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DAIRY ST R
January 14, 2023
“All dairy, all the time”™
Volume 24, No. 22
A farm with staying power Potratz family rolls with the punches while transforming their operation By Stacey Smart
stacey.s@dairystar.com
OSHKOSH, Wis. – From the rst barn re in 1980 to an expansion in 2013 that brought the third generation home full time, the skyline at Potratz farm is ever changing. Since Jim Potratz’s dad purchased the farm in 1947, the dairy has changed much in appearance and management style. “There have been a lot of changes here over the years, and roads coming through changed the look of the place a lot too,” Jim said. “Highway 41 has taken away some of our land gradually. It went from two lanes to four, and then they added a frontage road as well.” Jim and his wife, Paula, farm with their son, Matt,
Flames consume area of second oor, no people injured
milking 160 cows and farming 300 acres near Oshkosh. Out of their ve children, Matt was the one who always wanted to be a farmer. “When I was a kid, I always said I wanted to take over the farm,” Matt said. Matt and his wife, Megan, have four kids – Oliver, Addaline, Charlotte and Lincoln – who are the fourth generation on the farm. After holding jobs in a paint shop and the construction industry, Matt’s heart called him home. When working construction in between morning and night milkings, Matt’s thoughts often wandered to the farm as he found himself wondering if things were getting done during the day while he was gone. “Once we put up the new barn, I had no time for construction anymore,” Matt said. In 2013, the Potratz family built a freestall barn, milking parlor and liquid manure pit while nearly tripling the size of their herd.
STACEY SMART/DAIRY STAR
The Potratz family – Addaline (front, from le�), Charlo�e and Oliver; (back, from le�) Jim, Paula, Ma� holding Lincoln, and Megan – milks 160 cows and farms 300 acres near Oshkosh, Wisconsin. During an expansion in 2013, the family nearly tripled the size of its herd and built a freestall barn, milking parlor and liquid manure pit. Jim said it was a big step for the farm. “We either had to get out
or get bigger to support two families, but Matt’s love of the farm pulled him back here,”
AMPI plant suffers re
By Stacey Smart
stacey.s@dairystar.com
PORTAGE, Wis. – On the evening of Jan. 2, the Associated Milk Producers Inc. cheese packaging plant in Portage caught re. Thirty employees were in the plant at the time. “Employees were immediately evacuated, and no one was injured,” said Sarah Schmidt, vice president of marketing at AMPI. “The re was contained to an area on the second oor and extinguished that night.” Upon arrival at the scene, the Portage Fire Department reported heavy smoke and re coming from
PHOTO COURTESY OF PORTAGE FIRE DEPARTMENT
Fire departments work to ex�nguish a re at the Associated Milk Producers Inc. cheese packaging plant Jan. 2 in Portage, Wisconsin. Contained to an area on the second oor, the re was ex�nguished that night, and nobody was injured.
the roof of the dairy plant. pushed back by the heat and monitor to ght the re until Fire crews stretched lines to smoke. Unable to access the the Poynette and Kilbourne the entrance door but were structure, they used their re departments arrived
Jim said. “I was ready to step away and would have been happy to do something else, but then we took the plunge.” They expanded from a 50-stall stanchion barn to a 4-row freestall barn. A swing-10 milking parlor was retrotted into the stanchion barn after gutting calf pens and cutting the hay mow oor out and raising it 4 feet to make room for the holding area. They also added a 2,000-gallon bulk tank as part of the expansion. “It’s a lower cost parlor, but it’s worked well for our needs,” Jim said. “We utilized the area and saved a lot of cost.” Cows went from lying on rubber mats in the stanchion barn to enjoying the luxury of waterbeds in the freestall barn. Stalls are bedded with a light covering of a mixture made from paper and lime. Turn to POTRATZ | Page 7
with their aerial apparatus. The re started in a room where milk fat was being stored, and as it was heated, it began to ow throughout the structure. Fire crews attempted to gain access from each end of the structure to control the spread of the re, but they were halted due to the heavy smoke and runoff. Crews were on the scene until 3 a.m. Jan. 3 as a total of 10 re departments worked to put out the re. The re was contained and extinguished before it could spread past the rewalls and throughout the building. AMPI is the largest cheese cooperative based in the U.S. Headquartered in New Ulm, Minnesota, AMPI is owned by dairy farm families from Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Turn to AMPI | Page 6