM Website
Arturo brings a wide variety of knowledge and experience to Dairyland. As a Veterinary Practitioner in Spain and Portugal, clinical reproductive management, functional trimming and lame cow management was his focus. In addition to clinical practice Arturo possesses the ability to teach. From colostrum management, heifer growth monitoring and artificial insemination to lameness prevention and functional trimming his student reach varies from veterinary practitioners and students to dairy producers. His fluency in multiple languages adds a unique characteristic to the Dairyland instructor group.
Arturo's clinical research involvement through the School of Medicine and Public Health and School of Veterinary Medicine at University of Wisconsin, Madison rounds out his practical experience. His research efforts are published and he is a member of multiple professional affiliations associated with Bovine Science.
Barry is a partner and practicing veterinarian at Waunakee Veterinary Service in Waunakee, Wisconsin. The practice is comprised of six veterinarians, exclusively serving the dairy community in south-central Wisconsin. Dr. Kleppe obtained his Dairy Science Bachelor of Sciences and Master of Sciences degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He qualified as a veterinarian in 1991, graduating from the University of Wisconsin, School of Veterinary Medicine. Since 2001, Dr. Kleppe has taught Dairy Herd Health at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Farm and Industry Short Course of Agricultural Life Sciences.
"I look at lameness in cattle like the old line about the horse. 'For want of a foot, the lost a horse.' The same story holds for dairy cattle. We, as an industry, must continue to work on preventing problems rather than treating problems."