“All dairy, all the time”™
Carrying on as sixth generation
Hesselink continues farming after loss of brother
By Stacey Smart stacey.s@dairystar.com
OOSTBURG, Wis. —
When Scott Hesselink was in his early 20s, it appeared he was destined for a career in mechanics. He went to school for auto-body repair and favored working in a body shop over being a dairy farmer.
“I love cars and motorcycles and had an interest in other things,” Scott said. However, he was back to the farm in a full-time manner by the time he was 25. Scott joined his dad, Mark, and his two brothers when his father offered him an opportunity to come home. Now, Scott is the sixth generation running
Quonset Farms with his wife, Lisa.
“Scott was the least likely one to take over the farm,” Mark said.
The Hesselinks milk 1,075 cows three times a day in a double-15 parallel parlor and farm about 1,500 acres near Oostburg. The family also buys crops off the eld from several neighbors. Heifers are sent to a custom raiser when they are a couple of days old and return home pregnant.
“Our rst goal is producing the highest quality milk we can,” Lisa said. “Our parlor manager works hard to ensure that. Caring for our animals, our employees and our land is a priority.”
Quonset Farms is backed by nearly 180 years of history. When Scott’s ancestors arrived from the Netherlands in 1847, they purchased 40 acres where the current farm sits and another 40 acres to the west. The original deeds, signed by Presidents James Polk and Zachary Taylor, hang on the farm’s ofce wall.
The farm was named for the Quonset barn Scott’s grandpa bought after the farm’s original barn burnt down in 1941.
Technology aids herd management decisions
Minglewood lauded for milk quality, animal health
By Danielle Nauman danielle.n@dairystar.com
DEER PARK, Wis. —
Years of dedication to milk quality and overall cow health drove Kristin Quist, her family and their farm management team to be named the 2024 recipient of Boehringer Ingelheim’s Dairy First Award.
“We’re always chasing goals,” Quist said. “We’ve always had the mentality of never being satised. If we achieve a goal, we’re going to keep continuing to raise the bar, getting better. We’re a highly productive herd and that is how we’ve chosen to manage over the years.”
Quist is the herd manager at her family’s 1,200cow dairy, Minglewood Inc., which she operates alongside her husband, Jacob, and her parents, Kevin and Roxie Solum.
Part of the Minglewood herd is housed in a robotic dairy barn and milked with eight DeLaval robotic milking machines. The rest of the herd is milked in the farm’s double-9 parlor.
“Milk quality is important to us, and having a low somatic cell count is our goal all the time,” Quist said. “Right now, we are running around 100,000 between both systems.”
Milk quality and animal health go hand-in-hand, Quist
said, and vigilance is the key to achieving high levels of both. She credits the installation of the smaXtec health management system just over two years ago with bettering the farm’s management.
“We were on the DeLaval activity system for years, but we only had activity data, we didn’t have rumination data,” Quist said. “There were a lot of things we were missing because we didn’t know we didn’t have the data. Now to be able to identify the handful of animals in a 1,200-cow herd that we need to check every day saves us a lot of time. We look at utilizing the system like having an additional employee.”
With that data, Quist said they are catching disease 3-4 days before they might show clinical signs.
and
PHOTO SUBMITTED
The owners of Minglewood Inc. — Jacob Quist (from le�), Kris-
�n Quist, Roxie Solum holding Kylie Quist and Kevin Solum — stand in their freestall barn near Deer Park, Wisconsin. The team at Minglewood was honored with Boehringer Ingelheim’s 2024 Dairy First Award, recognizing their commitment to milk quality
overall animal health.
STACEY SMART/DAIRY STAR
Sco� and Lisa Hesselink take a break in the farm office Jan. 9 at Quonset Farms near Oostburg, Wisconsin. Sco� is the sixth genera�on on his family’s farm where they milk 1,075 cows and farm about 1,500 acres.
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Ben Hesselink pauses in a eld in 2020 at Quonset Farms near Oostburg, Wisconsin. Ben passed away in 2022 at the age of 48 from cancer.
“It was World War II, and my grandpa could only get a Quonset barn at the time,” Scott said. “It has a round roof. My grandpa thought if he gave the farm a name like that, no matter who owned it, the name would stay.”
The Hesselinks use the Quonset
barn to this day as a hospital barn.
The Quonset roof has since been replaced with a regular truss roof and the barn remodeled and repurposed many times to t the family’s needs. It originally contained 20 stanchions.
“I can remember milking up to 120 cows in this barn,” Scott said.
3 mixing capacities
The Hesselinks moved to freestall housing in the early 1970s and built their rst parlor in 1980 — a Trigon herringbone. In 2005, they gutted the parlor and put in new equipment to make the farm’s current double-15.
Today, Scott is the only brother farming after losing his brother and business partner, Ben Hesselink, to cancer May 23, 2022. Ben was 48.
“It’s amazing how some dates stick out in your head,” Scott said. “October 3, 2020, was the last day that Ben really did anything physical on the farm. We had started hauling manure, and he tried driving the truck for a couple of days, but he was in so much pain, he had to stop. He hadn’t been diagnosed yet. He had been complaining about back pain all summer. He had back pain before, but this was different.”
A blood test revealed Ben had multiple myeloma — a blood cancer that develops in plasma cells in the bone marrow. As he took over the work Ben had been doing, Scott’s role on the farm shifted from working primarily in the farm’s shop as head of maintenance doing repairs to managing crops and spending time in the ofce.
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“We have a lot of really good employees who helped us through,” Lisa said.
Scott also had to take on more of a management role on the farm. Lisa shares this role with Scott, spending much of her time in the ofce. The pair has become the key decision-makers at Quonset Farms, which is now a threeway partnership consisting of Ben’s trust, Scott, and Mark, who is 83 and continues to help on the farm.
The family has known its share of hardship. Scott also lost a sister in 2006 from multiple sclerosis.
“I’ve lost two children already,” Mark said. “But it’s OK. I know where they are, and they gave me four beautiful grandchildren.”
Ben left behind twin sons, Garret and Wyatt, who are now 13 years old.
“Ben would have liked to see his boys take over the farm, but he knew how many hours it takes to run a farm and that there are easier ways to make a living,” Scott said. “He didn’t want to push them into farming.”
The brothers started farming together in 1994 after Ben spent 3.5 years serving in the U.S. Army. In the late 90s, the brothers became partners in the operation with their dad and an older brother who was later removed from the partnership.
Scott said he and Ben were close, and that the two brothers, along with Lisa, did everything together.
The Hesselinks built their
are seeing improvements in cow health, milk produc�on and feed efficiency.
third freestall barn in 2015 and grew the herd to its current size. Expansion was driven by a need to support four families Scott said.
“My brothers wanted to expand more than I did,” he said. “I wanted to stay the same size and farm with no debt.”
In 2021, the Hesselinks’ faithful herd manager of 47 years retired, leaving another hole in the team.
“It was really challenging between the combination of Ben getting sick, losing him and nding a new herd manager,” Scott said. “The past four years were pretty chal-
lenging.”
The Hesselinks have 24 full-time and seven parttime or seasonal employees, including many long-term people that Scott said have become like family.
“Those are the people who keep us going,” Lisa said. “We have dedicated, highskilled employees. We focus on how we treat people and try to make this a good place to work. That’s important to us.”
Lisa said they use a lot of technology on the farm, especially in the parlors, in their feeding program, and for monitoring cow health.
“Over the past several
years on the cow end of it, we started implementing new technologies and seeing the benets of those,” Scott said.
“It has become easier to manage herd health.”
Improvements in cow health, milk production, and feed efciency are where the Hesselinks are seeing the biggest gains. By implementing smaXtec boluses for cow monitoring, sick cows are brought to their attention before showing physical symptoms.
“Cows are healthier for it,” Lisa said. “When it comes to calving, we know well in advance and are ready.”
The Hesselinks bed their cows with a paper byproduct.
“Cows love it,” Scott said. “It’s soft, like cotton, and cows are comfortable. If we wouldn’t use it for bedding, all that paper would be going to landlls.”
