Sign up for our Newsletter
Dairy St r Milk Break
Visit dairystar.com to sign up!
DAIRY ST R
August 27, 2022 A
“All dairy, all the time”™
Volume 24, No. 13
Parlor gives Pattersons their lives back Milking time cut in half, production on the rise for Dodge County dairy By Stacey Smart
stacey.s@dairystar.com
NEOSHO, Wis. – The Pattersons used to milk 150 cows twice a day, spending more than a third of their day in a 48-stall barn. Long hours created a stressful environment and family members felt like they were always staring at an udder. Realizing their milking setup needed to change, the family broke ground on a parlor and holding area the day after Memorial Day last year. “We had no family life or social life before,” Steve Patterson said. “But with the parlor, that’s improved immensely. We have a life again. The parlor is easier for the cows and a lot easier for us.” Sept. 10, 2021, was the Pattersons’ rst day milking in
STACEY SMART/DAIRY STAR
Steve Pa�erson (le�) and his son, Jus�n, stand in their double-8 Euro 500 milking parlor which they started milking in last September. The Pa�ersons milk between 140 and 150 cows and farm 350 acres near Neosho, Wisconsin. their double-8 Euro 500 parlor, which is equipped with Allex automatic takeoffs and milk
weight readers as well as inoor heating. The stall partitions and
other hardware were purchased used from a neighbor. The parlor is a slant style, which Patterson
said is a cross between a parallel and herringbone. Cows stand at a slight angle, and the units are put on between the back legs. “Cows are creatures of habit, but they adjusted to the parlor pretty fast,” Patterson said. Patterson and his wife, Sharon, farm with their son, Justin, and his wife, Anna, near Neosho. The Pattersons milk between 140 and 150 cows and farm 350 acres. The family provides all of the labor on their farm except for a hired hand who mixes feed. Sharon works off the farm at the local school distric, and Anna, a registered nurse, works three 12-hour shifts each week off the farm. After building a freestall barn in 2012, the Pattersons continued to milk their herd in the farm’s tiestall barn which required switching cows four times. They milked with six units because it was all the 2-inch pipeline could handle.
Turn to PATTERSONS Page 6
The ght of their lives Hedlund family battles devastating effects of coronavirus By Danielle Nauman danielle.n@dairystar.com
SIREN, Wis. – Over the past 10 months, Adam and Annie Hedlund, of Siren, have learned the unexpected can toss their lives into turmoil without a moment’s notice. In October 2021, coronavirus struck the Hedlund household. As two young, healthy adults, the Hedlunds did not think too much about having COVID-19 at rst. “Adam wasn’t feeling well for about a week,” Annie said. “He went in to the emergency room twice and was sent home. Then on Oct. 10, he was admitted to the Amery Hospital for pneumonia.” Since that day last fall, Adam has not yet returned home. Instead, he has been in three different hospitals ghting for his life. The Hedlunds milk 100 cows and farm 530 acres on their Polk
County dairy farm. Just days before Adam was admitted to the hospital, the couple learned Annie was pregnant with their third child. With then 2-yearold Azra and 1-year-old Analiese at home, Annie’s plate was getting full; little did she know, it was just the beginning. After several days at the hospital in Amery, it was determined that Adam needed to be in the intensive care unit and placed on a ventilator. The nearest available ICU bed was at the Howard Young Medical Center in Minocqua, and Adam was own there. From the time he entered ICU, he was in isolation, and Annie was unable to visit. While in the ICU and ventilated at Howard Young, Adam did not make the progress doctors wanted. On Oct. 23, 2021, he was transferred to Froedtert Hospital in Milwaukee where he was placed on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, in
addition to the ventilator, which could further oxygenate his blood. Things went from bad to worse, and on Nov. 25, 2021, Annie received a call from his doctor advising her that Adam was bleeding profusely from his tracheostomy site. The bleeding appeared to be coming from a lower lobe of his badly damaged lungs. The doctor informed her that if he continued bleeding, they would need to come and say their goodbyes. “It was a miracle; the bleeding nally stopped,” she said. Following that event, Adam was heavily sedated and placed into a coma. Because of the bleeding, he had been removed from the ventilator and was relying solely on ECMO to provide oxygen to his body. “He was paralyzed, he was alive, but he wasn’t truly breathing; his chest was not moving,” Annie said. “It was only the ECMO keeping him alive.”
Turn HEDLUNDS | Page 7
PHOTO SUBMITTED
Annie and Adam Hedlund milk 100 cows on their dairy farm near Siren, Wisconsin. Adam has been hospitalized since October 2021, suffering with complica�ons from COVID-19 induced pneumonia. Annie has con�nued to run their farm during his illness.