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DAIRY ST R “All dairy, all the time”™
Volume 19, No. 4
April 8, 2017
Componentdriven Bigler increases protein, butterfat in Holstein herd By Krista Kuzma
krista.k@dairystar.com
DECORAH, Iowa – Fifteen years ago while trying to brainstorm ways to make his dairy more efcient, Brian Bigler thought back to his genetics class at Iowa State University. “We learned that butterfat is one of the most heritable traits in bovines. It’s easy to make progress when it’s that heritable,” Bigler said. With that knowledge, Bigler changed his herd’s breeding and nutrition philosophy to make components a top priority on his dairy where he milks 130 cows with his dad, Dave, near Decorah, Iowa. Since the
Crabb honors late son’s wish to become a dairy farmer By Brittany Olson
brittany.o@dairystar.com
HOLCOMBE, Wis. – Dylan Crabb always wanted to be a dairy farmer when he grew up. Even after being diagnosed with cancer in 2006 at the age of 13, he never lost sight of his goal to have his own herd of Ayrshire cows – his favorite breed – on his great-grandfather’s farm. While Dylan passed away two weeks after he turned 16, there are still cows in the barn. His mother, Lori, and stepfather, Bruce Johnson, are milking about 30 Ayrshires on Lori’s family’s 240-acre farm near Holcombe, Wis.
change, his herd of Holsteins has increased butterfat nearly 1 percent, now averaging 4.37 percent butterfat, up from 3.5 percent. Bigler started to focus on components after realizing his herd wasn’t going to get much more for production. Bigler thought he could increase his rolling herd average, which hovers around 30,000, by milking three times a day. A thought he didn’t like. “I envisioned our herd remaining on two-times-a-day milking because we’re at that awkward size where it’s pretty hard with just family help to
KRISTA KUZMA/DAIRY STAR
Brian Bigler has been breeding and feeding his cows to maximize their buƩerfat potenƟal on his 130-cow dairy near Decorah, Iowa. His herd of Holsteins average a 4.37 percent buƩerfat test. milk them three times a day,” Bigler said. Although the farm hires part-time employees, Bigler couldn’t justify making the
jump to full-time milkers. “For milking in our parlor it takes two people. To have two people come in the middle of the night with where we’re
A mother’s love
located – an isolated spot in the middle of nowhere – would be a challenge seven days a Turn to BIGLER | Page 6
Continuing their herd along with opening an ice cream and cheese shop called Dylan’s Dairy in a nearby town are just two ways Lori and Bruce honor the memory of Dylan. The dairy, named Two Rivers Farm, sits near the conuence of the Chippewa and Fisher Rivers in northern Chippewa County. Lori grew up milking cows on the farm. “I remember at 13 years old, getting off the bus and nding cows grazing out front. My grandpa had bought me 10 cows,” Lori said. Unfortunately, the barn sat idle for nearly three decades afterward. But it was Dylan – depicted in a painting on the front of the barn – who resurrected its dairy heritage. “Dylan was born a farmer, plain and simple,” Lori said. BRITTANY OLSON/DAIRY STAR “He and Bruce spent two Lori Crabb’s son, Dylan, dreamed of being a dairy farmer, despite having cancer. Even though he years putting the barn back passed away aŌer ghƟng leukemia for over two years, his mother is keeping his dream alive through his 30-cow herd, comprised mostly of Dylan’s Ayrshires, near Holcombe, Wis. Turn to CRABB | Page 5
Page 2 • Dairy Star • Saturday, April 8, 2017
DAIRY ST R www.dairystar.com
ISSN 020355 522 Sinclair Lewis Ave. Sauk Centre, MN 56378 Phone: (320) 352-6303 Fax: (320) 352-5647 Published by Dairy Star LLC
General Manager/Editor Mark Klaphake - mark.k@dairystar.com 320-352-6303 (ofďƒžce) 320-248-3196 (cell) 320-352-0062 (home) Ad Composition Nancy Powell 320-352-6303 nancy.p@dairystar.com Amanda Thooft 320-352-6303 amanda.t@dairystar.com Consultant Jerry Jennissen 320-346-2292 Editorial Staff Andrea Borgerding - Managing Editor (320) 352-6303 • andrea.b@dairystar.com Krista Kuzma - Assistant Editor (507) 259-8159 • krista.k@dairystar.com Ron Johnson (608) 874-4243 ron.j@dairystar.com Ruth Klossner (507) 240-0048 cowlady@centurylink.net Jennifer Coyne (320) 352-6303 jenn@dairystar.com Cassie Olson (715) 245-6848 cassie.o@dairystar.com Brittany Olson (320) 352-6303 brittany.o@dairystar.com
Advertising Sales Main Ofďƒžce: 320-352-6303 Fax: 320-352-5647 Deadline is 5 p.m. of the Friday the week before publication
Sales Manager - Jeff Weyer (Northern MN, East Central MN) 320-260-8505 (cell) jeff.w@dairystar.com Mark Klaphake (Western MN) 320-352-6303 (ofďƒžce) 320-248-3196 (cell) Laura Seljan (National Advertising, SE MN) 507-250-2217 fax: 507-634-4413 laura.s@dairystar.com Jerry Nelson (SW MN, NW Iowa, South Dakota) 605-690-6260 jerry.n@dairystar.com Mike Schafer (Central, South Central MN) 320-894-7825 mike.s@dairystar.com Lori Menke (Eastern Iowa, Southern WI) 563-608-6477 • lori.m@dairystar.com Megan Stuessel (Western Wisconsin) 608-387-1202 • megan.s@dairystar.com
Deadlines The deadline for news and advertising in the Dairy Star is 5 p.m. Friday the week before publication. Subscriptions One year subscription $35.00, outside the U.S. $110.00. Send check along with mailing address to Dairy Star, 522 Sinclair Lewis Ave., Sauk Centre, MN 56378. Advertising Our ad takers have no authority to bind this newspaper and only publication of an advertisement shall constitute ďƒžnal acceptance of the advertiser's order. Letters Letters and articles of opinion are welcomed. Letters must be signed and include address and phone number. We reserve the right to edit lengthy letters. The views and opinions expressed by Dairy Star columnists and writers are not necessarily those of the Dairy Star LLC.
The Dairy Star is published semi-monthly by Dairy Star, LLC, 522 Sinclair Lewis Ave., Sauk Centre, MN 56378-1246. Periodicals Postage Paid at Sauk Centre, MN and additional mailing ofďƒžces. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Dairy Star, 522 Sinclair Lewis Ave., Sauk Centre, MN 56378-1246.
A glance at what’s inside
From adding in robots to looking at new management practices, this issue features farmers who have been busy improving their dairies along with a few who won awards and those who are ready for spring. For Louise Malecha and her son, William, preventing lameness and promptly ďƒžnding new cases is a top priority on their farm near Villard, Minn. Whether the condition was caused by transition stress, cow handling or environmental conditions, lameness can have large health and economic affects on a dairy. Read about the importance of proper hoof health and why preventing lameness should be as important as preventing mastitis By Mark Klaphake on pages 12-13 in ďƒžrst section. Editor The cheese curd capital of Wisconsin is planning an expansion. Ellsworth Cooperative Creamery through its partnership with the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation is now eligible for up to $175,000 in state tax credits to add 28,500 feet to its processing facilities. Read about how this will impact the creamery and when they hope to be done with the project on page 7 in second section. On the Behouneks’ dairy farm, the parlor has become a special place for Heather and Keith, who milk 280 cows with Keith’s family near Hayďƒželd, Minn. On Feb. 18, they exchanged wedding vows in their parlor in front of family and friends. They chose the on-farm location for their ceremony because it was where they met and where their relationship budded. Read about how they were able to get chores done and the parlor ready in time for a wedding on pages 10-11 in ďƒžrst section. In Argyle, Wis., ďƒžrst generation farmer Joe Nickels has grown from milking 80 cows, when he ďƒžrst started in 2000, to 340 cows today. This month, he and his family also started using a new milking facility – four robots – in addition to the double-10 parlor they use. Read on pages 21-22 in third section about the transition with his cows and how he balances the two systems. With spring weather slowly coming back to the Midwest, dairy farmers in the area are gearing up for this year’s growing season. With that weather brings back the Dairy Star crop report with farmers from across our coverage area. Find out who will be reporting throughout the summer and a little background about their farm in 2017’s ďƒžrst crop report on pages 34-35 in second section. In our Top Performers feature, New Heights Dairy run by the Czech family in Central Minnesota tells about how they keep their cows milking efďƒžciently with a 27,314-pound rolling herd average. Read on pages 18 and 20 in ďƒžrst section about what they do to keep those numbers consistent.
Favorite quotes from this issue:
“There’s always going to be the need to milk cows. To do that, we will need to automate, be forced to outsource, or we need to ďƒžx our labor problem.â€? - Dorothy Elliot, Pages 8-9 Third Section
â€œâ€Śmost hay grown in Washington and Oregon is exported to Japan, so we are competing for in-state alfalfa with the export market.â€? - Ben Mesman, Pages 14-15 Second Section
By the Numbers
of all born dairy 10 TO 15: Percent females that are being genomic tested. (Page 16, Third Section)
who 1,000: Schoolchildren attend Iowa’s Dairy Center annually. (Pages 16-17, Second Section)
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Dairy Star • Saturday, April 8, 2017 • Page 3
It’s all inside... What was the highlight of your career? Pages 15 - 16
Milltown
Ellsworth
Vollraths farming for seven years after starting from scratch Third Section: Pages 3 - 4
Eau Claire
Children Museum of Eau Claire hosts June Mike BolandDairy Month Gays Mills,activities Wis.
Bayeld
Douglas
Pages 14 - 15 Second Section
THIRD SECTION Pages 4 - 6
Iron
Boyd
Kids Corner: The Christophs
Third Section: Pages 18 - 19
Decorah
Dairy’s Star Youth: Josie Buddenberg
n
Third Section: Page 17
ur hb
Burnett
Sawyer
Price Decorah
Polk
Allen Krause, Jr. Spencer, Wis.
Bigler uses breeding, nutrition to maximize butterfat production
Rusk
Barron
First Section: Pages 1, 6
Taylor St. Croix
Chippewa
Dunn
Pierce Winona, Minn.
Buffalo Ferryville, Wis.
Dairy Prole: John Oppriecht Page 39
Dodgeville
Clark
Eau Claire
Pepin
Bill and Jean Rowekamp
Women in Jeans: Krista Dolan First Section: Page 36
Jackson
Madison
Bauer shares her journey of Farmgirl Photography
La Crosse Monroe
Second Section: Pages 32 - 33
Worth
Mitchell
Cerro Hancock Gordo
Floyd
Howard
ick
Ch
w
a as
Bremer
Pages 10 - 11
Central Plains Dairy Expo brings producers from all around
Zone 2
Black Hawk
B
For additional stories from our other zone, log on to www.dairystar.com
Dane
Iowa
Clayton
an
an
ford
Craw
Argyle
Nickels installs robots, continues to use parlor
Grant
Fayette
h uc
Richland
Allamakee
Winnebago
Winneshiek
Vernon
Elba Co-op Creamery markets milk despite lack of processing Page 16 Dairy Girl Network seminar details genomic health traits Pages 23 - 24 Dairy Calendar Pages 25 - 26 Some Udder Stuff Pages 27 - 34 Classieds
First Section: Pages 1, 5
Ashland
Page 37
Baking bread Pages 38 - 39 Dairy Recipes
Crabb honors late son’s wish to become a dairy farmer
Second Section: Page 7
Pages 14 - 15 Dairying Across America Pages 20 - 22 Day in the life of Rick Lundgren Page 24
More farms making electricity while the sun shines Pages 34 - 35 Crop and weather reports
Holcombe
Ellsworth Cooperative Creamery eligible for tax credits, plans to add 28,500 square feet
Trempealeau
SECOND SECTION Pages 3 - 4 Andersons inducted into MLBA Hall of Fame Page 5 Calf housing: groups or individual pens? Pages 8 - 9 Family Ties: Dean Hatlestad and Beverly and John Hanson Pages 10 - 11 The “Mielke” Market Weekly Page 12 Dairy Markets Page 13 Area Hay Auction results
FROM OUR SIDE OF THE FENCE:
W as
FIRST SECTION Page 9 Ag Insider Pages 10 - 11 Behouneks hold wedding ceremony in milking facility Pages 12 - 13 Prevent lameness before it happens Pages 18, 20 New Heights Dairy increases production with crossbreeding, employee training Page 22 Commitment to lifelong learning, teaching Pages 23, 25 Tree-Hayven Holsteins recognized as WHA Distinguished Young Holstein Breeder Page 26 FSA News & Notes Page 27 The Transition Pen Page 28 Signs of spring Page 29 Integrating crops, livestock in a dairy production system Page 30 Ramblings from the Ridge Page 31 A Little Bit of Sunshine Page 32 Making Cents of Dairy Page 33 Dairy Good Life Page 34 Veterinary Wisdom Page 35 From Wisconsin with love Page 37 Kirkpatrick offers suggestions on saving for retirement
are
w ela
D
Linn
Lafayette Dubuque
Jones
Jackson
Green
Third Section: Pages 21 - 22
Calmar
Seven Iowa cows commemorated in hall of breeds Second Section: Page 16
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Page 4 • Dairy Star • Saturday, April 8, 2017
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Dairy Star • Saturday, April 8, 2017 • Page 5
ConƟnued from CRABB | Page 1
Is your cow a Drinker? Make her first drink count! Famo Dairy Drink is a drinkable, nutritional supplement given immediately after calving. Famo Dairy Drink’s calling card is its superior palatability... she will drink it!
So what else does this unique formula provide?
BRITTANY OLSON/DAIRY STAR
Dylan Crabb’s picture on the barn of his family’s dairy farm serves as a reminder of his dream of being a dairy farmer. Crabb passed away in 2009, but not before he got to make his dream come true. together.” “Bruce didn’t grow up with cows, During a trip to the Rusk County but he lives, breathes and sleeps cows Fair in Ladysmith, Wis., Dylan fell in now,” Lori said. “He’s incredible. He’s love with the red cattle that now ll the glue that holds it all together.” his barn. Despite Dylan’s diagnosis with leukemia at age 13, the young dairyman pressed on with xing up the barn and getting it ready to house dairy cattle once again. Chemotherapy and two unsuccessful bone marrow transplants proved to be no match for the disease, but Dylan’s spirit was undeterrable. Through the Make-a-Wish Foundation, Dylan received his rst two Holstein cows named Star and LORI CRABB, DAIRY PRODUCER Moon. There were also four Ayrshire cows donated along with a pipeline. Although he was very ill, Dylan “The girls showing Ayrshires told Dylan about their outstanding went out to the barn every day to milk butterfat, moderate size, longevity his cows. “And, when he couldn’t walk and gentleness,” Lori said. “Now that anymore, his friends carried him to I am doing a lot of the milking, they the barn,” Lori said. have proven themselves on all four The young farmer remained counts.” strong all the way to the end. Lori said Even though Bruce hadn’t grown up on a farm, his close relationship through all the pain and suffering he with Dylan led him to jump into dairy Turn to CRABB | Page 7 farming.