Like the longstanding Quonset barn the farm is named after, Quonset Farms is a picture of longevity. Despite adversity, the Hesselinks endure and are continually making updates as they press on into the future.
“It seems we’re always doing little things to improve,” Scott said. “We constantly try to do better.”
STACEY SMART/DAIRY STAR
Cows eat in one of the three freestall barns Jan. 9 at Quonset Farms near Oostburg, Wisconsin. With technology, the Hesselinks
“We’re catching those cases very early, very sub-clinical, not waiting until it’s a true, clinical full-blown mastitis, where she is sick and down,” Quist said.
The system’s mastitis detection feature has driven improvements in the herd’s udder health and milk quality, Quist said. They catch potential mastitis with the tool, and then they California Mastitis Test right away on the potential sick cows. If the CMT is positive, they culture on-farm to determine how to proceed.
Because of the data garnered from the system, the use of antibiotics is rare.
and our consumers,” Quist said.
In Quist’s mind, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, so she emphasizes preventative measures such as vaccinations and dry treating.
Using data from the health management system, Quist strives to empower her entire team to focus on practices to help reach management goals.
“We have regular monthly staff meetings with our milking team, complete with a translator,” Quist said. “We make sure we’re always communicating with them where things are, what is going well and areas we can continue to improve.”
“We’ll use them when it is warranted, but we have learned that treating a cow with uids as the rst line is going to get us a lot farther,” Quist said. “We averaged 1.4 treated cows out of the tank in December and we’re averaging 1.1 this month. We just don’t have chronic mastitis cows anymore.”
Quist believes that as technology becomes more commonplace and easier to use on dairy farms of all sizes, the industry will reap the benets of using real-time data for herd management decisions. She said as an industry, there has been a tendency among farmers to be treating cows that do not need it to make themselves feel good.
“By utilizing the data we have and not just going off our feelings, we are making great strides at doing better, for our cows, our farms, our industry
Those improvements have helped Quist and her family reach many of their goals.
Because they sell their milk to a cheese plant, Burnett Dairy Cooperative, high components are a priority for Quist as is volume. They currently average 95 pounds of milk per cow per day.
“We ultimately want them to be able to make more cheese out of one tank of our milk,” Quist said. “We sat here three years ago and said we wanted to consistently be shipping 7 pounds of solids. That goal quickly became 7.5 pounds and now it’s 8 pounds. We’re hitting 8 pounds of combined fat and protein in the robots and 7.7 pounds in the parlor, with 100% Holsteins — that is pretty impressive.”
DANIELLE NAUMAN/DAIRY STAR
Cows eat total mixed ra on Jan. 15 in the robo c freestall barn at Minglewood Inc. near Deer Park, Wisconsin. The Quists and Solums emphasize preventa ve measures to improve herd health.
Tietzes win sustainable future award
By Danielle Nauman danielle.n@dairystar.com
COMSTOCK, Wis. —
As they work to nd their place in agriculture and the dairy industry while also transitioning into ownership of their family’s Polk County dairy farm, Sawyer and Jillian Tietz have big dreams and goals for their future.
“Farming today is difcult — the banks tell us you have to have 500-1,000 cows or diversify to continue,” Jillian said. “We want to stay this size and focus on diversication and sustainable practices to create our future.”
The Tietzes won the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation’s 35 Under 35 Sustainable Future award at the organization’s convention last month.
“We thought maybe our plans were too out of this world, but then we applied
Small farm, big dreams
Jillian (le ) and Sawyer Tietz stand in the freestall barn Jan. 7 at Idle Gold Guernseys near Comstock, Wisconsin. The Tietzes were named the winners of the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federaon’s 35 Under 35 Sustainable Future award at the organiza on’s conven on last month.
for this and actually won,” Jillian said. “Maybe we’re not completely crazy for thinking like this. We have big dreams, but we’re realistic, too. We’ll be happy if we achieve half our dreams.”
In planning for a sustainable future, the Tietzes have
Industry Leader in AG Curtains
capitalized on bringing global ideas to a level that works on their family farm where they milk 140 cows with Jillian’s parents, Neil and Janice Jensen, near Comstock.
“There are a million ways to farm,” Sawyer said. “People who are more old-
school might think we’re silly, but we really just want to create a future that is bright for us, for the environment and for agriculture.”
After being nominated for the award, the Tietzes needed to develop their own denition of sustainable ag-
riculture.
“To us, sustainability means being good stewards of the land to ensure we have healthy and productive crops to raise healthy and productive cows,” Sawyer said. “In return, that will create a happy and healthy farm environment that is necessary for working with and trying to educate both future consumers and future agriculturalists.”
The Tietzes approach sustainability from three different directions — the environment, economics and a social aspect.
“For quite a while, farmers didn’t do a very good job advocating for themselves,” Sawyer said. “We let the public perception of agriculture be what it was and allowed other groups to establish that narrative.”
In their quest for sustainability, the Tietzes are hoping technology will serve as their foundation.
“Labor is a big problem with farming, and we think robotics are a good direction for us to take the farm
DANIELLE NAUMAN/DAIRY STAR
NEW & USED EQUIPMENT ON HAND
to cut back on labor costs,” Jillian said. “We want to be sustainable with the two of us running the farm, with maybe one employee.”
The Tietzes are interested in processing their own milk to exercise more control over the marketing of their milk. They plan to start with butter.
“We milk Guernsey cows, we want to capitalize on the value of that milk,” Jillian said.
Sawyer will begin working towards the required butter-making certications this spring, taking classes through the Center for Dairy Research at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Jan. 20 at Idle Gold
Jillian and her husband, Sawyer, applied the cash prize from the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federa�on’s 35 Under 35 Sustainable Future award towards the purchase of a used Milk Taxi to make calf feeding chores more efficient.
“There are pros and cons to making butter,” he said. “There is less initial investment required in machinery and butter is more shelfstable, giving us more options for marketing. In terms of licensure and
learning the process, butter-making has more qualications than some other processing avenues.”
Turn to TIETZES | Page 9
DANIELLE NAUMAN/DAIRY STAR
Jillian Tietz lls a Milk Taxi in prepara�on for feeding calves
Guernseys near Comstock, Wisconsin.
As the Tietzes have pondered how they can build their future, they said they have learned the sky is the limit. They have a goal of building a closed input loop for their farm, rather than purchasing inputs.
“On a lot of farms, the main goal is for production, because the economics are driven by increasing production to increase cash ow,” Sawyer said. “We’re hoping that with diversication we can make up the income gap, allowing us to focus on really trying to take care of the farm, starting with building the soil ecosystem.”
Sawyer plans to experiment with a plot of open-pollinated corn this year, with the goal of eventually growing feed for their herd using their own seed.
“Open-pollinated corn doesn’t yield like hy-
BEAT THE SPRING RUSH
brid corn, but doesn’t require the same fertilization,” Sawyer said. “I don’t believe farms need to push for production. Worldwide, we produce twice the food calories needed to feed the global population — deciencies are a distribution issue, not a production issue. Why deplete the resource of the soil for something we don’t actually need?”
The European farming model is a source of inspiration for Sawyer when it comes to seeking out ways to build sustainability into the farm.
“Some of the things I want to pursue are harder to implement on a small farm scale, here in the U.S.,” he said. “I see more sustainable technologies for small farms in Europe, where they have more of a small farm model with more public investment in technologies for small farms.”
Large-scale sustainability measures such as
manure digesters and bio-diesel reactors are not out of the realm for small farm use, Sawyer said.
“There are digester kits in Europe as small as for 50-cow herds that generate electricity to power the farm and high-nutrient value digestate,” he said. “Small-scale bio-diesel reactors produce not only fuel but protein meal as a byproduct, with just the push of a button.”
The Tietzes want to help change the narrative that animal agriculture is detrimental to the environment.
“We want to not only dispel that myth but prove the reverse — that animal agriculture and a healthy environment go hand-in-hand,” Sawyer said. “We want to see a future for small family farms, to see the land be productive and healthy, to see animals do well and for people to have access to high-quality nutrition.”
