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DAIRY ST R “All dairy, all the time”™
Volume 19, No. 17
Producers cope with discontinued use of rbST Heightened management tactics may alleviate impact
October 28, 2017
“People went out of their way to help us. Seven days a week for two months, there were people here to help us and we never stopped.” – Peter Wuertz
Help until the cows come home
By Jennifer Coyne jenn@dairystar.com
PINE CITY, Minn. – Cows at J.M. Peterson Farms have not been administered a dose of recombinant bovine somatotropin (rbST) for the past ve months, and the Petersons have yet to recoup the loss in production. “A piece of technology has been taken away that was a protable part of our operation. This next year, we will continue making management changes that we think will soften the blow of the loss of production,” said Marianne Peterson, noting a 10-pound decrease in milk production a month after rbST was no longer used. Peterson and her husband, Jeff, along with their son, Jacob, manage a 400-cow dairy near Pine City, Minn. The Petersons’ other son, Nick, is an employee on the farm. The Peterson family is one of several dairy farmers who were notied last spring of the ban on the synthetic growth hormone by milk processors across the Midwest. By Jan. 1, 2018, those processors will no longer accept milk from dairy animals treated with rbST. “We were notied that we needed to discontinue rbST before June 1,” said Peterson, who is a part of the Burnett Dairy Cooperative in Grantsburg, Wis. “We made the decision to keep all cows on it until May 30, and six weeks before that deadline not enroll any new cows.” When the herd no longer received a dose of rbST, the Petersons immediately noticed a drop in milk production. “Within the rst three weeks, we saw a 5-8-pound drop, and by the end of June, it was nearly 10 pounds lost,” Peterson said. Dr. Jim Bennett, with the Northern Valley Dairy Production Medicine Center in Plainview, Minn., anticipates milk production loss being the greatest setback to this industry change. “Farmers can expect to see a 10-pound decrease with every cow treated,” Bennett said. “It’s not going to affect much else, but it will put a wrinkle in how reproduction is managed.” To accommodate the change, farmers will have to reevaluate their reproduction strategy to maintain production, while eliminating animals that may hinder the farm’s protability. “Most farmers have already begun to make reproductive decisions for no rbST in the herd. If they haven’t, the time to do so is now,” Bennett said. “These strategies will force farmers to be more aggressive as the importance of culling or do-not-breed will become greater.” Before the Petersons eliminated rbST, they implemented changes to their breeding protocol. Previously with rbST, a cow could be bred up to 260 days in milk (DIM) and milking 100 pounds per day. Now, cows are bred up to 230 DIM and milking 100 pounds per day. “The greatest challenge we’ve had is culling cows earlier that we felt were protable, but without rbST, they became unprotable,” Peterson said. Like many farmers, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration rst approved the synthetic growth hormone for use in 1993, the Petersons incorporated it into their herd management as a way to increase protability. “We used rbST very close to label directions,” Peterson said. “We would start most cows on it after 63 DIM, and would make sure they were off it two weeks before dry off. This was for our Turn to RBST | Page 5
MARK KLAPHAKE/DAIRY STAR
The Wuertzes – (front row, from leŌ) Paul, Lisa and Brooke; (back row, from leŌ) Peter and Luke – are happy to be milking their herd of 56 cows at home near Spring Hill, Minn. The family had a barn re Aug. 10 and milked at a dairy eight miles away while the new barn was being constructed. With the help of many friends and family, the Wuertzes were able to get a new structure up and ready for cows in exactly two months.
Wuertzes begin milking two months after re By Jennifer Coyne & Mark Klaphake Staff Writers
SPRING HILL, Minn. – Anxiousness. Gratitude. Blessed. Those three words only begin to describe the emotions Peter and Lisa Wuertz have felt over the last two months as they recover from a re that toppled their milking barn Aug. 10. And on Oct. 10, those emotions were amplied as they brought home the milking herd into a newly constructed freestall barn. “By 9:30 a.m., everyone was in the barn,” Lisa Wuertz said. “You walked into the barn and felt happiness. It was a relief to have the cows back home.” Lisa and her husband,
Peter, and their three children – Paul, 18, Luke, 16, and Brooke, 14 – milk 56 cows in Stearns County near Spring Hill, Minn. In the early morning of that haunting August day, ames engulfed the Wuertzes’ 100-year-old barn, where they housed the milking herd and had an addition for calves and heifers nearby. Two people passing by rst noticed the re and called emergency personnel. Then, they alerted the Wuertzes. “By the time we noticed what was happening, the roof was falling in and calves were bellowing,” Peter said. “There was nothing we could do as we watched all of our work go up in smoke.” While the milking herd
happened to be outside of the barn in the neighboring cow yard, 37 calves and heifers perished as the barn was deemed a total loss. “What happened is no fun; you never realize how traumatic a re is until you’re pulling debris out with the skidloader,” Peter said. “We were fortunate, though, because the cows have free access to walking in and out of the barn, and with the nice weather they were all outside that night.” As the local re department arrived with two neighboring departments offering mutual aid and water, the Wuertzes’ yard lled with neighbors, family and friends lending a hand to help move cattle and clear debris, and also be present Turn to WUERTZES | Page 6