“And, when he couldn’t walk anymore, his friends carried him to the barn.”
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Page 6 • Dairy Star • Saturday, April 8, 2017
ConƟnued from BIGLER | Page 1
KRISTA KUZMA/DAIRY STAR
Corn silage and haylage are delivered to Brian Bigler’s herd on his dairy near Decorah, Iowa. Bigler does not use a TMR mixer.
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week.” That’s where increasing components through breeding and nutrition came into play. “It’s been pretty gratifying that we’ve been able to accomplish that,” he said. When breeding cows, Bigler chooses all the bulls and does a fair amount of research on the available mating choices for his herd. “I decided to do the mating myself because … I get to see the cows when they’re fresh, at peak lactation and when they dry off. Working with them everyday, I get to know their weaknesses. It’s just natural and easier for me to nd the right bull than to have a mating service come in,” said Bigler, who has been in charge of mating and conducting A.I. on the cows since shortly after he returned home from college in 1993. Since starting this new-found genetic program, Bigler has picked sires which are moderate on milk and high in components. Within the last year, Bigler has used bulls such as Yoder, Bob, Miles, Mogul, Supersire, McCutchen and Emerald. “They’re all bulls that are high in components, but I don’t like to sacrice type just to get the components. I want a cow that’s solid type – good udders, feet and legs,” Bigler said. He also focuses on health traits, especially keeping an eye on somatic cell count and productive life. Perhaps one of his favorite bulls used in the past year has been Silver. “They’re really good type [daughters] that also have the components. He’s really good on fertility, too,” Bigler said. A summary of genetic values of sires used in the herd showed that the last 111 service sires had a cheese merit of +803, an index that takes components into consideration. About one-third of the bulls Bigler uses are proven, while the rest are genomic young sires. To compliment the breeding philosophy, Bigler uses a nutrition program to capture the cow’s fullest potential. Bigler said feeding encapsulated versions of lysine and methionine has helped bring their butterfat test higher. “Amino acids are the building blocks of protein. The two that are easiest to get out of whack are lysine and methionine. By balancing for them, we can lower the overall amount of protein,” said Bigler, who currently feeds a 16 percent crude protein ration. He also feels feeding a bypass fat
and cottonseed helps, too. Perhaps one of the biggest factors to aid in boosting components is Bigler’s meticulous feeding routine. He keeps fresh feed in front of the cows by feeding four times each day at 4:30 a.m., 7:30 a.m., 1 p.m., and 6:30 p.m. “The cows are professional sorters. They know how to sort the goodies out of the ration. When they get a large load of corn in a short time, that can cause the pH in the stomach to dip and take a nose dive. When that happens, it affects your butterfat. What my nutritionist has told me is that by spacing feedings out throughout the day, the cows have a stable pH in the stomach which results in a better butterfat test,” Bigler said. Bigler does all this without a TMR mixer. “We’ve had some success with some things, but we’re far from being a modern dairy farm,” he said. A small tumble mixer with a scale combines the high moisture corn and protein supplement to the exact measurement; however, the corn silage and haylage is less calculated. It comes out of the silo at the same time and mixes as it is delivered. “I’m taking a at-out wild guess when I’m feeding corn silage and haylage at the same time … Some feedings they get a little more haylage … so for the next one I’ll just go a little more corn silage. Throughout the day it all evens out,” Bigler said. One example of Bigler’s component-breeding philosophy success can be seen in the oldest cow in the barn. Known as Grandma, this 8-year-old cow calved in November with her sixth calf. On her most recent test, the Boliver daughter had a 6.2 percent butterfat. She produced over 5 percent butterfat in each of her ve previous lactations in addition to making over 33,000 pounds in her fth lactation. And she isn’t the only one to be pounding out the components for Bigler. About 25 percent of cows in the herd average a 5.0 or higher butterfat test, Bigler said. “The progress I’ve made shows in my numbers,” he said. Managing his herd this way has helped keep his farm protable. This winter, Bigler received close to $3 above Class III milk price. “When milk prices were low, that was the difference between making money or breaking even,” Bigler said. For Bigler, this was exactly the outcome he was searching for during his rst brainstorm.
Dairy Star • Saturday, April 8, 2017 • Page 7
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This Ayrshire heifer calf goes back to one of the rst cows Dylan Crabb received to start his own dairy herd. Crabb, who was diagnosed with leukemia as a teenager, milked his cows unƟl he passed away at the age of 16.
endured, Dylan only cried one time. “It was 10 days before he died,” Lori said. “There were some baby ducks in the bay of the river, and Dylan told me, ‘Mom, their lives are starting and mine is starting to end.’” Dylan passed away on Memorial Day in 2009, 2.5 years after being diagnosed. In the days and months following his passing, Lori and Bruce, along with daughters, Morgan and Jayde, were swept up by waves of grief. “One night, I decided that crying wasn’t going to heal it,” Lori said. In the middle of the night, she began to paint a scene on the ceiling of a building located just down the street from the beauty salon she owned in Cornell, Wis., a few miles from the farm. “I painted Dylan in the clouds freehanded,” Lori said. After Lori attended cheesemaking and ice cream making school at UWMadison and UW-River Falls, that building became Dylan’s Dairy, an ice cream and cheese shop in downtown Cornell. The Dylan’s Dairy logo features Dylan’s likeness, a young boy in a ball cap and rubber boots carrying a milking machine and a bucket. “We make 24 avors of ice cream, and sell 42 varieties of cheese from local cheesemakers,” Lori said. In that same spirit with wanting to honor Dylan’s memory and make the world a little more loving, Lori and Bruce also have four foster children who help on the farm as needed.
“Everything is a family endeavor,” Lori said. Even in addition to running her salon and Dylan’s Dairy, Lori does half of the milking, with a neighboring Amish family helping with the rest. In tandem with a herd of cows, Dylan’s Dairy and taking in foster children, Lori has one last adventure to round out what she feels is her life’s tribute to her son. “It’s my last, but certainly not least, adventure,” she said. Now that Jayde is in the process of taking over her mother’s salon, and with Morgan majoring in premedicine with hopes of working as a pediatric oncologist, Lori is working on turning the house at Two Rivers Farm into an on-farm inn for families of children with terminal illnesses. “Everything will be free of charge for these kids and their families,” Lori said. In addition, the Wisconsin Ayrshire Breeders Association gave its distinguished service award to Bruce and Lori, in honor of Dylan, this March at the association’s annual meeting. “One of their directors carried an article written about Dylan with him for two years. He was determined to honor Dylan one way or another,” Lori said. While Dylan is no longer physically present, his memory and legacy live on through his beloved Ayrshire cows, kind words and deeds and, most of all, a mother’s undying love for her child.
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Changes sought in MPP feed cost formula Dairy Star • Saturday, April 8, 2017 • Page 9
The dairy risk safety net, known as the If this year is a repeat of 2016, milk prices Margin Protection Program, has not worked should recover in the third and fourth quaras well as many had hoped. Associated Milk ters. DeVelder said the Midwest dairy inProducers, Incorporated President Steve dustry is operating at full capacity. The reSchlangen is a member of gion has become the leading the National Milk Producers place to dairy, especially with Ag Insider Federation economic policy its strong dairy infrastruccommittee and said the feed ture. “Just take AMPI as an cost formula is not effective. example with its 10 process“The rst thing we looked at ing plants and its diversity, is getting the feed price forwe produce anything from mula right. Hopefully, using milk that goes to the bottle to the price farmers pay for corn cheese to non-fat dry milk to when they buy it, instead of help balance those markets. what they get for corn when Look at the price paid for milk they sell it. There’s a differin the Midwest versus Califorence in price there by about nia, we’re typically $1.50 (per 25 or 30 cents. A few other hundredweight) over them. things would be settling it We don’t see that changing, By Don Wick monthly, instead of bi-monthif anything, that gap will get Columnist ly. We think it would be more wider. The infrastructure here of a steady cash ow.” Dollars really helps.” are tight in Washington, but Schlangen said there was a big difference in what MPP ac- Next step for Perdue tually cost rather than what was projected. With a voice vote, the Senate AgriculIn fact, there was a net gain for the govern- ture Committee has approved the nominament over the past two years. The biggest tion of Sonny Perdue for agriculture secreissue is the feed price formula, which is a tary. The former Georgia governor was the priority for the 2018 Farm Bill. “If we can’t last person selected by President Trump get that done or something close to that, for his cabinet. The conrmation still needs they might as well scrap the whole thing to go before the full Senate. and start with something else.” Trade uncertainty with Mexico Cheese supplies inuence milk price outDairy industry leaders traveled to look Mexico to talk trade. National Milk ProThe forecast for the milk check for ducers Federation president and CEO Jim 2017 is above last year and the ve-year Mulhern said there is a level of anxiety and average. However, Blimling and Associates uncertainty in Mexico over the trade relapresident Phil Plourd said an oversupply tionship. “The message we delivered was of cheese is hanging over this market. “It as we look at renegotiating NAFTA, the is hard to get your head around, but in a 12 focus should be on how we strengthen the billion pound market, a 1 percent change in agreement, not tear it down or do anything demand is 120 million pounds. That’s more to damage the relationship. Any agreethan two million pounds of cheese per week ment that’s been in place for 20 years can looking for a home if demand is down from be strengthened and modernized. That’s 3 percent to 2 percent. It’s not a disaster on the approach we’re taking.” Mulhern said the demand side, but, we can’t make 120 the U.S. dairy industry has worked hard to million pounds disappear easily.” build a partnership with Mexico. Milk price forecast In the new forecast from the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute, the all-milk dairy price was put at $17.76 per hundredweight. That’s up $1.56 from the 2016 average. The Midwest is made for dairy production Associated Milk Producers, Incorporated co-president and CEO Donn DeVelder said 2017 is looking a lot like 2016.
IDFA reverses position on Dairy PRIDE Act Previously, the International Dairy Foods Association supported the bill in Congress that would ban plant-based products, like soy milk or almond milk, from being labeled as milk. IDFA President and CEO Michael Dykes testied before the House Agriculture Committee and said his organization represents companies that market dairy milk and plant-based products. “The beverage market is very competitive, so we
think this is probably an issue that needs to be resolved in the marketplace.” The Food and Drug Administration denes milk as a product that comes from a cow and the bill would have 90 days to enforce that labeling standard.
Recognizing Wisconsin cheese Milk is Wisconsin’s ofcial beverage and has been since 1987. The State Assembly is now considering legislation to make cheese the state’s ofcial dairy product. Wisconsin is the nation’s No. 1 cheese producer. Injunction granted A leading A.I. rm, ABS Global, has been granted a permanent injunction against Inguran LLC, which is operating under the name Sexing Technologies. The court says Sexing Technologies cannot enforce research, marketing and non-compete restrictions regarding the use of sexed semen. ABS sought the injunction following a jury nding last year that Sexing Technologies had maintained a monopoly in the sexed semen market since 2012. ABS plans to launch its own brand of sexed genetics this year. Dairy farmers use sexed semen in articial insemination to produce more female calves. Prots increase for DFA Dairy Farmers of America reports annual net income of $132 million, up from $94 million last year. The record earnings were supported by the acquisition of the remaining 50 percent equity interest in DairiConcepts, which manufactures cheese and dairy ingredients in eight locations. DFA’s net sales totaled $13.5 billion in 2016. That compares to $13.8 billion a year earlier. The decline is attributed to lower milk prices.
Record sales for Organic Valley Organic Valley Cooperative posted a record $1.1 billion in sales in the past year. The La Farge-based Organic Valley is the largest organic cooperative in the United States. Membership grew 15 percent in 2016. A new cheese cutting and labeling facility is being built in Cashton, Wis. Land O’Lakes announces acquisition Land O’Lakes has purchased Vermont Creamery, which produces fresh and aged goat cheeses, cultured butter and fresh dairy products in Websterville, Vt. This business supports a network of more than 20 family farms and promotes a sustainable agriculture philosophy. Vermont Creamery will operate as an independent subsidiary of Land O’Lakes. Honored for embryo transfer work Steve Malin of Fond Du Lac, Wis. has been honored with the American Embryo Transfer Association President’s Award. Malin has been involved with embryo transfer work since 1979 and has been an active member of the AETA. Trivia challenge Mozzarella is the most popular cheese in the world, with the largest market share. That answers our last trivia question. For this week’s trivia, we’re focused on FFA. What are the ofcial colors of the FFA? We’ll have the answer in the next edition of Dairy Star. Don Wick is owner/broadcaster for the Red River Farm Network, based in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Wick has been recognized as the National Farm Broadcaster of the Year and served as president of the National Association of Farm Broadcasting. Don and his wife, Kolleen, have two adult sons, Tony and Sam, and ve grandchildren, Aiden, Piper, Adrienne, Aurora and Sterling.
“I don’t have to spend time sorting and disrupting cows for preg checks.” How long have you been using the DHIA pregnancy test? We have been preg check testing using milk for almost 5 years now. Why did you choose to use it? I like how it’s more convenient for me. I simply collect the sample when they came in the parlor to be milked. It’s eliminated my time spent sorting and disrupting the cows at a speciÀc time and date for the conventional vet checks. Testing through DHIA I can preg check cows 3 times for the same cost as preg checking with the vet two times. What do you like about it? What I like most is I’m not having to sort and disrupt my cows. Vet costs were going up, so for me to bring this cost down I would have had to add lock-ups to my barn which would have been costly.
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Loran Sellner • Sellner Dairy 175 cows • Sleepy Eye, Minn. Minnesota Dairy Herd Improvement Association 307 Brighton Avenue South Buffalo, MN 55313 1.800.827.3442 www.mndhia.org
Page 10 • Dairy Star • Saturday, April 8, 2017
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KRISTA KUZMA/DAIRY STAR
Keith and Heather Behounek stand in their parlor where they met, where they started daƟng and where they were married in a ceremony on Feb. 18. The couple milks 280 cows together with Keith’s family near Hayeld, Minn.