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The U.S. Department of Agriculture has issued its nal rule on Federal Milk Marketing Orders. Most of the changes take effect June 1. “The nal rule, which contains the regulatory language, has been published in the Federal Register, and it will become effective June 1, with the exception of the milk composition factors, which will become effective on Dec. 1,” said Dana Coale, administrator, Agricultural Marketing Service. “We’re delighted to have this rule out. It will provide the industry with information going forward as they plan in 2025.”
FMMO reaction
National Milk Producers Federation
President and CEO Gregg Doud said, “ this change will provide a rmer footing and fairer milk pricing.” For this region, there is an update for the make allowances for Class III milk. American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall said these reforms will not be uniform for dairy farmers across the country. Duvall is calling for a mandatory audited survey of the milk processing costs used to help establish make allowances. Edge Dairy Cooperative CEO Tim Trotter was not surprised with the changes and asks dairy farmers to communicate with their processors. “Ask them what are their long-term aspects, how does this change the business relationship? Those are very, very valid questions because every processor may have a different answer because it’s going to affect their business in a different way.”
spond in measured ways but in robust ways, demonstrating, once again, that Canadians know how to stand up for ourselves.” In response, a Trump spokesman said the incoming administration will implement economic and trade policies that will protect Americans.
Milk production forecast lowered
In USDA’s January supply and demand report, the 2025 milk production forecast was lowered due to slower growth and output per cow. The 2024 milk production estimate was reduced from the past month due to lower milk cow inventories and lower-than-expected milk per cow. USDA’s semi-annual cattle inventory report at the end of this month will shed light on the intentions to retain dairy heifers in the milk herd. The 2025 Class III milk price estimate was raised with higher cheese and whey prices.
Dairy deadline approaches January 30 is the deadline for dairy farmers with milk losses due to the H5N1 virus to apply for ELAP assistance. Farm Service Agency Assistant Deputy Administrator Kimberly Graham said this is through the ELAP or Emergency Livestock, Honeybees, and Farm-Raised Fish Program. “In July of 2024, we made policy changes that allowed ELAP to also assist dairy producers who had incurred milk losses resulting from reduced milk production when cattle were removed from their commercial dairy herds that tested positive for H5N1.”
400 ag groups urge swift conrmation for Rollins
More than 400 agriculture groups and businesses have signed a letter of support for Agriculture Secretary-designate Brooke Rollins. The long list of groups signing off on the letter included the NMPF, U.S. Dairy Export Council, Associated Milk Producers Inc., Dairy Farmers of America, Edge Dairy Farmers Cooperative, First District Association, Foremost Farms, Midwest Dairy Coalition and numerous commodity groups and general farm organizations. Farm bill will happen in ’25
Texas A&M Extension Economist Joe Outlaw believes this is the year that Congress delivers and nally passes a new farm bill. “I do farm bill policy; this is what I do for a living,” Outlaw told the Red River Farm Network. “I’ve been doing meetings for the last two years and in every meeting, I’ve stood up and said it’s not going to happen this year. I’m going to stand up in this meeting and say it’s going to happen this year so that’s completely different.” According to Outlaw, any farm bill must include higher reference prices and a bump in trade promotion funds. “Why do it if we’re not going to have a safety net that’s relevant for producers?”
Bipartisan hopes rise for new farm bill
2025 began with a farm bill that was three years old and farmers’ patience with Congress is wearing thin. Veteran Washington analyst Jim Wiesemeyer said he is optimistic that it will nally get done in this Congress. “Now you have a Republican heading the Senate Ag Committee, (Arkansas Senator) John Boozman and he works very well with (Pennsylvania Representative) G.T. Thompson,” Wiesemeyer said. “You have the new ranking member on the Senate Ag Committee, (Minnesota Senator) Amy Klobuchar; will she offer compromising words that she can work with the Senate and the House to nally get this new farm bill done?”
Canada promises “robust” tariff response
According to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the Trump administration’s proposed 25% tariff on Canadian products will put American jobs at risk. Trudeau, who has announced his intention to step down, sent a message south of the border. “If indeed, the incoming administration moves forward with these unfair and unjust tariffs, Canada will respond,” Trudeau said. “We will re-
Safety net program enrollment dates scheduled
USDA has announced the enrollment dates for its farm safety net programs. The signup for the Agricultural Risk Coverage and Price Loss Coverage programs will be held from Jan. 21 to April 15. If farmers do not submit their election revision by mid-April to their local FSA, their election will remain the same as their 2024 election. For Dairy Margin Coverage, the signup extends from Jan. 29 to March 31. There are different levels of coverage in the voluntary DMC program.
Fischer moves up to Edge presidency
Edge Dairy Farmer Cooperative has a new president, Heidi Fischer of Hatley, Wisconsin. Fischer succeeds Brody Stapel of Cedar Grove, Wisconsin. New board members are Jay Stauffacher of Darlington, Wisconsin, and Christina Zuiderveen of Granville, Iowa.
New Dairy Business Association president elected Gary Siegenthaler is the new president of the Dairy Business Association. Siegenthaler, who is with Grande Cheese in Fond Du Lac, previously served as vice president. Lee Kinnard, a dairy farmer from Casco, served the maximum number of terms as president.
Community outreach recognition for Ducat
The Dairy Business Association and Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin honored Duane Ducat of Kewanee with its Community Outreach Award. Ducat is a partner in Deer Run Dairy. This award recognizes farmers who are engaged in their community and promote a positive message about dairy farming.
Trivia challenge
Former Minnesota Congressman Bob Bergland served as Jimmy Carter’s agriculture secretary. That answers our last trivia question. For this week’s trivia, how much saliva can a dairy cow produce in a day? We’ll have the answer in our next edition of the Dairy Star.
Don Wick is owner/broadcaster for the Red River Farm Network of 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 sons, Tony and Sam, and ve grandchildren, Aiden, Piper, Adrienne, Aurora and Sterling.
What do you like about the tags you order from DHIA?
We like the DHIA tags because we can get them custom to what we want on them: birthdate, sire, dam, etc. We also get the RFID and genomic tissue sampler with the tags.
Tell us about the convenience of going through DHIA for your ear tags. The process is very simple because our DHIA milk tester orders the tags every month. It is very easy to go in and add the tag series into the software.
Is a good tag product important for managing data within your farm? Yes, this keeps it easy. The tags are easy to read the entire life of the cows and the tags stay in well.
Why is testing with DHIA important to your dairy? for breeding decisions and deciding on cull cows using energy-corrected milk and cell count.
Tell us about your farm. Mulhern Dairy started in 1970 and is a fourth-generation family run dairy farm.
DHIA: Now MORE than ever
Cory Mulhern, Mulhern Dairy
A once in a lifetime opportunity
By Amy Kyllo amy.k@star-pub.com
WASHINGTON — This past week Dan and Seena Glessing had an experience they will never forget as they attended President Donald Trump’s inauguration Jan. 20 in Washington.
“It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for both Seena and myself,” Dan Glessing said. “(It was) neat to be able to witness that rsthand.”
The Glessings milk 75 cows on their farm near Waverly, Minnesota. The couple were invited to attend the inauguration by Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota who was the chair of the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies. Klobuchar herself spoke at the beginning of the inauguration.
“The whole ceremonial aspect of (the inauguration) does bring a bipartisanship together,” Glessing said. “I can’t emphasize enough the importance (that) both political parties have certain ideologies, but the American people are the ones who make this country what it is and what we stand for. And so, there’s that sense of patriotism. … Yes, it’s bipartisan, but it also just the celebration of being in the United States of America.”
Seena and Dan Glessing pause Jan. 20 during the presiden al
from where they celebrated at Emancipa on Hall
tended the inaugura on a er being invited
Because of the extremely cold temperatures, the inauguration ceremony was held in the Capitol Rotunda instead of its originally planned location on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol. With
the change of locations, the Glessings were seated in Emancipation Hall.
There, on a big screen, they watched the inauguration livestream. Following the swearing-in, President Donald Trump came and spoke to attendees in Emancipation Hall for about 15-20 minutes. The Glessings were seated in front of the podium and to the left about three rows back.
and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise.
Before the inauguration, the Glessings were escorted from several blocks away and brought to the Dirksen Senate Ofce Building where they could take off their coats, grab coffee and snacks, and get directions for the rest of the day before being seated for the inauguration.
