Dairy ads

It's time for another look through Progressive Dairyman to see what's for sale!

This week I'm going to focus on the 'showing' part of the ad.

In few ads for human products do they show you the picture of the malady. For instance, you almost never see a real picture of toenail fungus. Instead, the commercials show a gross cartoonish character. (Which is gross enough, of course.)

But the ads here ...

They want to show you it, warts and all. Literally.

I guess that works as an educational tool as well. For instance, say you didn't know what your cows had. You browse through the magazine, and - they must have warts!

Warts on hooves are bad for cattle because it hurts them. We use a foot bath to prevent and treat warts.

The same applies to pinkeye. I've never seen a human pinkeye treatment that shows a kid with crusty, weepy eye. Maybe I don't see enough parenting magazines, but that seems out of place.

But the dairy magazines - yes! How do you know it's pinkeye if you don't know what it looks like?

Need a closer look?

A different product? And picture? Yes, please!

But it's not to say that everything about the ads is different. It's certainly not.

Take a look at this next ad. It's for Animat, a company that sells mats for cattle to lie on in barns.

So among the infected hooves and eyes you see a pretty milkmaid? It stands out. Not only does the old adage 'sex sells' apply, but she looks even better next to warts.

Foot bath

What does the term 'foot bath' bring to mind? I’m thinking … a spa, white towels, some tea brewing, lilac-scented water, some new-agey music playing …

A dairy farm foot bath is almost exactly like that. It’s like a kiddie pool that the cows wade through when they leave the parlor. (All dairy farms do this.) We put copper sulfate in it. We can’t use it when it’s super cold, because it freezes, and then the cows exiting the milkhouse would look like the ice skating scene from Bambi.

We have a relatively new one. The last one was so small that the cows would sometimes just step around it. This new, bigger one ensures that it bathes all four hooves as they walk.

Unfortunately, ours cracked. Now we need to get a new one, because it’s really important that the cows get their feet treated. Why? Because the copper sulfate reduces the incidence and severity of hoof rot and hairy heel warts.

Yes, you read that right. Go ahead, look at some pictures! You’d do all you could to prevent that too. They’d never let you back in the spa.