Behouneks hold wedding ceremony in milking facility By Krista Kuzma
krista.k@dairystar.com
HAYFIELD, Minn. – For Heather and Keith Behounek, the milking parlor holds a special place in their hearts. It’s where they met, where their romance budded and where they spent a large amount of time during the dating stage of their relationship. So, when it came time to choose a place to hold their wedding ceremony, the choices narrowed quickly to the most logical location. “Why not have our wedding in the parlor,” Heather said. Feb. 18 is a day Heather and Keith will never forget as the couple exchanged vows in the family’s double-8 parlor in between milkings on their 280cow dairy near Hayeld, Minn. “It was amazing, but it went by so fast,” Heather said about their wedding day. “We couldn’t replicate it if we tried. It was perfect.” On Feb. 18, milking started at 5 a.m. – 45 minutes earlier than normal. “It was all hands on deck. All but one of the staff members were here,” Keith said, explaining there were ve people there that morning instead of the usual three. “We were cleaning, milking and getting chores done all at the same time.” Usually the team is done with morning chores at 11, but on wedding day, everything was nished by 9 a.m. At 10:15, they had the parlor pressure-washed and scrubbed clean in order to decorate. “We had one heck of a crew,” Keith said. About 20 family members and friends showed up to transform the parlor from a milking facility into a wedding destination. Heather’s mom, Sarah Cameron, sewed a large drape to cover the opening of the parlor where the freezer strips hang. “We didn’t know what the weather was going to be, so we planned to have (the parlor) completely enclosed with the drape so it would be warm,” Keith said. Although the Behouneks had a winter wedding, the day’s temperature reached 60 degrees. “We didn’t really need the drape to keep us warm, but it looked better with it up,” Keith said. “Before the wedding, we were hanging out outside with sunglasses on and without jackets. It was a nice day.” Keith created framework to add more draping and lace to t at the top of the stairs in front of their holding area where they would be married. They
PHOTO SUBMITTED
Heather and Keith Behounek exchange vows during their wedding ceremony on Feb. 18 in their milking parlor on their dairy near Hayeld, Minn. also added icicle lights to hang inside the parlor to add to the celebratory ambiance. “I made the framework, but it was all Heather’s vision,” Keith said about the décor. After they nished decorating at 1 p.m., the Behouneks were ready to walk down the parlor aisle by 3:30 that afternoon. Guests sat in chairs that lined each side of the parlor, on the parlor deck and in the back. With the limited amount of space in the parlor, the Behouneks had about 60 people at the Turn to BEHOUNEK | Page 11
Dairy Star • Saturday, April 8, 2017 • Page 11
ConƟnued from BEHOUNEK | Page 10
PHOTO SUBMITTED
Keith and Heather Behounek, along with their wedding party, were able to take pictures and be outside during their winter wedding on Feb. 18. ceremony, while over 200 attended their reception, which was held at an event center in nearby Kasson, Minn. The ceremony started with a short welcome by their ofciant followed by their vows and the lighting of their unity candle. To signify their families merging, they included their children in the lighting of the unity candle – Heather’s children, Nicole, 27, and her daughter, Kaydence, 2 months; Sabrina, 26, and her son, Xavier, 3; CJ, 24; Tristin, 21; and Tessa, 21, along with Heather and Keith’s son, Kutter, 1. “From start to nish it was only seven minutes long,” Keith said about the ceremony. Following the day’s farm theme, the Behouneks’ wedding cake was a made-to-scale replica of their freestall barn and parlor. “It started as a joke and then Heather said we couldn’t do it. So then it turned into a challenge,” Keith said. “I even had a ruler out [when baking].” Keith and Heather’s mom, who bakes specialty cakes as a hobby, made a practice cake to perfect it for the big day. “I started coming up with ideas and she went along with it. It turned out slick,” Keith said, who doesn’t have much experience with baking or decorating cakes. It turned out well, just like everything else of their wedding, the Behouneks said. The two have known each other since August 2012 when Heather was hired for a milking job. At rst Keith called Heather the Why Girl. “I asked a lot of questions. That’s how I learned,” she said. Although Heather didn’t have any dairy experience, she had horses. “So the cows didn’t intimidate me,” Heather said. But Keith did. “He made me nervous. At rst my heart would jump when the skidloader started because I knew he was in the barn,” Heather said. “And whenever he would stand at the top of the stairs in the parlor while I was milking I would screw up.” Both Keith and Heather chalk it up to Keith being a shy guy and not talking much about anything other than cows for the rst two months Heather worked. But then the conversations started to change. “After milking we would sit there talking for a half hour or so,” Keith said. “We eventually became really good friends, and we’re still really good friends.” On Halloween, the two started dating.
PHOTO SUBMITTED
The cake for Heather and Keith Behounek’s wedding was a to-scale replica of their dairy’s freestall barn and parlor where they milk 280 cows near Hayeld, Minn. Keith and Heather’s mom made the cake.
PHOTO SUBMITTED
Keith’s parents, Ron and Rhonda, farm alongside their son and new daughterin-law, Heather. The newlyweds say Ron and Rhonda are part of the reason they are together. “He was more on the fence about it than I was until another gentleman asked me out. Then he committed to the relationship,” Heather said with a laugh. Much of their relationship was spent in the parlor milking together. “That was almost better than dating,” Keith said. “We work so well together.” Three years later, Keith proposed on Halloween. The couple gives a lot of credit to Keith’s parents, Ron and Rhonda. “Without them there wouldn’t be a barn and without the barn there wouldn’t be an us,” Heather said. Now after their wedding ceremony, Keith and Heather can add another reason why the parlor is special to them. “It started here, it continues here and if we have anything to do about it, it will end here,” Heather said.
Page 12 • Dairy Star • Saturday, April 8, 2017
A closer look by Jennifer Coyne
Industry news addressed with help from your neighbors
Prevent lameness before it happens
Cow, employee management inuencing factors VILLARD, Minn. – When Todd and Louise Malecha rst started dairying, they implemented a management protocol to monitor and treat lame cows. Now, preventing lameness is of top priority at the Malechas’ farm. “We record everything that happens to a cow, and that includes lameness. We want to know what’s going on with her and why she may be acting a certain way,” said Louise, who milks 950 cows with her family near Villard, Minn. The importance of monitoring lameness is two-fold, being benecial for animal comfort and welfare, as well as the farm’s bottom line. Mechanical, infectious causes of lameness There are several lameness lesions found on a farm, however, the most common are digital dermatitis, or hairy heel warts, sole ulcers and white line disease. While the causes of each lameness case may vary, they are categorized by either being claw horn defects or infectious.
hooves, also contract hairy heel warts.” Sole ulcers and white line disease are claw horn disruptions and result from trauma of horn overgrowth, extended standing, rough cow handling or poor oor design. Cows are at a greater risk of developing a sole ulcer during a period of transition when the ulcer will surface around peak milk production, and habits associated with long periods of standing. “Heat stress is a huge culprit and so is poor cow comfort when cows perch in the stalls,” Burgi said. Trauma caused by slippery and rough oors, excessive use of a crowd gate, or rough cow handling results in damage to the white line area of the JENNIFER COYNE/DAIRY STAR heel. Lameness is immediately noWilliam Malecha and his mom, Louise, pay close aƩenƟon to lameness on their ticed and results in a white line lesion. “You have the very lame cows 950-cow dairy near Villard, Minn. Since the dairy rst began, the Malechas have who won’t put any weight on the lame been monitoring lameness. foot or might go down and won’t “It can be really difcult to break rectly related to the hygiene of the get up,” Hovingh said. “But what’s down the exact cause of lameness,” animals. This lesion is found amongst missed is the small limp, and that’s Dr. Ernest Hovingh said. “There are lactating cows, but can also be seen important to pay attention to when management issues, where the dis- in animals as young as breeding age you need to identify lameness in the ease is caused by people, and then heifers. herd.” there are diseases caused by bacterial “Animals with chronic lesions infections.” spread this disease throughout the Economics of a lame cow Hovingh is a veterinarian at Penn farm,” said Karl Burgi, Dairyland Lameness is a painful condition State University. Hoof Care Institute. “New animals for cows to experience and affects Of the three most common lame- with compromised skin integrity, multiple facets of animal health from ness lesions, digital dermatitis is di- caused by manure build up on the feed intake to reproductive perforTurn to LAMENESS | Page 13
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Dairy Star • Saturday, April 8, 2017 • Page 13
ConĆ&#x;nued from LAMENESS | Page 12
mance to milk production. “Cows won’t be aggressive at the feed bunk and that carries through in milk production, reproduction and body condition score,� Hovingh said. “If it becomes a chronic condition, that becomes an animal welfare condition.� While an infectious lesion does not affect the structure of the foot, it does have a greater effect on the overall health of the animal. “We know that heifers with digital dermatitis
“Everyone works together to watch for lame cows. We want to ďƒžx the problem before it becomes an issue.â€? LOUISE MALECHA, DAIRY PRODUCER
take 29 days longer to be conďƒžrmed pregnant and we’ve seen a loss of 720 pounds of milk in their lactation,â€? Burgi said. However, mechanical lesions can be costly. Research has shown that white line disease can result in a loss of $350 per case and sole ulcers can cost upwards of $550 per case, Burgi said. If not properly dealt with, lameness ultimately results in cull cows. “As animals become more lame there’s a better chance of them leaving the farm because of the loss in milk,â€? said Louise’s son, William. Treating, preventing the problem By closely monitoring the herd, lameness can be prevented, and if detected, treated in a timely manner. “There’s not one complete package to treat and prevent lameness,â€? Hovingh said. “It’s a lot of different things, and the overall lameness prevention
JENNIFER COYNE/DAIRY STAR
Louise Malecha reviews the list of cows scheduled for the hoof trimmer. Each week, Malecha monitors the list and adjusts it, making sure cows are rouĆ&#x;nely trimmed twice each year and lame cows are cared for immediately.
plan will vary from farm to farm.� Digital dermatitis is a chronic disease that if not treated quickly will reoccur over the cow’s lifetime and become a continual issue on the farm. “Cows always come in with hairy heel warts,� William said. “To manage them, we run the cows through a footbath four days in a row and then three days off.�
Footbaths are used to prevent the infectious disease from becoming widespread and control the chronic condition; however, it does not cure the problem. To prevent the onset of new infections, keep standing areas clear of manure and do not overcrowd pens. “The key is to watch weekly and treat weekly,â€? Burgi said. Both sole ulcers and white line disease can be prevented with routine hoof trimming, proper cow handling and improving cow comfort. “Functional trimming can prevent a lot of sole ulcers, if done at the right time,â€? Burgi said. The Malechas follow a strict hoof trimming schedule to ensure their animals are at a lesser risk of becoming lame. “Each cow is trimmed twice a year and then our trimmer notes any lameness issues or reasons to bring the cow back,â€? Louise said. The Malechas’ herdsman also walks the pens once a week to catch the ďƒžrst signs of lameness. “Watch the cows as they come back from the parlor, or if it’s a tiestall barn, watch how they walk while outside,â€? Hovingh said. “An indication of lameness is a slightly arched back that worsens with severity.â€? Implementing a lameness prevention protocol is essential in optimizing the health and well-being of the animals. The protocol should address lying time of 12 to 14 hours per day; a time budget of less than three hours per day away from the stalls; efďƒžcient heat abatement; secure ďƒ&#x;ooring; good stockmanship and employee training; and a routine footbath. “Everyone works together to watch for lame cows,â€? Louise said. “We want to ďƒžx the problem before it becomes an issue.â€? Burgi agreed. “We have to start approaching it in the same sense as we do mastitis and treat right away,â€? he said. “We can’t tolerate lameness.â€?
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Dairy Star • Saturday, April 8, 2017 • Page 15
What was the highlight of your dairy career?
Bill and Jean Rowekamp Winona, Minn. Winona County
Jim and Joan Gondringer Albany, Minn. Stearns County
Allen Krause, Jr. Spencer, Wis. Clark County
Describe the dairy farm you had. We were the third generation to own and manage our farm. We started farming in 1977. We had a herd of 360 cows with 315 milking. We also owned 372 acres and rented two other farms for a total of 600 acres of tillable land. We raised corn and alfalfa, which was all used to feed the animals. We milked three times a day with eight full-time employees. We replaced our 40-year-old parlor in 2012 and put in a double-12 parallel parlor. Cows were in freestall barns with sand bedding.
Describe the dairy farm you had. We milked 130 cows. Our dairy was a slatted oor freestall with a double-4 parlor. We grew 600 acres of corn, alfalfa, soybeans, small grains and grass hay. We were in partnership with my brother, LeRoy, and his wife, Marion.
Describe the farm you had. I started off with 120 acres of land at rst and am now up to 160 acres. We milked 30 cows and raised all of our own youngstock. All of our bulls were sold and all heifers were raised here, unless we sold ones we didn’t need.
How did you transition out of dairying? The dairy cows were sold at auction. The youngstock were sold privately as springing heifers. The steers were sold when fattened. We always had our assets valued (land, equipment, cattle and feed). We split those up. LeRoy continued crop farming, and I have been gradually selling equipment. I still do some custom work and rent equipment and land.
How did you transition out of dairying? Our attorney, George Twohey, wrote up our transfer. That is one thing I will say is necessary: everything must be written down in order to avoid making a transfer into a he-said, she-said situation. Our transfer was a complete transfer to avoid challenges down the road. We sold the buildings, the land underneath the buildings and the cattle to Todd Borchardt. We moved to our second farm down the road.
What was the main reason for you exiting the dairy industry? We wanted to be able to retire at a time in our lives when we were still active. I feel if you’re going to be successful in the dairy industry, you have to maintain a lot of drive and love for the cows and the industry. My love never diminished, but it wasn’t as fun as it used to be. What have you done since selling your cows? We’ve been able to take life a little easier. I (Bill) have done a little more shing, and we’ve been able to do improvements around our house. I do more volunteer work and have gotten more involved in our church. In January, we went on a mission trip to Panama for one week. I also became a board member of the Soil and Water Conservation District. Looking back, what would you have done differently during your dairying career? We made mistakes, but we learned from those mistakes. Maybe we should have gone to more seminars and learning sessions sooner to get more knowledge and meet more dairy farmers earlier in our career. What was the biggest challenge of your career? On Dec. 9, 1977, we had a barn re. We had to make a decision of whether or not we wanted to continue the dairy. What was the highlight of your career? Even though I feel we achieved a lot on our dairy, the dairy doesn’t mean as much as marrying Jean and farming together, and raising our two daughters on the farm. After that, building up our dairy and being able to nd a young family to appreciate it and carry it on. What advice do you have for the next generation of dairy farmers? Don’t stop learning. That was always exciting for me – learning more about the cow, how to make her life better and increase efciencies around the farm. Also, stay humble, surround yourself with good and smart people, and don’t be afraid to ask for advice. Don’t worry about everything at once because otherwise it will overwhelm you.
What was the main reason for you exiting the dairy industry? The parlor needed replacement; our children were not interested in dairying; we wanted more free time to travel and spend with our family. What have you done since selling your cows? We have traveled to almost every state. I do woodworking, help our ve children in their home remodeling and nishing projects, stay involved in the community and am now a director at the Central Minnesota Credit Union. Looking back, what would you have done differently during your dairying career? Hindsight is always 20/20, however, we did very well dairying. Stearns County is a great county to dairy. There are many ne business and professionals we had the privilege of working with. We were totally satised with what we accomplished on our farm. What was the biggest challenge of your career? The year 1988 was extremely dry. It was very hard to nd enough feed for the cattle. What was the highlight of your career? All three of our daughters – Sonya, Vanessa and Jeanette – were Stearns County Dairy Princesses, and our farm was named the 2008 Stearns County Farm Family of the Year. What advice do you have for the next generation of dairy farmers? Keep up with the changes: technology, genomics, regulations and consumer preferences. Dairy farming is a capital-intensive business. If possible, partner in some fashion with an existing operation.
