“The success of dairy enterprises depends on attending to myriad details daily, and the ability to organize workers and work to accomplish those tasks efficiently and completely. The fundamentals such as adequate housing, adequate supplies of quality forage, other feed sources, water, power, a marketing plan, and a nutrient management plan have to be in place before the first cows are milked.”
Dr. Walter Guterbock joined Venture Dairy in 2014 and participated in the development of the prescriptive model for dairy management in Kenya and India.
He has consulted on dairies in 7 countries and 8 US states and visited dairy farms in 9 other countries. He has been a frequent speaker at professional and industry meetings, has published extensively, and done a lot of multicultural employee training. Walter speaks French and Spanish fluently as well as some German.
Walter is a consultant and educator on dairy farm management and animal health. After Peace Corps service in West Africa he earned a veterinary education and an MS in parasitology at the University of Illinois. Walter practiced in Southern California in an exclusive dairy practice for ten years, gaining expertise in milk quality, reproduction, mastitis prevention and calf raising. He also did consulting in several Western states and Mexico. In 1989 Walter became a clinical professor at the University of California, Davis, founding the clinical teaching program and doing published research on mastitis treatment and digital dermatitis. He also gained expertise in records analysis and dairy nutrition and was the mentor to several residents.
Looking forward to assist with
- Adequate housing
- Calf raising
- Organizing workers and tasks
- Disease prevention
- Nutrient management
After five years at the University, Walter joined a family dairy business as the herd veterinarian for two large dairies in California and ran an approval study for an early version of rBST. In 1999 he became the managing partner of a 700 cow dairy in Western Michigan, continuing to do consulting work on several Michigan and Ohio dairies. After selling that dairy he managed a 3000 cow dairy in Michigan and in 2007 took over management of Columbia River Dairy, then milking 18,000 cows, in Eastern Oregon. He retired from that position in 2012 but has continued to be involved in consulting and rural development programs in several countries.