For Glessing, one of the things he found interesting was seeing the handoff of the White House.
“The peaceful transfer of power is really a neat thing to experience rsthand,” he said.
Glessing was able to watch on the big screen the Bidens welcome the Trumps and the Trumps seeing off the Bidens.
“Some countries don’t do that,” he said. “(There) is something to be said for handling with class the wish of the voters.”
In the evening following the inauguration, the Glessings attended the Bipartisan Inaugural Ball: Celebrating American Agriculture. Glessing said he heard the attendance of the event was around 1,200 people. He said there were many familiar faces and good conversations. The Glessings were able to connect with Rep. Frank Lucas, Rep. Angie Craig and chairman of the House Committee on Agriculture, Glenn “GT” Thompson, among others.
“When you look at what farmers in the U.S. do, we do have a lot to celebrate,” Glessing said. “(We are) producing food that’s wholesome and safe and doing it relatively cheaply for consumers.”
Glessing is not a stranger to Washington through his agriculture policy advocacy work as the president of the Minnesota Farm Bureau Federation board of directors. In the past two years, he has visited Washington over 10 times.
“It is a neat opportunity to see someone who typically you only see on the television or in media … in person and know that he is the president,” Glessing said.
He said it was interesting to watch the security measures and the U.S. Secret Service’s efforts to keep the president protected. He said he also enjoyed getting to see Vice President JD Vance, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson
Glessing nished off the inauguration trip with visits to legislators including eight members of the House and Sen. Klobuchar and Sen. Tina Smith. Glessings wanted to thank Klobuchar in person for her invitation
Turn to GLESSINGS | Page 13
PHOTO SUBMITTED
inaugura on
in Washington. The Glessings at-
by Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar.
PHOTO SUBMITTED
President Donald Trump speaks Jan. 20 to a endees at Emancipa on Hall in Washington. The President spoke for about 15-20 minutes.
Glessing said they visited with the legislators about a wide array of farm policy. Some of the pieces of legislation on Glessing’s mind currently include the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which expires this year, the farm bill, the Dairy Margin Coverage program, delisting the gray wolf and additional milk proccessing.
“When members hear from the farmers that are sitting in their ofces telling the story of why a certain piece of legislation would help or hurt their farm that goes a lot further than any type of lobbyist,” Glessing said.
Glessing has plans for a trip back to Washington in February for a day and a half as well as two trips in March for a total of eight days along with a potential trip in July.
Rep. Angie Craig (from le ) and Dan and Seena Glessing gather Jan. 20 at the Bipar san Inaugural Ball: Celebra ng American Agriculture in Washington. The Glessings were able to connect with Rep. Craig as well as Rep. Frank Lucas and the chairman of the House Commi ee on Agriculture, Glenn “GT” Thompson. and to hear her recap of the previous day’s activities.
While the Glessings were in Washington, their children, a nephew and one of Dan’s second cousins were caring for their dairy in the cold.
“I have not gotten any calls with something that the crew back home can’t handle,” Glessing said. “There are cold mornings, and if you can get the barn clean, that’s a good thing. I haven’t heard any troubles yet, so that
was kind of refreshing.”
The Glessings returned home to Minnesota on Tuesday evening.
“(It was a) once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that we were able to take part in,” Glessing said. “I do enjoy the process and the history that is in D.C. and everything that it entails.”
•
from our side our side OF THE FENCE
David Messerschmidt and Felicia Erickson Fall Creek, Wisconsin Eau Claire County 60 Holstein cows
What is the biggest challenge you’ve had this winter? The temperature has been the biggest challenge because it is super hard on calves. With it being cold and then warm, then cold and warm again, the calves do not get consistent temps and then do not regulate themselves as easily, thus making it way more likely they will get sick.
What actions do you take to keep animals healthy during the winter? We provide frequent fresh, clean and dry bedding and use calf jackets.
What techniques do you abide by during this time of year? We increase the amount of feed and ensure we keep their water from freezing. Our milking cows go outside every day to eat at the bunk, but the outside temperature determines how long they stay outside.
What is the most challenging winter you can remember? The winter of 1995 and 1996; it was super cold and snowed a lot. I was a senior in high school that year and remember having school canceled multiple times that winter.
What is your favorite pastime during the winter? We enjoy snowmobiling when we have enough snow and really enjoy it at my family’s cabin in Hayward. Sometimes it is hard to nd people to milk for us and it is especially difcult when it is really cold because, unfortunately, that is when everything breaks.
Tell us about your farm. Our dairy farm has been in my husband's family for over 110 years; it has been an operating dairy farm since the beginning. Dave and I got married in July 2023. We milk 60 cows; most of them are registered Holsteins. We farm 377 acres, growing hay, corn, soybeans and oats. We also rotationally graze our cows on pasture during the growing season. I work part time off the farm as a hospice registered nurse and run a Facebook group called “It’s Me Flea,” where I share and educate folks about a day in the life of a small Wisconsin dairy farm. We have the honor of hosting the Eau Claire County Breakfast on the Farm June 7. Come join us if you can.
Richard Laska Winona, Minnesota
Winona County
150 cows
What is the biggest challenge you’ve had this winter?
The inconsistent temps make it hard for livestock to cope. We make sure they are well bedded and watch closely for respiratory issues. We have had a lot of extremely foggy weather, so much so that, for the rst time, we experienced the intake screen for the ventilation tube in our calf barn was frozen shut.
What actions do you take to keep animals healthy during the winter? Keeping animals well bedded and fed, which gives them extra energy during the colder weather.
What techniques do you abide by during this time of year? Keeping calves dry with more bedding so they can nestle in for warmth. We also increase their milk received.
What is the most challenging winter you can remember? The last half of December 1983 with the extreme, still record-breaking temps and lots of wind. Also, late January 2019.
What is your favorite pastime during the winter? In between chore times being able to spend a little more family downtime.
Tell us about your farm. My wife, Carol, and I farm with our daughter, Jenelle, and her husband, Dan. We milk 150 cows of various breeds: Holstein, Guernsey, Jersey, Ayrshire and Red & White Holstein. We raise all our feed for the livestock and sell a little corn. We farm the ridge tops above the Mississippi River. Our cows are housed in a 3-row sand-bedded freestall barn and milked in a swing-8 parlor.
Kevin Henk Birchwood, Wisconsin Rusk County 100 Cows
What is the biggest challenge you’ve had this winter?
The inconsistent temperature has been tough on the calves this winter. The rain we had just after Christmas was hard on our youngstock, being that they are outside most of the time.
What actions do you take to keep animals healthy during the winter? I try to keep an eye on the forecast so I can open doors and turn on the fans as needed. I make sure all the calves have enough dry bedding. I put corn stalk bales out for youngstock.
What techniques do you abide by during this time of year? When the temperature gets colder I put calf blankets on the youngstock.
What is the most challenging winter you can remember? In 2022, we had a pile of snow, and about one week before Christmas we got some ice before it snowed and we were without power for four days. Luckily, we had a generator, but it still was not fun. It was not a very cold winter.
What is your favorite pastime during the winter? I like to ride snowmobiles and do some ice shing. I am on a bowling league during the winter, too.
Tell us about your farm. I farm with my brother. We bought this farm from our uncle seven years ago. We milk 100 cows in a swing-5 parlor.
Tim Mellgren Stephenson, Michigan
Menominee County
50 cows
What is the biggest challenge you’ve had this winter? The weather has not been too bad so far. A lot of time up here in the Upper Peninsula, you can gure winter starting the rst part of November, and we’ve had snow up until May 8. On April 2 last year, we got eight inches of snow that caused a power outage. Our tractor and generator ran 95 hours straight until the power came back on April 6. The mud is the biggest problem this winter. It was really dry in the fall until November when we got about a foot of rain. In December, we had to chase around to nd a place on the high ground to haul manure because there was so much mud. In the UP, there is a different soil base from one 40 to the next. It could be sandy and low in one and rocky in the next. If there’s too much mud, we won’t let the cows outside. It has been below freezing since New Year’s Day, but that is not too bad, and it dried everything up. We had bare ground until Jan. 12 when we got two inches of snow. The next day it was 11 degrees. We had winter dysentery go through the barn, but that is an annual thing. Cows are getting over it and starting to eat more again.