What was the main reason for you exiting the dairy industry? I promised my wife in 2012, that I would sell the cows and not milk after that. What have you been doing since selling your cows? I am a dairy eld representative and now work for Dairy Pricing Association. I serve on the town board and am running for that again. I also do all of Todd’s eld work; I own all of the machinery and rent a shed from Todd to store it. That way, I somewhat work as a custom operator for Todd. Looking back, what would you have done differently during your dairying career? They say hindsight is 20/20, but I don’t know if there is anything I would have done differently. I maybe would have taken different opportunities, but the opportunities I didn’t take advantage of were due to poor timing. Overall, I’m happy with how everything came out. I had no desire to get bigger; just kept to my size and enjoyed every minute of it. What was the biggest challenge of your career? I lost three of my ngers and half of the other two on my right hand in a corn picker in 1977. What was the highlight of your career? I am proudest of the quality milk we always shipped. We received a milk quality award every year. Another highlight was raising two wonderful kids. What advice do you have for the next generation of dairy farmers? Don’t listen to what everyone says about what is or isn’t good in farming. Sometimes you just have to put your head down and go for it. I was told I was nuts for wanting to dairy, but I ended up doing very well. Turn to FENCE | Page 16
E-EDITION
How did you transition out of dairying? We never advertised our farm, instead we only told a few people. The news of our farm for sale spread all the way to Washington to a young couple who wanted a better opportunity to farm. They moved here Nov. 4, 2015, and signed a letter of intent to buy the farm. We worked alongside them for the next two months and the nal sale of the farm went through on Jan. 1, 2016. We moved to a house in Winona for our retirement. We still worked closely with them at the time of the transition. I still stop out to the farm once every week or two, and they still ask me questions if they have any.
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Page 16 • Dairy Star • Saturday, April 8, 2017
ConƟnued from FENCE | Page 15
Al Schutz Dallas, Wis. Barron County
Mike Boland Gays Mills, Wis. Crawford County
Bernie Uilk Pipestone, Minn. Pipestone County
Gene Anderson Waltham, Minn. Mower County
Describe the dairy farm you had. My grandpa moved here in 1937, and my whole herd was descended from two of his registered Holstein cows. We have 360 acres.
Describe the dairy farm you had. I farmed with my wife, Jeanne. The farm was 225 acres and our herd of 75 cows was mostly grade Holsteins. We grew corn, hay and oats. We always grazed our cows, but we started rotational grazing in the late 1980s.
Describe the dairy farm you had. We milked 150 cows twice a day in a double-8 milking parlor that had automatic detachers. Our freestall barn had a cattle yard next to it, which enabled our cows to go outside and get some fresh air and exercise.
How did you transition out of dairying? Our son, Don, joined the operation in 1997. In 2007, we sold the land, equipment and cows to him on a land contract.
How did you transition out of dairying? We went into the CWT buyout program in the summer of 2005 and the cows left in December of that year. The cows were taken to the sale barn and sold for slaughter. We raised the rest of their offspring and gradually transitioned over to a 160-cow beef herd. My sons and I continue to farm our 2,400 acres.
Describe the dairy farm you had. I milked 40 cows in a 40-stall tiestall barn that was two stories with room for hay above the cows. It had two maternity pens and room for 11 calves. I had a herd of Holsteins with a Brown Swiss or two. I basically farmed all my life. I graduated from high school in 1969 and then went to a vocational technical school for two years. I farmed while attending school. In addition to the cows, I farmed 320 acres. I am now 65 years old.
How did you transition out of dairying? I sold the top third of my herd at a special sale at the sale pavilion in Barron, Wis., and the rest were sold at a dairy sale. I kept the youngstock and sold them as springers. What was the main reason for you exiting the dairy industry? My hired help was over 65 years old, and this farm wasn’t very labor efcient. It isn’t a place that runs without hired help. My equipment all wore out at about the same time, and I had already had one knee surgery. What have you done since selling your cows? I do shop work for neighboring farmers, along with custom harvesting and helping other farmers. I also work for a local auction company. Looking back, what would you have done differently during your dairying career? Except for not selling the cows until after milk hit $25, not much. What was the biggest challenge of your career? Besides trying to nd enough help at haying time, not much. What was the highlight of your career? I was able to grow up and live in the house I was born in and raise my kids on the same farm. What advice do you have for the next generation of dairy farmers? Try not to spend money without penciling it out and making sure you’ll get a return on your investment. Also, take time and enjoy life. The work will always be there, but life goes so fast that it’ll be gone before you know it.
What was the main reason for you exiting the dairy industry? My age. I was 70 years old. What have you done since selling your cows? Mainly just lived here on the farm and gone on vacations once in a while. Looking back, what would you have done differently during your dairying career? I probably would have built a milking parlor sooner. It made milking easier and faster. We built what is now a swing-12, in 1995 or so. What was the biggest challenge of your career? Probably the long hours. We tried to be done by 10 at night, usually after starting at 6 in the morning. What was the highlight of your career? Raising a family on the farm. Jeanne and I have seven children. What advice do you have for the next generation of dairy farmers? Stick with it, I guess. Don’t give up. Don’t get discouraged.
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What was the main reason for you exiting the dairy industry? Our facilities were shot, so it was either expand the herd and build a new barn or quit. My son Danny, had just nished school, and we considered building something new. After we had toured several new dairy facilities, I told Danny that in the end it would be his deal and he decided against it. What have you done since selling your cows? The winter after the cows left, we bought our rst Claas chopper and started a custom chopping business. The business has since grown to the point where we have six choppers. We cover an area that stretches 60 to 70 miles from our farm, but have gone as far away as Yankton, S.D. during the drought year of 2012. Our regular customers include about a dozen dairies and a bunch of beef operations. Looking back, what would you have done differently during your dairying career? We are pretty happy with what we did. Maybe we should have looked at expanding earlier, but I’m glad that we didn’t expand. Things got pretty tough for milk prices after we quit. What was the biggest challenge of your career? Getting away for vacations or even just going to evening activities. Summertime always kept us busy with eld work and putting up hay. There were a lot of events that I wasn’t able to attend. Some of our relatives couldn’t quite understand why things worked that way. What was the highlight of your career? Raising our four sons on the dairy farm and watching them grow up. Doing chores together with them was enjoyable and taught the boys the value of a good work ethic. What advice do you have for the next generation of dairy farmers? Dairy farming is a constant challenge, so hang in there. Milk prices are on a rollercoaster. Take advantage of the good times to prepare for the bad times. We enjoy working with our dairy farmer customers to help them produce the high quality forages that their animals need.
How did you transition out of dairying? I sold my herd of cows on Dec. 3, 2013. The cows were sold to two dairy farms. Cows were hard to sell then, but by spring they were selling well. I kept the heifers I had along with my land. I still have all my milking equipment. What was the main reason for you exiting the dairy industry? My knees were getting bad. Six days after I sold the cows, I had double knee replacement. Earlier in the fall, I had uid taken off my knees twice, and had cortisone and steroid shots that got me through the harvest. If I stood still for ve minutes, my knees would be stuck straight. It was very painful. I had worn them out so bad and was so bowlegged that I had dropped two inches. When I had my knees replaced, I grew 2 inches. What have you done since selling your cows? I have continued to farm my land. I also custom farm 260 acres for another farmer. I also buy and sell heifers. I kept my heifers when I sold my herd and have continued to raise heifers to sell as springers. I currently have 38 heifers on the farm. Looking back, what would you have done differently during your dairying career? I would have built a new barn sooner. I built a new barn in 1981 after using a really old barn milking 23 cows. The new barn (and the one still on the farm today) had plenty of room for hay, two silos with unloaders, a barn cleaner and a pipeline. Before this barn, it was a lot of manual labor with a stepsaver. The new facility was denitely an upgrade. What was the biggest challenge of your career? It was hard to nd good help if I wanted to get away for a little bit. It was especially hard before building the new barn because the process was so labor intensive. What was the highlight of your career? Building a new tiestall barn. It was so nice to work in. What advice do you have for the next generation of dairy farmers? Try to nd a partner to work with in the dairy business. If you want to do some building on your farm, try to do it sooner than you think you should. Milking cows is a good life. It has its ups and downs, but if you hang with it, it seems to work out.
Dairy Star • Saturday, April 8, 2017 • Page 17
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Page 18 • Dairy Star • Saturday, April 8, 2017
Top Performers
New Heights Dairy increases production with crossbreeding, employee training New Heights Dairy LLC Rice, Minn. Benton County Number of cows: 2,100
Do you use BST? If so, what is your protocol? Yes, we start using is at 90 days in milk. It is given every 14 days.
What is your current herd average, butterfat and protein? Our rolling herd average is 27,314 pounds of milk with 1,098 pounds of fat and 859 pounds of protein.
Do you contract your milk? Has it been successful for you? Yes, I work with Commodity Ingredient Hedging, and we use a margin-based approach. Depending on what the prot margin looks like determines what kind of strategy we implement. It has been useful in keeping the momentum of the business moving forward.
How many times a day do you milk? If you don’t milk 3X a day, have you tried it in the past? We milk three times a day.
JENNIFER COYNE/DAIRY STAR
Brent Czech operates New Heights Dairy LLC near Rice, Minn. A newly-built cross-venƟlated freestall barn has improved cow comfort and aided in the 2,100-cow dairy’s rolling herd average of 27,314 pounds of milk.
JENNIFER COYNE/DAIRY STAR
Brent Czech follows a strict crossbreeding program that focuses on components, funcƟonability and longevity.
Describe your housing and milking facility. Cows are housed in sand bedded freestall barns and milked in vertical lift parallel parlors. We currently nished building a 12-row cross ventilated freestall barn
and have been pleased with the results. What is the composition of your ration? What has been one of your most recent changes that has been suc-
cessful for you? We generally run a high corn silage diet with 20 pound of dry matter or more, inventory permitting. What we really try to focus on is delivering the ration formulated by our nutritionist and
Turn to NEW HEIGHTS | Page 20
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Dairy Star • Saturday, April 8, 2017 • Page 19
“... it works fast” — Troy Yoder
TRAMILDA HOLSTEINS, MONTEZUMA, GEORGIA Troy and Matilda Yoder and Family, 260 Holsteins 75-80 lbs/cow/day, SCC 175,000
“We use Udder Comfort™ on fresh udders and hard quarters to take edema out quickly. The faster we get the swelling out, the less need we have for intra-mammary treatments. We also like it for the show cows,” says Troy Yoder, visiting the booth at the 2017 Georgia Dairy Conference. Troy and his wife Matilda and their children own and operate Tramilda Holsteins near Montezuma, Georgia. The 260-cow milking herd includes some top Holsteins and donor cows, including 2016 Florida State Fair Supreme Champion (pictured) Tramilda-N Ad Flare-Red EX94 95MS.
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Page 20 • Dairy Star • Saturday, April 8, 2017
ConƟnued from NEW HEIGHTS | Page 18
making sure the cows have access to it 24 hours a day. This means making sure we have our dry matters dialed in correctly at all times, getting feed push up regularly, making sure pens aren’t running out of feed, keeping the error rate low when adding ingredients to the mixer, making sure the mixer is well maintained and mixing properly, making sure we have all pen moves entered promptly so the right amount of feed is delivered, making sure we sample enough to catch changes in forages and communicating them. These all sound like simple things, but when something isn’t going right it is generally one of these things. Through the years you’ve been farming, what change has created the biggest jump in your herd average? There isn’t one thing that created a jump all by itself. There are dairy producers who are much better than me and have much higher herd averages than me,
and I study them. I look at how they make decisions and how it affects the protability of their business. I think about how some of those things would t my business model. What is your herd health program? All animals on their rst A.I. service are on double ovsynch. Cows are given GnRH a week prior to pregnancy diagnosis and submitted to a double prostaglandin ovsynch if open. What does your dry cow and transition program consist of? Far off dry cows are moved off site and into sand bedded freestall barn. They are moved back into the prefresh group three weeks prior to calving. The prefresh group has sand bedded freestalls as well. From there, the rst lactation and second lactation plus groups have separate fresh pens where they stay for at least 10 days (based on space) before they are moved to a high group.
JENNIFER COYNE/DAIRY STAR
A merger, front mower and rear mower will be used to produce haylage all in one day at New Heights Dairy.
JENNIFER COYNE/DAIRY STAR
A high corn silage diet of 20 pounds of dry maƩer or more is available for the cows 24 hours a day. What role does genetics play in your production level and what is your breeding program? Genetics plays a large role in my business. We look at amount of solids produced per cow as well as her functionality and ability to stay in the herd. We use a rotational cross breeding program, using Montbeliarde, Jersey and Holstein. The best bulls for crossbreeding are not necessarily the highest ranking bulls for TPI or JPI. I take into consideration what I am getting from hybrid vigor and what things in each breed I need to improve and protect when se-
lecting bulls. Crossbred cows compete very well on a solids corrected basis. The reproduction has been much better in crossbreds leading to lower days in milk as well as reduced turnover rate and lower death loss due to hybrid vigor from crossbreeding. What type of improvements would you like to make that would increase your rolling herd average even higher? We just purchased new equipment to do haylage in a day and will continue to update and design facilities for enhanced cow comfort.
What would you say are the three most important factors for you that helped you attain your current herd average? Crossbreeding, employee training, and implementing a risk management strategy so that I can consistently manage my dairy and not make impulse decisions. Tell us about your farm. New Heights Dairy is a partnership between me (Brent) and my wife, Callie, and my parents Myron and Debbie. It is made up of two lactating sites in Rice and Foley, Minn. Dry cows and heifers are at a facility in Pierz, Minn.
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JD 7630, 2007, $ 3782 hrs., #131106
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Over 1200 items with pictures updated daily • Go to www.mmcjd.com #126054 .............................. $27,900 10 JD 956, 2013, #121134 .............................. $28,900 7 JD 946, 2014, #126629 .............................. $30,900 2 JD 946, 2014, #126997 .............................. $32,000 PLANTERS: DRAWN 12 JD 7200, #132029 ............ $13,900 10 JD 7200, 1986, #136880 .............................. $14,985 4 JD 1750, 2001, #127462 .............................. $20,500 6 JD 1760, 1996, #135809 .............................. $21,750 9 JD 1780, 1997, #127222 .............................. $28,500 1 JD 1770, 2000, #136716 .............................. $29,900 5 JD 1780, 2001, #136764 .............................. $32,900 9 JD 1750, 2013, #131524 .............................. $33,000 2 JD 1780, 2001, #134553 .............................. $42,500 7 JD DB44, 2008, #131589 .............................. $58,500 8 JD 1770NT, 2006, #135018 ..........................$64,000 4 JD DB44, 2005, #134620 .............................. $69,900 4 JD 1770, 2011, #132629 .............................. $72,500 4 JD 1770NT, 2010, #131019 .............................. $75,000 1 JD 1770NT, 2010, #123272 .............................. $77,500 10 JD 1770NT, 2010, #134770 .............................. $78,732 4 JD 1770NT CCS, 2013, #125129 ............................ $115,000 4 JD 1770NT, 2014, #134722 ............................ $127,330 SKID STEER LOADERS 10 JD 320, 2005, 7778 hrs., #131738 .............................. $13,500 10 JD 332, 2005, 6931 hrs., #131737 .............................. $16,500 7 Bobcat S185, 2008, 5666 hrs., #134431 .............................. $18,900 8 JD 318E, 2015, 2200 hrs., #135979 .............................. $26,500 10 JD 320E, 2015, 2290 hrs., #135972 .............................. $26,900 11 Bobcat S130, 2008, 252 hrs., #136868 .............................. $27,300 1 JD 315, 2014, 27 hrs., #113452 .............................. $28,900 1 JD 315, 2014, 42 hrs.,
ARTICULATED 4WD TRACTORS 9 JD 8430, 1976, 9220 hrs., #136814 .............................. $13,000 7 JD 8640, 1987, 10435 hrs., #137151 .............................. $20,350 9 Case STX275, 2001, 3446 hrs., #135811 .............................. $68,000 5 JD 9300, 1997, 4445 hrs., #132726 .............................. $79,000 8 JD 9400, 1996, 6173 hrs., #134367 .............................. $79,000 7 JD 9520, 2006, 3109 hrs., #135259 ............................ $139,000 6 JD 9620, 2006, 4700 hrs., #134870 ............................ $148,000 5 JD 9630, 2008, 3004 hrs., #135019 ............................ $169,000 1 JD 9560R, 2013, 2302 hrs., #127914 ............................ $235,000 6 JD 9560R, 2012, 1681 hrs., #133796 ............................ $249,000 7 JD 9560R, 2013, 950 hrs., #135213 ............................ $254,900 2 JD 9620R, 2015, 455 hrs., #125913 ............................ $379,000 FIELD CULTIVATORS 2 JD 985, 1995, #130971 .............................. $18,000 8 JD 985, 1999, #135905 .............................. $21,500 4 JD 2210, #135359 ............ $32,000 1 JD 2210, 2005, #120515 .............................. $39,500 7 CIH 200, 2012, #135767 .............................. $52,000 7 CIH 200, 2012, #135951 .............................. $53,000 6 CIH 200, 2011, #129150 .............................. $55,000 3 JD 2210, 2012, #135755 .............................. $62,500 MOWER CONDITIONERS 11 JD 946, 2005, #130363 .............................. $17,500 10 NH H7150, 2011, #122976 .............................. $19,900 11 JD 635, 2013, #134300 .............................. $21,900 8 JD 946, 2009, #132018 .............................. $23,500 10 JD 835, 2012, #130580 .............................. $24,000 6 NH H7150, 2012, #126620 .............................. $24,500 9 JD 830, 2015, #134944 .............................. $25,900 10 JD 835, 2015, #133943 .............................. $26,500 1 JD 956, 2011,
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#113451 .............................. $28,900 7 JD 318D, 2010, 350 hrs., #126439 .............................. $28,900 5 JD 320E, 2014, 1813 hrs., #125994 .............................. $28,900 9 JD 318D, 2013, 890 hrs., #135024 .............................. $29,500 9 JD 318D, 2013, 945 hrs., #135025 .............................. $29,500 2 JD 326E, 2014, 1951 hrs., #126744 .............................. $29,900 9 JD 318D, 2011, 389 hrs., #134073 .............................. $30,900 4 JD 320E, 2015, 142 hrs., #127651 .............................. $30,900 6 JD 320E, 2015, 1591 hrs., #134169 .............................. $30,900 8 JD 318E, 2014, 664 hrs., #125356 .............................. $31,900 8 JD 320D, 2013, 1020 hrs., #133492 .............................. $32,900 10 JD 318E, 2014, 692 hrs., #137155 .............................. $33,500 10 JD 318E, 2014, 746 hrs., #135937 .............................. $33,500 8 JD 318E, 2015, 478 hrs., #136780 .............................. $33,500 4 JD 320E, 2014, 601 hrs., #134794 .............................. $34,900 10 JD 320E, 2014, 1026 hrs., #135139 .............................. $34,900 4 JD 320E, 2014, 175 hrs., #118329 .............................. $35,900 4 JD 320E, 2014, 475 hrs., #135901 .............................. $35,900 2 Bobcat S590, 2013, 757 hrs., #131472 .............................. $35,900 8 JD 318E, 2015, 46 hrs., #134905 .............................. $36,900 1 JD 320E, 2014, 429 hrs., #125588 .............................. $36,900 4 JD 326E, 2014, 860 hrs., #127652 .............................. $37,500 4 JD 318E, 2015, 45 hrs., #118133 .............................. $37,900 10 JD 320E, 2015, 30 hrs., #126180 .............................. $37,900 3 JD 326E, 2014, 465 hrs., #125552 .............................. $37,900 2 JD 320E, 2015, 178 hrs., #115882 .............................. $38,465 7 JD 326D, 2012, 250 hrs., #135015 .............................. $38,500 11 JD 320E, 2014, 115 hrs., #121065 .............................. $38,900 8 JD 320E, 2015, 115 hrs., #130568 .............................. $39,900 7 JD 326D, 2012, 210 hrs., #135673 .............................. $40,500
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2 JD 326E, 2015, 150 hrs., #128590 .............................. $40,900 8 JD 326E, 2014, 490 hrs., #128883 .............................. $41,500 8 JD 326E, 2015, 508 hrs., #134033 .............................. $42,000 6 JD 326E, 2014, 210 hrs., #131457 .............................. $42,900 8 JD 332E, 2014, 1345 hrs., #132664 .............................. $42,900 12 JD 326E, 2015, 136 hrs., #118578 .............................. $44,900 9 JD 326E, 2016, 65 hrs., #126370 .............................. $45,900 4 JD 332D, 2012, 612 hrs., #127231 .............................. $46,000 11 JD 328E, 2014, 531 hrs., #127230 .............................. $46,900 6 JD 332E, 2014, 748 hrs., #132327 .............................. $47,500 4 JD 328E, 2016, 200 hrs., #131549 .............................. $51,000 8 JD 332E, 2015, 274 hrs., #131496 .............................. $51,900 11 JD 332E, 2015, 122 hrs., #135560 .............................. $55,000 TRACK TRACTORS 6 JD 8310T, 2001, 2295 hrs., #126238 .............................. $85,000 2 JD 9320T, 2004, 3280 hrs., #134963 ............................ $123,050 1 Case STX425, 2002, 3168 hrs., #136012 ............................ $126,900 5 JD 9530T, 2009, 3199 hrs., #135766 ............................ $155,000 9 Caterpillar MT765C, 2012, 1675 hrs., #136810......... $163,000 8 JD 8310RT, 2013, 477 hrs., #132060 ............................ $235,000 2 JD 9460RT, 2012, 1089 hrs., #125925 ............................ $269,000 1 CIH 600 QUAD TRACK, 2012, 1182 hrs., #135208......... $279,900 WINDROWERS 6 JD 4995, 2005, 1974 hrs., #132382 .............................. $73,500 7 JD A400, 2012, 1127 hrs., #132348 .............................. $74,900 2 JD 4995, 2009, 1450 hrs., #132150 .............................. $82,500 6 JD W235, 2014, 858 hrs., #133186 ............................ $139,000 6 JD W235, 2014, 576 hrs., #135622 ............................ $142,500 5 JD W235, 2014, 584 hrs., #134973 ............................ $145,000 8 JD W260, 2015, 411 hrs., #132464 ............................ $162,000
JD 6140D, 2013, $ 140 hp., 378 hrs., #131138
62,500
Page 22 • Dairy Star • Saturday, April 8, 2017
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Commitment to lifelong learning, teaching
Being a successful dairy farmer today is a commitment to continuous improvement. Not only to grow and learn, but also to teach. Whether it is information and technology or equipment enhancements, there are technologies that will enhance our industry while delivering a sustainable, affordable, and nutritious supply of dairy products to consumers. It’s exciting to see collaboration between both producers and industry professionals to help improve our efforts on the farm and in the dairy aisle. By Kay Zwald These strong collaborative WMMB Board efforts between farmers and Member, District 5 Wisconsin dairy infrastructure help improve our efforts every step of the way from eld to fork. As dairy farmers, we have to be proactive educators. We’re experts on what we do and need to take active roles in sharing our knowledge. I understand it can be hard to make time for tours, but the reality is there is never a perfect time. Opening up our farm for tours is an opportunity for conversations and that can be the most impactful opportunity we have as individuals in bridging the gap between consumers and our dairy farm families. While the weather is still cold and wet, there is no better time to think about hosting a tour. Did you know our check-off provides farm tour resources that are readily available from the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board? Our checkoff developed the Wisconsin Dairy Farm Tour booklet to be a quick reference for helping you give a successful farm tour.
Th possibilities The ibili i are endless dl in terms of resources available for us to educate... Th kl was originally i i ll ddeveloped l d with i h school h The bbooklet groups in mind, but the information it offers can be easily adapted to t any touring audience. Dairy farmers can also request materials ranging from dairy facts and stats and nutrition information, to coloring books and a bag for the kids to take everything home to share with their families. If interested in these materials for a farm tour call 800-373-9662 or visit http://www.wmmb.com/producers/farm-tour. Besides tour resources, dairy farmers can receive key talking points, get training to enhance communication skills or, when faced with the most difcult questions, ask WMMB to provide the most informed response possible. The possibilities are endless in terms of resources available for us to educate. We just need to continue our efforts and strive for continued improvement. Zwald is the WMMB Board Member for District 5. She operates Bomaz Farm in Hammond, Wis.
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Dairy Star • Saturday, April 8, 2017 • Page 23
Determination pays off Tree-Hayven Holsteins recognized as WHA Distinguished Young Holstein Breeder By Cassie Olson
cassie.o@dairystar.com
AUBURNDALE, Wis. – When Adam Borchardt purchased his dairy farm in 1998, he had a long road and many dreams ahead of him. Now milking 60 cows on his farm, Tree-Hayven Holsteins, near Auburndale, Wis., Adam, his daughter, Aaliyah, 14, and Chelsey Karl are reaching the milestones they once dreamed of. During the Wisconsin Holstein Association banquet on Feb. 25 in Appleton, Wis., the family was recognized for their success in the breed when they were honored as the Distinguished Young Holstein Breeders. It is an honor that Adam said took plenty of determination and hard work to reach. “The barn held 40 cows and had some fairly good registered Holsteins,” Adam said. “A lot of updates needed to be made to the barn and herd to get us to where we are now.” Much of the property was swampland, with only a house and barn for facilities. Over the years, Adam and Chelsey made many changes and additions to the farm, including an addition to the barn, switching out stanchions for tiestalls, and building a calf barn, loang barn and cow yard with headlocks.
PHOTO SUBMITTED
Adam Borchardt and Chelsey Karl (right) pictured with Adam’s daughter, Aaliyah, were recently recognized as Wisconsin’s DisƟnguished Young Holstein Breeders on Feb. 25 at the Wisconsin Holstein AssociaƟon banquet. The family milks 60 registered Holsteins on their farm, Tree-Hayven Holsteins, near Auburndale, WIs. Adam always had an interest in elite “We bought a lot of cows at sales Holstein genetics and knew it would and a few cows here and there over the take just as much time and patience to years to update our genetics,” Adam get the cows to where he wanted. said. “But now, nearly all of the animals
on our farm carry our prex.” Adam and Chelsey work together to make the breeding decisions on the farm. Their herd of 60 cows has a rolling herd average of 24,659 pounds of milk and the herd BAA is 110.7. However, they agree their breeding focus has consistently been on type, and feet and legs, with hopes of breeding Holsteins that are competitive in the show ring. “We all like to show. We haven’t bred the big one yet, but we hope we can one day breed a cow to win in Madison,” Adam said. Showing cattle is where the hard work of everyone at Tree-Hayven pays off. In 2016, their winter yearling heifer, Tree- Hayven Moregold Design, was named reserve junior champion of the Wisconsin Championship Show. In her rst time exhibiting at the Wisconsin State Fair, Aaliyah’s heifer, Tree- Hayven Integral Declan, was named junior champion of the junior show. Declan competed well in the junior show ring throughout 2016, which led to a Junior All-American nomination, as well. Chelsey said they hope to grow upon their show ring success as time goes on. “First, we wanted to win a class at our district show. Then we set our eyes on state and spring show,” Chelsey said. “We want to keep moving uphill in the right direction, and hopefully keep people interested in our genetics.” Over the years, Adam has bred high-scoring brood cows, including an EX-93 Charles daughter, Tree- Hayven Peppermint Pati. Pati has had a lasting legacy on the herd, with many members Turn to TREE-HAYVEN | Page 25
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Dairy Star • Saturday, April 8, 2017 • Page 25
ConƟnued from TREE-HAYVEN | Page 23
of her family being marketed statewide. Breeding impactful cow families is a thrill for Adam and is one of the many reasons he loves breeding registered Holsteins. “We like to see the next generation improve every time we make a breeding decision,” Adam said. “I love watching the longevity of the families develop.” From early in his career, Adam learned that improvement is essential as a regis-
tered breeder. He stays abreast of current trends and advancements in the dairy business and makes adjustments when he sees necessary. Most recently, he made the decision to switch to sand bedding in the tiestall barn two years ago and said it is a decision that has made all the difference. “We were using a lot of bedding on top of mats and still were getting banged up hocks,” Adam said. “We ran a PVC pipe in and shot sand
PHOTO SUBMITTED
Two years ago, Adam Borchardt switched to sand bedding in the Ɵestall barn. In addiƟon to improved cow comfort and somaƟc cell count, Adam said he is enjoying a lower instance of hairy warts and beƩer hocks on the cows.
PHOTO SUBMITTED
Aaliyah Karl leads her heifer, Tree-Hayven Integral Declan, during a showmanship class at World Dairy Expo. Adam and Chelsey Borchardt said their focus while breeding is on type for compeƟƟveness in the show ring.
over the mats and added onto the curb a bit so sand wouldn’t mix in with the feed.” The biggest improvement Adam has seen is nearly an elimination of hairy warts in the herd. Somatic cell counts continue to stay low and the cows are comfortable. “Cows are laying down a lot of time; there have been several occasions where we have walked into the barn and every cow has been lying down,” Adam said. The couple agrees that being recognized as Wisconsin
Holstein Association’s Distinguished Young Holstein Breeder was a humbling experience. No strangers to the trials and tribulations of the recent dairy economy, they said it was the pat on the back they needed to keep moving forward. “We are pretty honored. This is a special award to us. It made us feel like people acknowledge our breeding decisions,” Chelsey said. Adam agreed. “The last couple years have been a little discouraging
with the milk prices low and cost of production so high,” Adam said. “This gave us that boost of condence again that we can, indeed, get through it.” The couple appreciates their family, who they said are equally supportive and helpful on the farm. Tree-Hayven Holstein’s commitment as young Holstein breeders shows with an outstanding group of females the have developed, which they hope will bring them continued success in the years to come.