What actions do you take to keep animals healthy during the winter? We keep up to date on vaccinations and give vaccines for pneumonia. We take extra precautions if we notice an animal is getting sick and will call the vet if it is something we cannot handle ourselves. We feed a little heavier, scrape out the barn more, and bed a little more. Our cows can go outside year-round if the weather permits. We monitor the feed manger, and if cows are eating more than usual, we will feed
Alex Schaefers
McGregor, Iowa Clayton County 100 Cows
What is the biggest challenge you’ve had this winter? Tell us how you've either overcome this or been managing it. So far, this winter has been more mild than in years past. Moisture/dew has been difcult as we have to clean and bed cattle more often due to the warmer temperatures and moisture in the air. The cattle environment is a priority in the moist conditions to maintain herd health.
What actions do you take to keep animals healthy during the winter? Cattle are cleaned more often. Calf jackets are applied to younger calves, and on really cold days, calves may get extra milk or feed. What techniques do you abide by during this time of year? My son and I work together getting pens cleaned. He loads wet bedding with a skid loader and I take it out to fertilize elds. It works really well as we have two manure spreaders so one is always going. Our daughter scrapes the lots for milk cows every day and puts lime down if icy.
What is the most challenging winter you can remember? 2019 was a challenge in January and February due to the polar vortex. Between cold temperatures and snowfall, it was difcult to get family here from the other farm. Tractors and equipment
them a little extra haylage and silage. We always have a round bale in the barn 24/7 for free-choice feeding.
What techniques do you abide by during this time of year? Calves are housed in a calf barn, but if the cold bothers them, we will put jackets on them. We have in-oor heat in the milking parlor, and in winter, we let newborn calves stay in the parlor overnight to dry off and warm up. The parlor stays at 60 degrees. We also put calves in there that are on medicine and may not be doing well.
What is the most challenging winter you can remember? The most challenging winter was when our barn burnt down in the winter of 2009-2010. We lost our youngstock and had to nd a place to milk our cows while guring out what we were going to do next. It was a lot to deal with in the middle of winter. The re happened in early January on a 10-degree night. We ended up moving the cows to a farm four miles away. We had to haul feed and gure out how to get manure out while rebuilding our operation, but a lot of neighbors helped us. The winter of 2013-2014 was another challenging winter. It was bitterly cold. In February, it was down to 20 degrees below zero every morning. The water line going into the barn froze. We had to run a line from our parlor to go around and water everything. The main line in the ground did not thaw out until April 20. It was too cold to haul manure; we had to scrape it and put it in a pile. We burned almost two semi-loads of rewood that winter.
What is your favorite pastime during the winter? On New Year’s day, we have pizza and talk about how the year went. Also, on Sundays, we do our chores twice a day and then take the rest of the day off to do whatever we want.
Tell us about your farm. Mellgren Farms was established in 1902 by my greatgrandfather on my mother’s side of the family. Today, it is my parents and ve of us siblings involved on the farm — one sister, three brothers and me. Our cows are housed in a freestall barn and milked in a double-6 at barn parlor. We are a member of Family Dairies USA, and our milk usually goes to Saputo. We farm about 250-300 acres and do our own mechanic work, which saves a lot of money.
would not run and just gelled up, vehicles were stuck and it was difcult to get feed to animals on the farm. Also, we used calf warmers for some calves that got too cold. It made for some later days and a great appreciation for things when they ran.
What is your favorite pastime during the winter? I enjoy deer hunting with getting together with neighbors and family, having good food, enjoying nature and the thrill of the hunt. It is also great to see the younger generations get their rst deer and learn from the old timers. So many stories are shared, some true and some not so true. I also enjoy the warmth of my heated Garo and going on rides through the woods. It is amazing what can be seen when the foliage has fallen from the trees and it is always fun to see what we nd.
Tell us about your farm. We are a small family farm with 100 dairy cows mainly Holsteins with a few Guernseys and Milking Shorthorns and 150 beef stock cows. We raise all our own replacement heifers for our milking operation. We feed out all our calves to fat cattle and grow corn, alfalfa and oats. Our milk is sold to Wapsie Valley Creamery and mainly made into cheese. Our beef is sold to the kosher market and dairy beef fattened and sold as market animals. Family is crucial to our success. My wife handles the books, makes sure we are fed and is our runner. Our son, Tyler, who has bought into the farming operation, is responsible for mixing the feed, herd health/calving with the beef herd, and makes sure all our fences are maintained. Our daughter, Megan, maintains our dairy herd. She is always milking, caring for calves, running our breeding program and caring for our dairy herd health. Our son, Logan, who also works full time off the farm, helps when able by either milking or running a tractor. Plus, our other children who live off the farms will pitch in if needed. I am the manager, milk cows still twice a day, plan day-to-day operations and plant/forage the crops with help. The small family farm is still thriving here, and we hope it continues for generations to come.
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How many times a day do you milk, and what is your current herd average, butterfat and protein? Our herd is milked by three robotic milking units: two Lely A3s and one Lely A3 Next. Our herd averages 2.9 visits to the robots per day. Our herd average is 37,571 pounds of milk with 1,498 pounds of fat and 1,156 pounds of protein.
Describe your housing and milking facility. The freeow milking robots are located in a 114-stall, sandedbedded freestall barn. A year ago, we changed the ventilation with the addition of three VES-Artex fans and relocated the 15 panel fans we already had according to the VESArtex recommendations. We created the environment of a tunnel-vented barn but it is still a hybrid barn because we still have the open side walls. It cost about 10% of what we were quoted for tunnel ventilation. Dry cows and close-up heifers are in our old tiestall barn that we converted so we could have 56 sand-bedded free stalls. Two years ago, we added tunnel ventilation to the dry cow barn and covered their feed lane. The rest
TOP PERFORMERS
near Caledonia, Minnesota. The Heintz family has a rolling herd average of 37,571 pounds of milk.
of our heifer housing is open sheds with a bedding pack. Calves under a month of age are housed in calf huts.
Who is part of your farm team, and what are their roles? Doug and Dayne are both full time. Dayne works
with the calves, hauls a majority of the manure and does herd health. We each have a part in the eldwork. Doug mixes feed. We also have a part-time herdsman, Matt Feldmeier, who comes in ve mornings a week and has been here for 25 years.
All three of us take turns doing fetch groups. Matt does fetch groups the ve mornings he is here and Doug and Dayne do the other nine milkings throughout the week. Doug’s wife, Julie does all the books. Dayne’s wife, Katie, is a nurse at the Gunder-
sen Health System location in La Crosse, Wisconsin, and on her days off helps with the farm’s lawn, decorating and other similar upkeep. We also have some neighbor girls who come on weekends or evenings when we are too busy to help feed calves.
We also have a Minnesota Dairy Initiative team we meet with quarterly. We originally set the team up when we were building the freestall barn for the robots. After we moved in, our rst meeting was, “OK, now let’s switch this from the builders to management.”
What is your herd health program? Our veterinarian comes once a month. They check all open cows that have not been bred, do checks for pregnancy and then recheck everything that is pregnant the following month.
For our vaccination program, calves receive Once PMH at a month of age. At 4-5 months, they are vaccinated for Bang’s, bovine viral diarrhea, blackleg and more. At dry off, cows receive Virus Shield 6+ VL5 HB,
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AMY KYLLO/DAIRY STAR
Dayne (le ) and Doug Heintz walk through their freestall barn Jan. 13 at Heintz Badger Valley Farm LLC
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FREIMOTH FARMS
ELKHORN, WISCONSIN
Luke Kastenson, herdsman 7th generation dairyman 450 cows, milking 85 lbs/cow/day
SCC average 140,000
“We’ve used Udder Comfort™ 13 years, ever since we got a free sample at the Oshkosh Farm Show. We tried it on fresh cows and for any early or minor mastitis. We saw how quickly it works. It also helps heifers with letdown of colostrum for their calves. Even some of our relatives in beef got samples and liked it. They use it religiously during calving season,” says 7th generation dairyman Luke Kastenson of Elkhorn, Wisconsin. He manages a 450-cow milking herd with another 170 at the home farm.