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Attention to our organic producers of crops, livestock, wild crops and handling. The Farm Service Agency is now administering the Organic Certication Cost Share Program. This program provides organic producers and handlers with nancial assistance to reduce the cost of organic certication. The program reimburses producers and handlers for a portion of their paid certication costs. Once certi- FSA News & Notes ed, organic producers and handlers are eligible to receive reimbursement for up to 75 percent of certication costs each year, up to a maximum of $750 per certication scope – crops, livestock, wild crops and handling. Organic certication cost share funds are only available to certied organic producers. Certications must be provided by a USDA-accredited certifying agent. Eligible costs include application fees, inspection By Ryan Brunn costs, fees related to equivalency agreement/arrangement requirements, travel per diem for inspectors, Stearns Co. Exec. Dir. user fees, sales assessments and postage. Ineligible costs include equipment, materials, supplies, late fees and inspections necessary to address National Organic Program regulatory violations. To apply, you may participate with the Minnesota Department of Agriculture according to their deadlines or you may apply directly at your FSA ofce. Applicants must typically submit a one-page application form, W-9 tax form (to participating state agencies), proof of certication and an itemized invoice of certication expenses. For more information, visit www.fsa.usda.gov/organic. Farm Service Agency is an Equal Opportunity Lender. Complaints about discrimination should be sent to: Secretary of Agriculture, Washington, D.C. 20250. Visit the Farm Service Agency Web site at: www.fsa.usda.gov/ for necessary application forms and updates on USDA programs.
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A successful voyage to Sioux Falls
Dairy Star • Saturday, April 8, 2017 • Page 27
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Successfully surviving another Minnesota winter is cause for celebration. At our farm this year, it takes careful planning to enjoy the accomplishment while also making sure all the chores get done. For the gopher, celebration means heading east to the Twin Cities for AMPI’s annual convention in Bloomington, Minn. For the jackrabbit, it means heading west to the Central Plains Dairy Expo in Sioux Falls, S.D. This is the fth year Patty and I have had the privilege to attend the CPDE. After my nal chore lists were communicated to Laura, we were westward bound. I traveled in peace knowing my brother, Greg, will keep the equipment running smoothly, Laura will take great care of all the animals, and our terric neighbor kids will show up on time and do a great job helping when asked. The trip is always lled with anticipation and excitement of the people we will see and the next transition words of advice we will hear. Actually knowing where we were going and arriving two hours early provided the chance for us to shop at Hobby Lobby. Patty and I found gifts and great ideas for our children and our future son-in-laws. Upon arriving at the convention center, I met a friend whom I know; his title is chief nancial ofcer. He reiterated that the most successfully- run dairies involve families whose members specialize in differing areas. For example, one likes the cows, one prefers the bookwork and one handles the eldwork. That sounds just like our dairy – no wonder I like this event.
So, passing on the dairy is not simply about the handing down of cows, buildings and equipment. Rather, it is also about passing on morals, values, faith and a respectful way of life. Not always are these words at the top of the list, but they are on the list that matters in the end. The rest of the day involved visiting with vendors and making new friends. It is amazing how we drive two hours just to catch up and visit with our neighbors, only miles away from home. Another successful voyage it was, that energized me to want to make tomorrow better then today, and with more meaning and purpose. After arriving home late that evening, the gopher had done a great job, adding two new heifer calves to our replacement herd. John Rosenhammer farms with his daughter, Laura, and brother, Greg, on Roseview Dairy near Sleepy Eye, Minn. They milk 200 Holsteins and run 580 acres of cropland.
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from another’s tragedy. There is always a great takehome message. This year, Rita Vander Kooi spoke about her young daughter’s accident, involving falling off of a moving side-by-side four wheeler; the young girl lost entire use of one of her arms. After months of surgeries, rehabilitation and prayer, the young girl is slowly re-learning to use her arm – a true miracle. Through all the turmoil, fear and setbacks, Rita has chosen to become a victor, not a victim. She created a website that focuses on her daughters progress, not her losses. She stressed that we all begin each day with a few moments of prayer and gratitude to allow God to guide us through each day. In this way, we will not miss our chances to become better people. Rita said the support she received from others through her website has returned far more than the time she has invested. The highlight of the story was when Ava, the little girl, spoke briey to the crowd. Not a sound was made, only silence, followed by tears of the crowd.
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Signs of spring Page 28 • Dairy Star • Saturday, April 8, 2017
Spring is nally here. We had a nice warm up in February and again in March, but this time the season seems to be spring. I know this because of the many signs I watch for as the days y by bringing us into April. At the end of February, I saw a robin. I couldn’t believe it, but it was on the grass in our front yard. We didn’t have any frost this winter and grass in the yard was still in green patches. I would like to think there were some worms for the bird to eat. Not long after, I watched the Canadian Geese y back. They have a stop-over in one of our elds that oods every year. They land in the water and graze on the corn stalks, gleaning the eld and getting the energy to take off in the following morning. For several years, we have had a pair of killdeers By Tina Hinchley that lay their eggs in the gravel by the freestall barn. Farmer & Columnist It was the middle of March when they returned with their young. I heard the bird call and saw all four of them ying by the end of the bunker silos, looking for this year’s nesting spot. Then came the Sandhill cranes in ocks using our winter wheat eld as a stop over point. Usually, we have a few of them pair up and nest in the wheat and in the corn sprouts. Tonight at dusk, there were two of them calling to each other. One walked right across the highway. The warmer weather always brings out other critters that do not make it across the road. Coming out of hibernation looking for something to eat; raccoons, opossums, skunks and woodchucks lay attened where they took their last step. Were they looking for a dead deer? Plenty of carcasses and bones that have been hit by vehicles throughout the winter are no longer covered by snow, are thawing and getting a little stinky. That could lure many hungry animals to venture near a busy highway. These all tell me spring is here. But, the clues that give it away inside our
house make it a positive prediction. Asian lady beetles magically appear by our light over the sink every spring. They y sporadically without control, landing on me. I’ve tried to vacuum them, but they have a smell that stays in the vacuum for quite a while. They seem to die fast on their own, and I can wipe them up with a wet paper towel. Another spring announcement is boxelder bugs crawling around. I am amazed they can climb anywhere. They get the vacuum treatment, and if I put carpet deodorizer down I can’t smell them. The biggest declaration for spring are the ants. Little red ants that march around the window frame to come down on the counter looking for treats. The parade starts with just a few ants on a crumb of bread. Next time I walk by the number has tripled, and there is a esta on the crumb. I know there are products that bait the ants to take the poison back to the queen. I have a hard time watching them persist in returning for more poison. I have taken the killing of these ants into my own hands with any spray cleaner I have. They die quickly, and then I can wipe down my counter. Until they return again the next day with reinforcements. More ants looking for another crumb, drop of jelly from my toast, or the orange juice that didn’t get rinsed down the drain when the glass was left in the sink. This time it has become the biggest ant convention. I don’t believe any of the poison got to the queen, and they communicate well with all the other ants to join them in my kitchen sink. Spraying repeatedly will take care of them. During the rst few days of spring, this ant attack annually occurs. As it persists, we get better at being proactive and making sure we don’t have any crumbs or treats for the ants to be attracted to. The ant bait is out, the perimeter of the house is sprinkled with insecticide and the ants retreat. Well, that is until we see them next year. Tina Hinchley, her husband, Duane, and their daughters, Anna and Catherine, milk 120 registered Holsteins and farm 2,500 acres of crops near Cambridge, Wis. They have been hosting farm tours for over 18 years.
Westby Coop Creamery takes rst in cheese contest Organized by the Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association, the U.S. Championship Cheese Contest is the largest technical cheese, butter, and yogurt products competition in the country. Wisconsin cheesemakers and dairy product manufacturers dominated the 2017 competition, earning gold medals in 58 of the 101 classes judged. Westby Cooperative Creamery earned 1st Place, Best-of-Class, Gold Medal Awards in the product class-categories of Cottage Cheese and High Protein Cow’s Milk Yogurt. • Westby™ brand 4 percent Small Curd Cottage Cheese topped eleven challengers in the product category with a 1st Place/Best-of-Class total score of 95.0 points. • Smari™ brand Organic Icelandic Yogurt (Plain avor), manufactured by Westby Cooperative Creamery as a private-label customer; out-scored eight competitors with a near-perfect 1st Place/Gold Medal score of 99.20 points. For this 2017 competition; a re-
cord-setting 2303 product entries, from 33 states, in 101 product classes, were evaluated during a two-day competition in Green Bay, Wisconsin. This included all types of cheeses and cultured dairy products made from the milk of cows, goats, and sheep; including certiedorganic milk. Says Pete Kondrup, General Manager of Westby Cooperative Creamery, “On behalf of our family dairy farm member-owners, and employees, we are very happy to receive these rstplace awards. To, again, earn a Gold Medal in this national competition for one of our Cottage Cheese products is especially rewarding. “As the only Cottage Cheese manufacturer in the state of Wisconsin, we are especially pleased to be judged the Best-of-Class in the United States. Even more so as one of the oldest dairy cooperatives in the country, now into our 114th year of continuous operation and ownership by generations of local family dairy farms. “We are also one of the few dairy
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Integrating crops, livestock in a dairy production system
Dairy Star • Saturday, April 8, 2017 • Page 29
By Brad Heins & Hannah Phillips University of Minnesota
Organic production in the United States is currently dominated by cash grain crops with the majority of organic farmers in the Midwest and Northeast using off-farm purchases to feed their organic animal herds. Integrating crops and livestock on a multi-function operation could have multiple benets and the potential to improve the protability of these kinds of operations. Researchers at Iowa State University, the University of Minnesota, and Rodale Institute are in the second year of a four-year project funded by the United States Department of Agriculture Organic Research and Extension Initiative to evaluate the production, environmental and economic benets of growing cash crops with forage crops for grazing, including small grains and hay crops for livestock feed. They are comparing two crop rotations (pasture-winter wheat-soybean-pasture, and pasture-winter rye/ hairy vetch-corn-pasture) and grazing dairy steers on the cover crops as a method of integrating livestock and organic cropping systems. At the University of Minnesota West Central Research and Outreach Center’s organic dairy in Morris, Minn., the dairy bull calves are Holsteins; crossbreds, including combinations of Holstein, Montbéliarde and Viking Red; and crossbreds, including combinations of Normande, Jersey and Viking Red. Steers are grazing on a pasture divided in half for the two crop sequences (S1: pasture-wheatsoybean, and S2: pasture-rye/vetchcorn). These pastures are separated into 15 paddocks, with a non-grazed enclosure in each paddock. Winter wheat and winter rye forages were planted on Sept. 11, 2015, for grazing during spring 2016. During this spring, calves were randomly assigned to replicated groups (winter wheat or winter rye), but balanced by
breed group to reduce potential breed bias. Twelve-month old dairy steers started grazing the wheat and rye pastures on April 25, 2016. Forage samples were collected when steers moved to new paddocks about every three days. Winter rye (2,626 pound DM per acre) had greater herbage mass compared to winter wheat (2,021 pound DM per acre). Crude protein was very high in both the winter wheat and winter rye across the grazing season, which lasted until June 14, 2016, for these grasses. From early May through the end of the grazing season, the crude protein was lower than at the start of grazing; however, the steers were probably more efcient at utilizing the protein when it was lower compared to high protein levels observed during late April. Di-
Preliminary data showed higher steer weights after grazing on rye compared to wheat plots. For rye, grazing had a positive effect on plant biomass and grain yield, which averaged 0.5 tons per acre. By comparison, grazing in wheat plots reduced biomass and grain yield, which averaged 1.1 tons per acre. The integration of livestock in organic cropping systems is a prerequisite for long-term agricultural stability. We are studying methods to integrate crops and livestock to determine this model’s effect on animal performance, crop productivity (including small grains for grazing), soil quality, food safety and social acceptance. During the third year of the project, organic row crops will be harvested, and crop/livestock budgets will be produced.
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gestibility of the winter wheat and rye also was very high (Figure 1). As the wheat and rye matured, the digestibility was lower; however, the dairy steers grazed each paddock and wheat and rye four times in a two-month period. At the Rodale Institute in Pennsylvania, dairy steers grazed an eightacre pasture in 2015, subdivided into four rotationally grazed strips that were each one acre. The steers were allowed to graze each one-acre paddock for 14 days. Over the 150 grazing days, the steers gained an average of 1.7 pounds per day. There was no difference in the rate of gain on the two pastures. Grazing enhanced pasture production as biomass in the enclosures was only two DM ton per acre compared to 11 DM ton per acre in grazed areas.
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Puzzles
Page 30 • Dairy Star • Saturday, April 8, 2017
Puzzles are an important part of my life. In farming, sometimes things happen which leave us confused by the outcome despite the best efforts of our on-farm veterinarian. In the literal sense of a puzzle, well, you should see my house at the moment. We had a Brown Swiss cross cow that Melanie and I had been waiting for to calve. She had exceeded her allotted time in the transition pen, and we were beginning to think she was open. I bumped her when she visited the parlor for her other oddity; she would prolapse every so often. Now, this wasn’t just a little prolapse. It was enough to warrant getting Dad to push it back in and run stitches to hold it in. We were starting to wonder what on earth was going on inside her body that she wouldn’t calve. We gured perhaps she was pregnant from a more recent breeding, thus giving her a later due date. She kept getting wider and
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wider, without her udder ever lling, and Dad’s only answer was to wait and see. Finally, two weeks ago with extreme assistance from Dad and Melanie, she had a gigantic dead bull calf. Prototheca mastitis continues to puzzle us on the farm. We still don’t know where it is coming from, or how it is spreading, or if indeed it is spreading at all. It has caused us to sell far too many cows. Cows which look absolutely beautiful and are milking far too much. Perhaps the biggest puzzle where this demon is concerned is that the majority of the cows are aring with mastitis on their front right quarters. As is a trait of it, they tend to go dry on this quarter after a while and continue to milk great on the other three. Of all the puzzles on our farm, I wish all the pieces to this one would magically come together. We had gone months without a cast withers or a
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uterine torsion on our farm, and then had both happen in a two-week time span. The torsion cow had to be sold and the rst prolapsed uterus was caught fast because it was in the morning and was xed up like new. The second wasn’t so lucky. She had prolapsed in the middle of the night and wasn’t noticed. By the Ramblings from the Ridge time Stacy and Dad got to the barn, she was already bleeding internally and died within mere minutes. She wasn’t even on my radar as a possible prolapse cow. She calved easily, was up and licking her calf fast and seemed ne. It was such a puzzle. Near the end of By Jacqui Davison February, we had a deColumnist pressing week, losing three dry cows. Dad and Carmen worked together to perform the postmortem examinations. Unfortunately, nothing of great consequence was discovered. They had died overnight, so most of the excessive internal bleeding and bruising was attributed to the time that had lapsed between death and necropsy. Then a few weeks later, Melanie and Carmen were walking the transition cows for foot trim cows and noticed a heifer with bumps all over her body. She had only been in the pen for 24 hours and was having an allergic reaction to something in the environment. A quick shot of Epinephrine saved her life and she has been ne. We weren’t able to gure out what caused her reaction. This past week, Dad was pulling a calf from a heifer. The calf was in half. When he reached in, he found three legs, and operating on the assumption that it was twins, he started to pull on a pair of legs. Turns out that it was a rare case of schistosomus reexus; where the calf is folded up and the intestines, heart and lungs are not enclosed by the skin. It is a completely freak experience with no concrete explanation as to why it happened. In my house, I turn around and there are puzzles on two tables, on a big tray and on the oor. Dane himself completed a 500-piece puzzle in three nights this week. It is his release at the end of the day. Try as we may in the barn, sometimes all of our puzzle piece searching doesn’t add up to a complete picture to solve an animal’s ailment or death. While it makes us feel somewhat better to continue to conjure up possible explanations, nothing gives us the sense of peace like completing the picture with an absolute answer. As the boys attack a new puzzle, they know the end is in sight as the picture slowly takes shape. Even if it is missing a piece or two, they still imagine what the picture is and achieve that feeling of accomplishment. This is the beauty of childhood. Their hardest puzzles come in boxes, that with a little time and persistence, will show them an amazing picture. As we get older our puzzles become much harder to solve. We are never certain how many pieces they will contain or what the nal picture will look like. Jacqui and her family milk 700 cows and run 1,200 acres of crops in the northeastern corner of Vernon County, Wis. Her children, Ira (10), Dane (8), Henry (3) and newborn, Cora, help her on the farm while her husband, Keith, works on a grain farm. If she’s not in the barn, she’s probably in the kitchen, trailing after little boys, or sharing her passion of reading with someone. Her life is best described as organized chaos-and if it wasn’t, she’d be bored.