“We tried other products but always came right back to Udder Comfort because it works. I like the blue spray as an indicator also. Milkers see something, use the spray, and it’s a good visual for me to check her out. The biggest benefit is cow comfort and being proactive.
“We try to limit the need for antibiotics. That’s where the industry is heading. Udder Comfort helps us do that by supporting the cow. When we’re not pulling cows out of the line, the savings add up real fast,” he adds.
— Luke Kastenson
Scour Boss 9 and JVAC. Heifers on pasture in the summer are vaccinated for pink eye. In November and February, every cow in the barn receives a nasal vaccination for pneumonia.
What does your dry cow and transition program consist of? A lot of our herd is milking more than 100 pounds when it is time to dry off. So, we typically kick them out into the dry cow pen for 24 hours, then bring them back in and milk them, and then dry them off. We dry them off with Quartermaster and a teat sealant. Our dry period is 5060 days. We have one group of dry cows. Their ration consists of corn silage, an ionic salt and a lower potassium alfalfa mixed with wheat straw to dilute out the energy. We recently added a 20- by 40foot calving pen converted from a lean to off the dry cow barn that used to house heifers. Once they freshen, cows receive a liquid glucose feed in the robotic milking units for 22 days after calving.
What is the composition of your ration, and how has that changed in recent years? Our partial mixed ration is high forage. We have a year’s worth of corn silage layered from eld to eld in the bunker, so it is very consistent. Our baleage is divided into three categories: lactat-
ing, dry cow and heifer. We’re trying to feed a balanced/average diet on the baleage. We use our own ground corn. We use canola meal for our protein source and we also have a mineral mix.
In the robotic milking units, we have two types of pellets: our base of corn gluten pellets for the whole herd and our custom robot pellet. Because the corn gluten is separate, we can put a lot more goodies in the custom pellet. We’re targeting cows based on fat and protein-corrected milk, and feeding accordingly.
Tell us about the forages you plant and detail your harvest strategies. On our seed down year for alfalfa, we use oats for a nurse crop. Weather permitting, we spray it and leave it for erosion control. If we’re not able to do that, we bale it. We plant HarvXtra Roundup Ready alfalfa. We use a four-cut system. We aim to harvest the baleage at 35%-45% moisture. The round bales are inline wrapped. One thing that has helped us a lot is adding a used triple mower four years ago. Dayne can cut all the hay in two days, which used to take two of us a week.
Turn to TOP PERFORMERS | Page 23
AMY KYLLO/DAIRY STAR (Le ) Fans create a comfortable environment in the freestall Jan. 13 at Heintz Badger Valley Farm LLC near Caledonia, Minnesota. The Heintz family recently changed their ven la on system, achieving an environment like tunnel ven la on for 10% of the cost of tunnel ven la on.
(Below) Dayne and Doug Heintz look at informa on on their robo c milking unit Jan. 13 at Heintz Badger Valley Farm LLC near Caledonia, Minnesota. The Heintz family has been using robo c milking units since 2008.
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My VMS™ Lets Me Retrofit My Way
Jared Feltz Feltz Family Farms, Stevens Point, Wisconsin 700 cows on 6 VMS V300 and 4 VMS Classic
Jan. 13 at
We plant a 109-day up to 113-day, high grain corn for silage. In August, we hire the corn sprayed with fungicide using a drone. About 130 acres are custom chopped using a kernel processor. We aim for 65% moisture.
What is your average somatic cell count and how does that affect your production? Our average last year was about 110,000. We use the SCC on the Dairy Herd Improvement Association reports to nd our high cows so we can either treat them or sell them. The robots also measure conductivity, which is another way of sensing SCC.
What change has created the biggest improvement in your herd average? When we switched to having two types of pellets in fed in the robotic milking unit. Last year, our herd average was 34,511 and this year, we are at 37,571 pounds. The butterfat went up 150 pounds, protein went up 80 pounds and milk production went up 3,000 pounds. Paul McCormick, who is Doug and Julie’s son-in-law, does our nutrition
work. He suggested the change. In the original plan, we did this for cost savings, but then with the addition of a lot of extra goodies in the second robot pellet, the production responded in an unreal way.
Also, the changes in ventilation have helped our cows maintain their milk levels on hot days, and the dry cows are staying cool.
What technology do you use to monitor your herd? Our cows wear activity and rumination collars that pair with our robotic milking units. We just put in cameras. We’re watching them mostly for calving, and then we’re also monitoring the barn just in case anything goes wrong there, or to observe if there are too many cows waiting to get milked.
What is your breeding program, and what role does genetics play in your production level? Every animal is genetically mated. We use the mating results on every animal for the rst two breedings. On the third breeding we
start using Angus. We only use proven bulls, not genomic bulls. The udder is probably the most important to us because of the robotic milking units. For the genomic bulls, that is one of their least predicted traits. So, to keep the udders, the teat placement and everything correct, we have maintained using proven bulls.
We have been a closed herd since the beginning. When we moved into the robots, we only culled two cows in the rst 10 months. We had really good udders. We have sold a lot of cows for dairy over the years. Every year we sell a group of 20-30 cows or more.
List three management strategies that have helped you attain your production and component level
The importance of having an MDI team. We meet every three months, and having everybody that we deal with in one room is just so efcient. We don’t have people stopping daily or weekly. They help us nd our weak links and achieve our goals.
Consistency with our feed. Our
YOUR VENTILATION EXPERTS
RIDGE FANS
feed doesn’t change. We always have a month or so of old corn silage left before going into the new so there’s consistency on the corn silage, and we also have consistency on the hay. Being open-minded. You have to be willing to try new things like when we did the robots or started using HarvXtra alfalfa.
Tell us about your farm and your plans for the dairy in the next year. Doug started dairy farming in 1983 as a junior in high school after his dad and grandpa died as a result of a re. At that time there were 16 cows milked in a stanchion barn. He kept expanding over the years. In 2008, the cows moved to the freestall barn and we switched to robotic milking. Dayne joined the farm full time in 2015 after working with robotic startups. We are in the process of transferring the farm to him. This year we will probably make small changes around the farm but nothing major. We want to nd more efciencies as opportunities arise.
AMY KYLLO/DAIRY STAR
Sunshine lights the building site
Heintz Badger Valley Farm LLC near Caledonia, Minnesota. Doug Heintz has been dairy farming since his dad and grandpa passed in 1983 when he was a high school junior.
Back to the future
Towns family preserves Lindy genetics with embryo ushed 25 years ago
By Stacey Smart stacey.s@dairystar.com
JANESVILLE, Wis. — In 1984, a bull was born at Towns Farms that would earn worldwide recognition. His name was Townson Lindy-ET. Known for transmitting desirable type and protein, Lindy would go on to sire more than 30,000 daughters in North America.
Lindy’s legacy came full circle at Towns Farms Inc. in 2024 when another of his offspring entered the world. Townson Lindy Rose-ET was born Sept. 12. The heifer is a result of an embryo ushed in 1999.
“Technically, she’s 25 years old,” Pat Towns said.
Pat and her husband, Mark, along with Mark’s brother and sister-in-law, Scott and Nancy Towns, milk 475 cows at Towns Farms near Janesville.
“Nancy wanted to make the embryos,” Mark said. “We used to do a fair amount of embryo transfer work, but this is the rst we have done on our farm since 1999 before we expanded. With these embryos, we were hoping to get heifer calves.”
The embryos were made at the family’s second farm, where Scott and Nancy milked cows before the two farms converged. The dam of the embryos is Fertile-Ridge Tony Roseann. The Towns’ A.I. technician, Marley Malkow, was the inspiration behind nally implanting the embryos after all these years.
“She saw them in the tank and said, ‘Let’s do it,’” Mark said.
The Towns family put in three Lindy embryos. In addition to Lindy Rose, there was a bull calf born in June that was sold when he was a couple of days old. The third pregnancy was lost.
“Lindy was known for pretty cows,” Mark said. “A lot of people had show cows sired by him. They were good producers too.”