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The bigger picture
As soon as I pulled into the parking lot, I saw trucks and vehicles with dairy decals that lled the rows. A few pieces of dairy equipment were pulled up right beside them. It was one of the rst signs I had arrived at a farm show. As I walked toward the convention center, pulling open the doors decorated with a feed advertisement, I saw a young family making their way inside, the kids skipping and jogging to keep up with A Little Bit of Sunshine their parents’ wide strides. I could tell from their interaction they were all excited to be there. Although spending two days at a trade show with seminars would crunch my writing time, I was excited to be there, too. It had been at least ve years since I had attended the Central Plains Dairy Expo (CPDE) in Sioux Falls, S.D. Wow, has it changed. There is so much more room and space in the trade show, more seminars and lots of people. I caught up with some of our dairy farming columnists – John Rosenhammer, Dave Vander Kooi and Sadie Frericks – and saw plenty of producers from my neck of the woods. In the booth, I was able to chat with people from By Krista Kuzma other areas and encourage them to sign up for our weekly Assistant Editor e-newsletter, called The Milk Break, for even more dairy information. (If you are interested in signing up, email Andrea at andrea.b@dairystar.com.) Plus, I got to sing along with Clint Black during his concert the night before the trade show opened. Together, it created a great energy during the trade show in the convention center. Everyone there had smiles on their faces and seemed to be engaging in meaningful conversation. People were looking at new products or snapping pictures with friends to post to social media. And free ice cream always makes people happy. Events like this are a great way to socialize and learn, all at the same time. Although sometimes topics in the dairy industry can get heavy, it is important to realize there is a whole industry to look to for support. Going to the CPDE reminded me of that widespread network. Even though I work in the media and talk to dairy farmers sometimes on a daily basis, the world can start feeling small when I only think of the items on my daily to-do list in my basement ofce. I’m sure the same can happen on the farm – to be so focused on getting the daily chores done we forget about others in the industry around us. It’s events like these that keep me going. If you haven’t been to a farm show or dairy expo in the Midwest, I encourage you to attend. Being around so many people in the industry lifts my spirits. I like connecting with producers I haven’t met before and hearing their dairy farming story. It’s fascinating to see all the latest dairy equipment and I like to hear different management techniques used on the farms during seminars. While the CPDE did set me back in my writing a bit, it rejuvenated my enthusiasm for the dairy industry and reminded me about the bigger picture in the dairy industry. So, dairy farmers, keep up the good work at home and know there is a large number of people there to support you. I hope to see you at an upcoming dairy expo!
Dairy Star • Saturday, April 8, 2017 • Page 31
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Uncomfortable cows and cold calves Page 32 • Dairy Star • Saturday, April 8, 2017
Last month in my column, I wrote about our I wouldn’t consider our addition as a Cadillac or 700-stall lean-to expansion, and I said this month a Ford Focus, probably more like a well loaded I would write about the itemized and total costs of Buick. the project. Due to the inevitable thinking of, while When we had completed three of the six new we are at it we might as well do this also; our costs pens, we realized we had a narrow window of time are not all in yet. before we added more I’m not sure if I should cows to x some old conThe week k off crowded d d cows count redoing 16-year-old Th crete issues in the crossconcrete as a cost of the went quite well; we didn’t walk behind the holding new construction, or just area. The crosswalk was a $60,000 repair. In the lose much milk and didn’t see poured very at 16 years near future, I will break short term effects. ago, causing manure and down the individual costs, water to pond right where but for now I can tell you cows were walking in to the freestall addition is goget milked. Also, the coning to be right at $5,000 per stall. Hopefully this crete was wearing down below the ume grate number will be useful to some of you for borrow- openings due to the constant sand abrasion. The ing purposes or just to see if you can do it for less. concrete was pitted with small rocks protruding up
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into the cows’ feet. The worst ponding section was a 16- by 50-foot area right behind the holding area. How were we going to keep milking 1,400 cows and re-pour Making Cents of Dairy that? First, we hired a guy with a big concrete saw to come and cut all the old concrete into manageable 4- by 6-foot pieces. We let the pieces lay in place until the morning of the pour. We skipped the 4 a.m., parlor washing and milked as many cows as we could unBy Dave Vander Kooi til we shut the parlor Columnist down at 7 a.m. Then, we quickly removed the old concrete pieces with pallet forks on skid loaders. We replaced the old drain with a new one 6 inches lower so we would gain slope and drainage. The concrete crew laser marked their lines on the side walls and placed pre-wired rebar in place. Meanwhile, Joe and our crew jackhammered odd areas, and we nished pouring at 12:58 p.m. At 2:30 p.m., the cows started bellowing, but the special fast drying concrete was nowhere near dry. At 3:30 p.m., the cows were bellowing and pushing on the pen gates that lead to the parlor and the concrete was not ready for trafc. We then went and found every old rubber cow mat or piece of rubber belting we could nd and laid it on the fresh concrete. This helped distribute the cows weight on a larger area and allowed us to start milking by 5 p.m. By 5 the next morning, the cows were comfortable, laying down and back on schedule. The next week was round two of fun in the barn. In order to re-pour the rest of the crosswalk to the south barn, we moved all the milking cows to the north barn, and all the dry cows and close up heifers to the south barn. We put 180 milking cows in a 120-cow pen, which is not recommended. Putting all the dry cows and close up heifers in the south barn meant they were a long way from the fresh cow parlor and our heated oor calf area. We also could not walk the calving cows to the north barn because we were pouring concrete for ve days in the old crosswalk. This meant we had to trailer them at least twice a day. We made a temporary box stall for a place for the newborn calves to be until I came with the trailer at 5 a.m., and 4 p.m. The box stall was lined with large straw bales to keep drafts at a minimum, and we put a foot of dry loose clean straw on the oor. The calves, even when licked off by their mothers, did not dry off and their feet and legs were always cold. I was so happy to get them back into the heated concrete pen with 4 inches of loose, clean straw on top. The week of crowded cows went quite well; we didn’t lose much milk and didn’t see short term effects. The 10 hours of not milking was hard on the ears, but we didn’t lose any cows because of it. As far as chilled calves, I will not give up my Cadillac heated calf oor for anything. Vander Kooi operates a 1,200-cow, 3,000 acre farm with his son, Joe, and daughter-in-law, Rita, near Worthington, Minn. Send him feedback at davevkooi@ icloud.com. Follow him on Instagram, @davevanderkooi.
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Seasons and sacrices
“Does mother have a DNR?” read the text message to my sister. If you’re not familiar with the term, DNR stands for Do Not Resuscitate. Including a DNR in a health care directive or medical record means that a person wishes to not receive CPR or debrillation in the event of heart Dairy Good Life failure. “Why?” my sister texted back. “She’s going to need resuscitation when she gets here,” I replied. My mother was on her way for a brief visit. Whenever she has a meeting in the area, she opts to stay with us rather than at a hotel. My mom likes things neat and orderly, so I usually make an effort to tidy up the house before she arrives. That wasn’t going to happen this time. Partly because of the way cows settled last summer and partly because we didn’t disperse part By Sadie Frericks of the herd last fall, we’re milking a record number Columnist of cows. There are 93 cows at the moment, with another half-dozen due before the next cows go dry. Thirty of those cows freshened in the last 30 days, which means we’re taking care of a record number of baby calves as well. With that much additional work outside, something else has to give. Right now, that something else is the house. Or that structure of ours that resembles a house. It could easily be mistaken for a war zone. Don’t get me wrong. I like my house tidy, too, but I know the world isn’t going to end just because my house is a mess for a while. I’m trying to help my children learn to be orderly, as well, but right now they’re spending a bunch of their non-homework time outside helping with all the new calves. Together, we’re getting the bare minimum household chores done, but just barely. I believe it’s more important for them to learn there are seasons in everything we do. There are periods of time in our lives when we have to work harder than we ever thought possible. Those seasons of hard work challenge our mindsets and help us grow. They help us nd our limits and nd out what we’re capable of. Oftentimes, we have to make some sacrices during these seasons. These seasons and these sacrices help us gure out what’s really important. What is essential in our lives? What are we willing to give up? What matters to one person is trivial to another. I want Dan, Monika and Daphne to understand that it’s important to work hard for what matters to them. Simon Sinek said it best, “Working hard for something we don’t care about is called stress. Working hard for something we love is called passion.” It’s really easy to stress out in attempt to live up to societal ideals. Marketing campaigns and social media lead us to believe that we should be living perfect, beautiful lives with beautiful children wearing [clean] matching socks. Don’t believe that crap. Life is more often messy and hard, and it’s certainly not perfect. During these seasons of hard work, it’s easy to put our heads down and push forward independently with draft horse-like focus. But none of us live in isolation. It’s critical to remember that we need support and communication to get us through these seasons. That means asking for help when it’s available and clearly communicating needs and expectations. Case in point for communication: m They say G Th God d only l gives i us Last night, I was able to tackle some extra calf chores as much as we can handle. because my mom took care of Clearly, he overestimated my making supper. I got into the house just in time to eat, look patience... oover homework and tuck the kkids into bed. I took a quick glance at Dan’s weekly assignment sheet, expecting to see the usual math and reading homework. As my eyes scanned the extra words he had scrawled into the space, he piped up, “Oh yeah, Mom. I need a costume for our play at school tomorrow.” “A costume?” I asked. I had not budgeted time for a costume. “What character are you?” “I’m one of the jurors, so I need a tie. And I’m one of the three little pigs, so I need a pig costume,” Dan said. The thoughts that jammed up in my brain were something along the lines of pig costume, short notice and take a deep breath. “A pig costume? How long have you known about this, Dan?” I asked calmly. “Oh, for a couple days.” “It’s important to ask for help with assignments like this right away,” I told him. So, after the kids were tucked in, I set to work constructing a pig snout and pig ears. They were coming along pretty darn well when Daphne showed up at the bottom of the stairs. “Mom, I had some wet poop while I was sleeping,” she said, groggily. That’s 4-year-old speak for diarrhea in bed. I grimaced. And as I took another deep breath, I thought to myself, “Really?” They say God only gives us as much as we can handle. Clearly, He overestimated my patience and abilities for this point in time. Maybe I’m the one that’s going to need resuscitation. Sadie and her husband, Glen, milk 75 cows near Melrose, Minn. They have three children – Dan, 10, Monika, 7, and Daphne, 4. Sadie also writes a blog at www.dairygoodlife.com. She can be reached at sadiefrericks@gmail.com.