Mark said Lindy won the get-of-sire class at World Dairy Expo and also sired several class winners at Expo.
Even though her genetics are far older, Lindy Rose does not look different than her herd mates.
“It would be fun to show her if we thought she was good enough,” Mark said. “She’s a nice heifer, but I’m not sure
she’ll be a show heifer. I’m interested, with how old the genetics are, if she can still be a decent producer. Modern breeding would say she’s going to be way behind.”
Mark said their breeding philosophies have changed a lot from when they milked in
the tiestall barn, when the focus was on the registered business.
“We had a nice herd, but we were always looking for that outstanding cow,” he said. “Now, it’s the other way around. We can’t afford to miss any production.”
Lindy was sired by S-W-D
Valiant. His dam was Townson Elevation Lindy EX93-4E — a Gold Medal Dam and Dam of Merit.
“We were thinking the bull was going to be sold to a neighbor for a jumper bull,” Mark said.
STACEY SMART/DAIRY STAR
Pat (le ) and Mark Towns pause Jan. 15 with a group of their heifers housed at Jerry Holtsapple’s farm near Albany, Wisconsin. The Townses milk 475 cows with Mark’s brother and sister-in-law, Sco and Nancy Towns, near Janesville.
Cherishing a father’s guidance
Von Rudens work together to maintain longtime family farm
By Dan Wacker dan.w@dairystar.com
WESTBY, Wis. — The beginning of any career can have its ups and downs and unforeseen challenges. What made the transition of his family’s farm easier for Brett Von Ruden was having his dad there to help him navigate the landscape.
This July will be 10 years since Darin Von Ruden transitioned the farm to his son. Brett had been working on the farm since he was 13, and the history of his family farming on that land meant a great deal to him.
“That was a big part of why I decided to come back,” Brett said. “The farm has been in the family so long. It’s a good feeling knowing that I can continue. It’s something that my dad, grandpa and great-grandpa helped set up. It’s not lost on me how hard they worked to keep this farm going through those times.”
The Von Rudens have
took on more responsibility with the Wisconsin Farmers Union.
been milking cows for over 100 years, transitioning to organic in 2007. Their 51cow herd is milked in a tiestall barn. They own 230 acres and rent 50 acres of pasture and 72 acres of tillable land.
Brett was a two sport athlete in high school, balancing school, sports and working on the family farm. After
graduation, he was not sure about taking over the dairy. He attended Western Technical College’s agribusiness program in La Crosse for a year, while working in retail part time.
“It’s hard to see your kids leave the farm because you aren’t sure if they’re going to come back,” Darin said.
Darin also serves as president of the Wisconsin Farmers Union — a position with large demands on his time and a rigorous travel schedule.
“I was starting to transition the herd because I didn’t know what Brett wanted to do,” Darin said.
However, after that rst
year away from the farm, Brett said he decided farming was more fun than retail work.
“I realized how much I enjoyed working with animals and working in the ag industry,” he said.
When Brett decided he would return home to the farm, it made Darin’s decision to continue his involvement with the WFU that much easier. As president, the elder Von Ruden works in a variety of roles. He sits on the national board for the Farmers Union and is secretary for the national board while also serving as the chair of the Farmers Union enterprise board.
“When Brett decided to come back, I was happy, but I knew it was going to be a struggle,” Darin said.
Brett and his wife, Nicole, moved into his childhood home, a mere 30 steps from the barn, and are raising two children.
“I hope my children can take what I learned — the hard work, the taking care of animals — and I hope they can use that for something in their future,” Brett said.
DAN WACKER/DAIRY STAR
Bre (le ) and Darin Von Ruden stand on the driveway of their farm Jan. 9 near Westby, Wisconsin. Bre took over the farm 10 years ago as Darin
“Whether they end up taking over for me someday or whatever they end up doing — hard work is one of the things they can learn here that can help them in any career.”
Although he followed in his father’s farming footsteps, Brett said he does not see himself following in his father’s path of serving in the WFU.
“It’s nice knowing there are people still out there looking out for us farmers and trying to help better our industry,” Brett said.
In his presidential role, Darin leans on the three pillars of the WFU: education, cooperation and legislation, and community involvement. He said education is what continues to drive him in this position.
“Educating our elected ofcials
as to what our communities need is huge,” Darin said. “But we also make sure that consumers are aware of what’s going on throughout the cycle of food production.”
In December, Darin was reelected to his 15th year of service as president of the WFU. With his son at the helm of the family farm, Darin has more time to devote to his presidency; however, he still nds time to be there for Brett.
“It’s nice to have him as a safety blanket,” Brett said. “He helped me with the paperwork for the organic side that rst year and then let me run with it. I don’t plan on changing much of what we’ve done in the past at this point, but I’m happy that if I do, I have him and my mom to lean on if I need advice.”
“The farm has been in the family so long. It’s a good feeling knowing that I can continue. It’s something that my dad, grandpa and great-grandpa helped set up. It’s not lost on me how hard they worked to keep this farm going through those times.”
-Brett Von Ruden
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and
Instead, Lindy was purchased by Lowell Lindsay at United Breeders in Canada. He had only 38 daughters in his initial proof, but his number of offspring grew quickly as the bull’s popularity caught on. Lindy’s semen was marketed in 48 countries with sales of over 1 million units.
“Lindy was a good type bull,” Mark said. “He came out at a time when people thought butterfat was not as important as protein. Protein was his strength, and he offered a combination of type and protein.”
In 1990, Lindy’s predicted transmitting abilities climbed to +18 for
more than 30,000 daughters in
protein, putting Lindy in the top 1% of the Holstein breed, and his type ratings followed in pursuit. By 1994, he was +14 for type, and his protein rating had soared to +19. Lindy ended his career at over 16 years of age.
“We didn’t use much Lindy on our farm,” Mark said. “He retailed for $50 per straw. He was expensive.”
Lindy also had two full brothers in A.I.
“They were proven but never made the lineup,” Mark said. “That tells you how ckle genetics are.”
In 2001, two bulls were honored at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair in Toronto, Canada, with Lindy being one
of these along with Hanoverhill Starbuck.
There are still a few Lindy embryos left in the semen tank at Towns Farms. After successfully tapping into a piece of history, Mark and Pat are pondering what to do with the remaining eggs.
“When they’re in the tank that long, it’s amazing how they can last,” Pat said. “It’s like back to the future.”
Mark and Pat dug into the archives and took a gamble with genes of the past and said they are excited to see how this experiment turns out.
“It was a fun thing to do,” Mark said. “In a herd of 900 cattle, one heifer is not going to change the world. We
want to make our cows count, but if one doesn’t turn out, it’s no big deal. No doubt Lindy Rose will be a nice animal, but if she’ll be exceptional, we have no idea.”
Pat agreed.
“Hopefully she’s an outlier,” she said.
The Lindy legacy lives on in his newest daughter that makes her home where it all began more than 40 years ago. The Towns family is taking a step back in time as they revive the bloodline of a bull that put their farm on the A.I. map.
“We’re going back to our roots,” Mark said.
PHOTO SUBMITTED
Townson Lindy-ET was born in 1984
sired
North America. Lindy was bred at Towns Farms Inc. near Janesville, Wisconsin, and purchased by United Breeders in Canada.
STACEY SMART/DAIRY STAR
Townson Lindy Rose-ET stands in the heifer yard Jan. 15 at Jerry Holtsapple’s farm where he custom raises heifers near Albany, Wisconsin. Lindy Rose was born Sept. 12, 2024, and is the result of an embryo ushed in 1999 and sired by Townson Lindy.
Data path for genetic evaluations
There is a tremendous amount of data used to generate genetic evaluations for dairy cattle in the U.S. Much of this data is generated on-farm by dairy producers before it eventually makes its way to the National Cooperator Database. The NCD is managed by the Council on Dairy Cattle Breeding and functions as the repository for phenotypic and genetic data. It is also the source of data used by the CDCB to calculate ofcial genetic evaluations in the U.S.
In addition, cow performance data are often collected at this stage. This cow performance data may include pedigree information, reproductive records, health records and calving data.