Dairy Star • Saturday, April 8, 2017 • Page 33
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The big six Page 34 • Dairy Star • Saturday, April 8, 2017
For years, scores of nancial and management farther into the data, there are correlations between in the highest one third of prot herds and the lowexperts have tried to identify factors that may help NHRC and somatic cell count, and ECM and culling est one third of prot farms was only 47,000 SCC. dairy farms be more protable. Recently, Zoetis and rate. So while there could be a direct correlation be- The SCC was also highly correlated with death loss, AgStar published ndings of a multiyear study, “Iden- tween NHRC and prot, it may be true that there are days open, PR and ECM per cow per day. There is tifying Drivers of Protability on Comsome indirect correlations as well. probably not a direct correlation between SCC and mercial Dairies,” (Zoetis Technical Bul- Veterinary Wisdom Pregnancy risk is dened as the per- prot because the small difference between top and letin GDR-00171, 2016) showing strong cent of eligible animals becoming preg- bottom herds would not result in a signicantly higher correlation between net farm income nant in a 21-day period. Highly corre- milk price. However, higher SCC herds produced less expressed as dollars per hundredweight lated with prot, it was also correlated milk, so most likely there is an indirect correlation (cwt) of energy corrected milk, and six with ECM and SCC. Most likely, PR between SCC and prot. Death loss in the highest one third of prot farms (out of 90 examined) management faccauses increased milk production due to tors. shorter lactations, and thus an indirect was 6.6 percent. Again, there was a small difference Ranked by strongest correlation, they correlation with prot. However higher between death loss in the top third and lower third are: net herd replacement cost (NHRC), PR also may result in lower breeding and (6.6 percent versus 7.9 percent), so the correlation is pregnancy risk (PR), heifer survival rate, veterinary costs, more selective culling probably not direct. Death loss was correlated with energy corrected milk (ECM) shipped per and other factors, so a direct correlation SCC, NHRC and ECM per cow per day. So out of 90 management factors, including labor cow per day, somatic cell count (SCC), is possible, too. and death loss. Caution must be used Heifer survival rate is the inverse of cost, herd size, feed cost, depreciation and breeding By Jim Bennett when interpreting correlations, however, heifer death rate. No strong correlations cost, only six were identied as highly correlated with Columnist because correlation and causation are difto any of the factors, except net farm in- prot per cwt. All six of these are strongly related to ferent things. come per cwt, were identied. There was animal husbandry. When each of the six factors was There are six possible relationships between two not a large difference between the top one third and examined for correlations to other factors out of the correlated events, dened as event A and event B. lowest one third of prot farms in the study (95 per- total 90 on the list, they were most often correlated to They are: direct correlation meaning A causes B; re- cent versus 93 percent) so an indirect correlation is one or more of the same top six factors, or to animal verse meaning B causes A; common cause meaning A likely. husbandry. With perhaps and B are caused by a common event; cyclical where Not surprisingly, ECM ECM being the exception, Trying i to make k money with ih A causes B and B causes A; indirect when A causes was highly correlated with T correlations are mostly inC, C causes B, and no correlation is when there is no prot. However, herd size direct, meaning improving connection between A and B. We can examine these or total milk sold was not. unhealthy and unproductive cows in one area will not necesprotability drivers with this in mind. Remember that prot in this is just fiddling around the edges. sarily increase prot on any Net herd replacement cost is dened as the differ- study was dened as prot one farm. They are all interence between total replacement cow value and book per hundredweight, not torelated and all highly correvalue of dead and sold cows per cwt ECM. So replac- tal prot per farm. Nevertheless, it is interesting that lated with prot, so perhaps the best summary is this: ing fewer cows, having lower heifer raising costs per economy of scale did not affect prot per cwt. ECM Healthy cows make more money. Or perhaps this: heifer, having higher cull and dead values, and sell- was highly correlated with SCC, death loss, feed cost Trying to make money with unhealthy and unproing more milk, all result in lower NHRC. This one per cwt ECM and average days open. All of these cor- ductive cows is just ddling around the edges. Cows factor may be the lowest hanging protability fruit in relations were negative, meaning higher production come rst. the dairy industry since average age to rst calving was associated with lower SCC, and higher producJim Bennett is a dairy veterinarian at Northern is around 26 or 27 months, yet many farms average tion was associated with lower feed cost per cwt, for Valley Dairy Production Medicine Center in Plain22 months with 85 or 90 percent of animals calving example. It seems likely there is a direct correlation view, Minn. He and his wife, Pam, have four children. before two years old. Also, dairy herds seem to be get- between ECM and protability. Jim can be reached at bennettnvac@gmail.com with ting younger, due to an excess of replacements, and Somatic cell count was highly correlated with comments or questions. we know younger cows produce less milk. Looking protability, although the difference between the SCC
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From Wisconsin with love
Earlier in March, we all watched as the southern Great Plains went up in ames after a very dry and warm winter. We all wept as we heard of thousands of cattle lost, and thousands more needing to be euthanized after the embers cooled. We all prayed for the winds to calm and the rains to come down in a fervent manner and wanting the res to die. And, when they did, those of us in unaffected places far away jumped into action, including a few of us from Wisconsin’s great northwest. My friend Kurt Wohlk, who helps on his family’s farm near Almena, Wis., threw an idea out on Facebook about sending one semi down to Ashland, Kan., stocked with donations from other farmers in Barron County such as hay and fencing. By Brittany Olson Kurt, who had worked on a harvesting crew for Staff Writer two summers, left a little piece of his heart out on the prairie and that piece was broken in the wake of the res. For those who don’t know where Ashland is, it’s almost smack dab in the middle between Dodge City and the Oklahoma border in the southwestern part of the state. Clark County, where Ashland is located, had 80 percent of its total acreage torched by res. Many of us, myself included, jumped at the chance to help. I made sure press releases were sent to newspapers within the county and in neighboring counties so farmers living along county lines could help if they wished. Our friends working at the co-op in Almena, Kaitlin Hanson and Mike Molls, helped us with fundraising and collecting monetary donations that were being dropped off at the co-op. In addition to gathering enough hay to justify sending a truck down, we also had a pretty hefty price tag to ll at approximately $1,800 per semi. After the rst round of press releases were sent, Kurt and I also made the rounds on radio stations where our efforts spread from Barron County to the Chippewa Valley and then across the state. It wasn’t long before Kurt was elding calls from TV stations wanting to talk to us about our project. By March 25, the date we had chosen to load our lone trailer, we ended up loading three with hay, fencing supplies, wooden posts, calf supplies for the orphaned babies, and 31 pounds of cheese with nearly three dozen farmers bringing their time and donations to send down. Both TV stations from Eau Claire, WEAU and WQOW, came and interviewed Kurt and I while trailers were loaded and strapped down for the 900-mile journey ahead. Kurt, local trucker Thyman Vandenbrink, and local farmer Don Keene – who had donated the use of his own semi and half the cost of fuel for the trip – each took a truck and made the two-day trip to Ashland, Kan. They departed Almena before daylight on March 27 to circumvent rush hour trafc in the Twin Cities before dropping down to Iowa. That morning, they were invited for breakfast by a farm family in Story City, Iowa, who had been following our o story, before continuing into i Missouri and crossing We are jjust ffarmers d W doing i the border into Kansas that evening. what farmers do when By the morning of neighbors are in trouble... March 28, our convoy made it i to its destination in Ashland l where another TV station from Wichita caught up with Kurt and company. Our crew didn’t realize the scope of the devastation until reaching that part of the state, and it was much more heartbreaking to see in person. However, those in Ashland waiting for them when they got there were immensely cheered that their fellow farmers would drive over 900 miles to help complete strangers who would become friends. As of press time, we have raised over $10,000 for wildre relief in Kansas which more than covers the cost of our trip and, potentially a second trip from our corner of Wisconsin. Witnessing this industry coming together, despite the doom and gloom of virtually every market right now, may be exactly what we needed as farmers. This way of life is hard enough without tearing each other apart due to farm size or farm practices, and when a catastrophe like re happens, it can knock a person to their knees. When tragedy strikes, we put our own lives on pause and set our differences aside to focus on the big picture. We are just farmers doing what farmers do when our neighbors are in trouble, and we know if something like that happened here they would be on our doorstep to give the shirts off their backs to help us get back on our feet.
Dairy Star • Saturday, April 8, 2017 • Page 35
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Gearing up for the golden years Kirkpatrick offers suggestions on saving for retirement By Brittany Olson
brittany.o@dairystar.com
STETSONVILLE, Wis. – When a farmer is caught up in the day-to-day responsibilities of running their operation, retirement savings may get pushed to the back burner or might not even cross their mind. However, with people living longer and the average American farmer pushing 60 years of age, retirement living needs closer attention, said Joy Kirkpatrick, outreach specialist at the University of Wisconsin Center for Dairy Protability. “We know Joy Kirkpatrick UW Center for Dairy farmers never really retire, but they Profitability do need to consider their living costs and income streams for their later, and hopefully golden, years,” Kirkpatrick said. There are several steps to take in order to gauge whether a farmer is ready to retire or not. “Step one, are you nancially and emotionally ready?” Kirkpatrick said. “Step two, how much will your expenses be in retirement?” For example, living costs such as housing slowly increase from ages 55 to 75.
“The average spending of an individual ages 55 to 64 is comprised of at least 30 percent going toward housing,” Kirkpatrick said. “Between ages 65 to 74, it increases to 32 percent, and then up to 36 percent for those ages 75 and older.” Medical costs also rise as age increases from an average of 9 percent of spending between ages 55 to 64, to around 15 percent of total expenditures over the age of 75. Household and personal expenses, especially compared to uctuating farm incomes, increased by age category over the past six years, per data collected from the FINBIN Farm Financial Database at the University of Minnesota’s Center for Farm Financial Management. In 2015, a farm family between the ages of 31 and 40 spent $49,297 on household and personal expenses. That amount rose to $76,736 between ages 41 and 50, which could be attributed to a number of factors, and held steady between ages 51 to 60 at $76,708. “However, nonfarm income usually increases from ages 30 to 50, and then decreases by age 60,” Kirkpatrick said. The year 2015 was the anomaly for that trend, with nonfarm income at $16,167 for ages 31 to 40, decreasing to $11,563 for ages 41 to 50 and then rising to $16,077 between ages 51 and 60. “Step three is identifying sources of income during retirement, and step four is identifying when collection of Social Security can start,” Kirkpatrick said. One option is to begin collecting a reduced benet at age 62, no matter the year of birth, to open up a stream of income. The age considered to be full retire-
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ment age (FRA), the age at which an individual can collect full benets instead of a reduced payment, has become more of a sliding scale ranging from 66 years, if born between 1943 and 1950, to 66 years and 8 months if born in 1958, to 67 if born after 1960. “You can begin collecting at age 62 with 8 percent increases to your Social Security benets from FRA at age 66 every year until age 70,” Kirkpatrick said. “The maximum Social Security
and Part B. “If you are not receiving Social Security, you must apply for Medicare on your own,” Kirkpatrick said. “It’s recommended that you apply three months prior to turning 65.” Some alternatives to consider include delaying retirement for a few years, as well as lowering expenses to increase savings and reduce debt, lowering expectations about retirement lifestyle and seeking off-farm employment.
“Explore alternatives to create more current income such as selling the farm or other assets, or making annual withdrawals from the proceeds of the sale.” JOY KIRKPATRICK, UW CENTER FOR DAIRY PROFITABILITY
benet in 2017 will be $32,244.” The possibility of working while collecting Social Security is there, but if you make more than $16,920 per year your benet is reduced by $1 for every $2 earned over that limit. “If you’re at full retirement age or older, you get your full benet no matter how much you may earn from a job or business,” Kirkpatrick said. Medicare enrollment has specic periods throughout the year during which to join, switch or make changes of any kind. “Failure to sign up during designated enrollment periods may result in denied coverage or late enrollment penalties,” Kirkpatrick said. In addition, if you are receiving Social Security at age 65, you are automatically enrolled in Medicare Part A
In addition, plan at least 50 percent of retirement income from non-farm investments or Social Security, and consider long term housing arrangements after retiring from farming. “Explore alternatives to create more current income such as selling the farm or other assets, or making annual withdrawals from the proceeds of the sale,” Kirkpatrick said. Reviewing retirement plans periodically, and calculating income needs in the high and low ranges of 80 percent to 120 percent of pre-retirement income, can also give insight as to where you are and where you need to be in terms of preparing for life in the golden years. “Look to live longer than you expect, but just not forever,” Kirkpatrick said.
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Page 38 • Dairy Star • Saturday, April 8, 2017
17th Annual
Grand Prize Winner will be announced May 8 on KASM 1150 AM at 9:15 a.m.
Central Minnesota Credit Union And The Dairy Star Present
ROCK PICKERS FOR A DAY
One Finalist From Each Location!
Finalist Drawing To Be Held In April At Branch OfÀces
Meet the Central Minnesota Credit Union and Dairy Star Rock Pickers...
Finalists will win a Prize Pack
Register at any Central Minnesota Credit Union location to have staff from the Credit Union and the Dairy Star help you pick rocks for 4 hours! *Enter as often as you would like, one entry per visit. CMCU membership is not required to enter.
You needed smart Ànancial solutions for your farm. So we made that our focus.
CMCU offers Ànancial solutions for all of your agriculture needs plus time-saving tools to efÀciently manage your funds. Our ag lending specialists will visit your farm to discuss your needs. Albany | Avon | Belgrade Cold Spring | Freeport | Grey Eagle Holdingford | Little Falls Long Prairie | Melrose New York Mills | Paynesville Perham | Saint Joseph Sauk Centre | Wadena
888.330.8482 | myCMCU.org Equal Opportunity Employer
Live Remot Throughou es Day During t The Picking - L Rock is to KASM F ten or Details!
Dairy prole John Oppriecht Ferryville, Wis. Crawford County 70 cows
What is your favorite dairy product? Milk, Colby cheese and Baby Swiss cheese.
How did you get into farming? My wife’s parents lived here, and they asked us if we wanted to farm. We said we wanted to try Iowa rst. We worked in Iowa for two years. Then, I was laid off from my job as a livestock buyer for Oscar Mayer. So, we came back. Her parents decided they wanted to retire. Suzy and I started farming here in 1978.
What is your favorite tool? My cell phone. I can call from the barn and don’t have to go to the house to use the phone.
Dairy Star • Saturday, April 8, 2017 • Page 39
sponsored by
If you could add one thing to your farm What are your thoughts and concerns about regardless of price, the dairy industry for the next year? My Fore- what would it be? A most Farms eld representative told me the cure for leukemia. My milk price should average $2 to $2.50 higher granddaughter, Bristol this year, but it’ll have a summer slump. It has Check, is 4 years old to start staying up there pretty soon with ev- and has leukemia. erything else being so high. How do you or your What do you enjoy most about dairy farming? family like to spend Watching springing heifers grow and develop. time when you are I like to watch their udders grow and see them not doing chores? We mature. I always select for high, wide udders. spend time with our six It looks like you’ve accomplished something. grandchildren, ages 7 to 2: Trey, John WranWhat advice would you give other dairy farm- gler, Bristol and Brindle Check, and Madeline ers? My parents told me three things. One is: and Eve Oppriecht. A stitch in time saves nine. The saying relates to giving a calf a shot, drying a cow off, and If you could have a celebrity help you with even shutting a gate. They also said, “Don’t chores for a day who would it be? J.J. Watt. be the rst to try a new technology, but don’t He’s a Houston Texans defensive end and be the last.” My aunt told me when I was in an ex-Wisconsin Badger. Earlier this winter, high school and while in college, “If you have an exam on Friday, start studying on Monday. Don’t be a procrastinator and study on the last day.”
my niece and her husband were killed in a head-on accident at Madison. They have twin 1.5-year-old boys. A fundraiser was started for them. J.J. Watt donated a large sum of money. That’s why I’d like to meet the man and tell him thank you.
What has been the best purchase you’ve ever made on your farm? Our Bobcat skid loader and manure pump. What has been your biggest accomplishment while dairy farming? Probably no-till and making the place better than when I started. No-till saves the soil, saves on fuel, and is less time consuming. We’ve built a heifer, hog and machine sheds. And we now have storage for 16,000 bushels of corn. We took out the terraces and contour stripped every eld. What are your plans for your dairy in the next ve years? My youngest son, Edward, just started farming with me. We’ll most likely milk more cows. What is your favorite thing to do on the farm? I like to combine corn.
Star Blends is a full service feed manufacturing facility. We provide custom complete feeds, supplements and minerals. We utilize modern technology to produce your needed products on demand with the highest quality feeds at the best cost. We also offer a wide selection of commodities, ingredients and additives. We are focused on dairy, efficiently delivering to farms in Western Wisconsin. Give us a call, we’d be happy to discuss our commodities or custom products and services with you and your nutritionist.
1919 Riley Road Sparta, WI 54656 | 800.462.4125
Page 40 • Dairy Star • Saturday, April 8, 2017
Trade-Out & Trade-Up!
BIG
Save on new GEA milking equipment Trade-out your old milking units and liners and immediately benefit by trading-up to a better milking performance, at substantial savings. Choose from the GEA IQ Milking Unit or Classic 300E Milking Unit - both available with the ClassicPro GQ silicone liner package. Ask your local GEA milking equipment dealer for the configuration that best fits your farm and take advantage of this special offer today!
Your Local GEA Milking Equipment Dealers
Call us for more information: Advanced Dairy Solutions Richland Center, WI 608-647-4488 • 800-772-4770 Centre Dairy Equipment Sauk Centre, MN 320-352-5762 • 800-342-2697 Eastern Iowa Dairy Systems Epworth, IA • 563-876-3087 Fitzgerald, Inc. Elkader, IA • 563-245-2560
Fuller's Milker Center, Inc. Lancaster, WI • 800-887-4634 www.fullersmilkercenter.com Hobert Sales Inc. Cokato, MN • 320-286-6284 Leedstone Melrose, MN 320-256-3303 • 800-996-3303 Glencoe, MN 320-864-5575 • 877-864-5575 www.leedstone.com
Midwest Livestock Systems Menomonie, WI • 715-235-5144 Owen, WI 715-229-4740 Pine Island, MN • 800-233-8937 Sioux Falls, SD • 800-705-1447 Beatrice, NE • 800-742-5748 Monroe Westfalia Surge Monroe, Wisconsin 608-325-2772 jcraigo@tds.net
Preston Dairy Equipment, Inc. Sparta, Wisconsin 608-269-3830 • 888-863-0227 www.prestonde.com Sioux Dairy Equipment, Inc. Rock Valley, IA 712-476-5608 • 800-962-4346 Colton, SD Service 800-944-1217 Edgerton, MN Chemical Sales 507-920-8626