By Isaac Haagen University of Minnesota
The information that ows into the NCD comes from diverse sources such as Dairy Herd Improvement Association testing, breed associations and genomic testing labs. When a producer participates in a milk recording program through their local DHIA, those data are processed at a Dairy Record Processing Center. Common DHI providers in the upper Midwest include Minnesota DHIA, AgSource and CentralStar. During routine DHI milk recording, information is gathered related to milk production such as milk yield, fat and protein yield, milk and fat percentages, and somatic cell scores.
Test-day production data and cow performance data collected by DHI providers are processed at a DRPC. There are four in the United States: AgriTech, Dairy Records Management Systems, Amelicor, and AgSource. Several of these processing centers are associated with common herd management software as well. For instance, Dart or PCDart is a product of DRMS, DHI-Plus is a product of Amelicor, and AgSource is owned by the same parent company of DairyComp. Once these processing centers have processed and standardized the data, producers decide whether data enters the NCD. Finally, data that enter the NCD are used by the CDCB to calculate genetic evaluation for production, reproduction, health and calving traits.
There are other data sources that feed into the NCD and are
used for genetic evaluations. These data are generated by breed associations, genomic laboratories, and the National Association of Animal Breeders. For example, breed associations provide pedigree information for animals within their herdbooks and provide data related to conformation which come from their type appraisal programs. Genomic laboratories provide the genotype data that are needed for genomic evaluations. These two sources still clearly rely on the animals located on commercial operations. Data from NAAB mainly relates to bulls and therefore is less connected to animals and data generated on commercial operations.
There is some cow data used for genetic evaluations that does not originate from commercial dairy herds. For example, feed efciency genetic evaluations are calculated from data originating from research herds. This is because individual cow feed intakes are needed and this is not easily or routinely collected on commercial operations.
Dana Adams adam1744@umn.edu 320-204-2968
Luciano Caixeta lcaixeta@umn.edu 612-625-3130
Gerard Cramer gcramer@umn.edu 612-625-8184
Marcia Endres miendres@umn.edu 612-624-5391
Brad Heins hein0106@umn.edu 320-589-1711
Nathan Hulinsky huli0013@umn.edu 320-203-6104
Karen Johnson ande9495@umn.edu 320-484-4334
Emily Krekelberg krek0033@umn.edu 507-280-2863
Claire LaCanne lacanne@umn.edu 507-332-6109
Brenda Miller nels4220@umn.edu 320-732-4435
Clearly the system relies heavily on dairy producers, especially producers participating in milk recording. However, less than 50% of U.S. dairy cows are enrolled in DHI milk recording. In 2023, only about 10,000 dairy herds and 4 million cows were participating in DHI milk recording. Does this mean there is a substantial amount of information missing from the national database used for genetic evaluations? While there is clearly a large group of producers not participating, this does not necessarily mean there is substantial information missing from the system, as data are generated across most states and herd characteristics. However, as we move forward, it will be important to continue to ensure the collection of high-quality data and collection of data from a diverse set of operations. Therefore, it will be important for DHI providers to demonstrate the value of their services directly to producers. Finally, it will be imperative that the NCD captures new sources of information.
Isaac Salfer ijsalfer@umn.edu 320-296-1357
Jim Salfer salfe001@umn.edu 320-203-6093
Mike Schutz mschutz@umn.edu 612-624-1205
Melissa Wilson mlw@umn.edu 612-625-4276
Isaac Haagen hagge041@umn.edu 612-624-7455
Michael Boland boland@umn.edu 612-625-3013
Sabrina Florentino slpore@umn.edu 507-441-1765
Scott Wells wells023@umn.edu 612-625-8166
Erin Cortus ecortus@umn.edu 612-625-8288
Melissa Runck mkrunck@umn.edu 507-836-1143
Childhood on the farm
While growing up on a dairy farm, my siblings and I worked hard, but we also played hard. Whether it was winter, spring, summer or fall, we could always be found playing outside.
In the winter, ice skating was my favorite pastime. We didn’t even have to leave the farm to skate. There was a pond behind the barn that froze to gliding perfection where we would skate for hours. It made the perfect environment for my sisters and I to pretend we were famous gure skaters. We could all hold our own on a pair of skates, but none of us had actually mastered any fancy moves.
chine shed sat. It was probably only 6-7 feet at its highest point, but that also meant you could be back up at the top in no time. Once we got to the bottom of the hill, the sled kept going until we hit the side of the machine shed. I would sled down that hill for hours when I was young.
Instead of building snowmen, my siblings and I were more into building forts. My brother was a master snow fort builder, constructing structures that even included bathrooms.
By Stacey Smart Staff Writer
My dad scraped the snow off with his tractor so we could skate to our hearts’ content. When enough water collected in the eld behind our house, that also turned into a skating rink in the winter. If skating conditions at home were not good, my parents drove us to the ice rink in town on Sunday afternoons.
One year, while skating on the pond by the barn, my sister, Susanne, fell through the ice and into the water when she skated too close to an area that was not completely frozen. It was terrifying. My sister, Sara, and I didn’t know what to do so we yelled for my dad. I was pretty little at the time, and I don’t remember all the details, but I know there was a lot of screaming and crying. One part that is still vivid to me was the look of fear on my sister’s face. I prayed she wouldn’t drown. I don’t remember how far away my dad was at the time, but he got there quickly and rescued her. Thank God.
Sledding was another favorite wintertime activity. We had some big hills on our farm which were probably not my dad’s favorites when doing eldwork, but they were great for sledding. The only problem was it took so long and was so exhausting to climb back up the hill that we usually only sled down a few times per outing. I preferred the much smaller hill by our house. It was part of the lawn that sloped to where our ma-
When the weather was nice, I loved to ride my bike all around the farm and in the barn and go on 3-wheeler rides. After evening milking, we would play volleyball or ghost in the graveyard, or some other game that we made up. I also spent hours washing and leading my show calves around.
My son once told me I was lucky I grew up on a farm because there was always something to do. This is true. Boredom was never an issue. I could always nd ways to keep busy. I never needed anyone to entertain me.
We had acres and acres to play on, and our imaginations ran wild. There were no cell phones to distract us. The internet had not been invented. Social media was not available. We couldn’t check what our peers were doing, nor did we care. All that mattered was having fun and living in the moment.
Even as a kid, I knew my childhood on the farm was a good one. But somehow you don’t realize how good you really had it until you are an adult. Once I was fully grown and on my own, I could truly appreciate the gift of the great childhood I had been given, even if it meant I had to wake up early on a Saturday morning to milk cows while my friends got to sleep in.
I was fortunate to grow up around lots of animals and endless fun at my ngertips. It was a happy and healthy upbringing, providing me with a wellrounded experience that included just the right amount of work and play.
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Baking bread, bringing joy
Van Dyk shares sourdough hobby
By Danielle Nauman danielle.n@dairystar.com
NEW RICHMOND, Wis. — A sourdough starter given to Rikki Van Dyk a year and a half ago has sparked a new-hobby-turnedside hustle.
“A friend said she had sourdough and told me I should try it,” Van Dyk said. “At rst, I said no because I didn’t need another thing to take care of. She told me I would like it — so I tried it, and she was right.”
Van Dyk and her husband, Chris, and their sons, Landon and Lane, milk 65 cows at West Croix Holsteins and Jerseys near New Richmond.
Using the starter, Van Dyk, who works part time off the farm as a registered nurse, began experimenting with baking sourdough bread. She took bread to work with her and shared with co-workers. They encouraged her to try selling her bread and through that Farm Fresh Breads was
born.
Entering the world of sourdough baking was a new experience for Van Dyk.
“Everything you hear about sourdough is intimidating — you have to let it sit, feed it, knead it a certain way,” Van Dyk said. “What I have learned is it’s not quite as intimidating as everyone makes it look on TikTok or YouTube.”
Van Dyk said a year and a half later, she is still working off that original starter from her friend, and in turn, she has given the gift of sourdough to eight of her co-workers and friends.
“Of those eight, four of them have kept their starter alive and are still baking bread,” Van Dyk said.
Over time Van Dyk has learned how to work with the starter and become more comfortable with the process.
Making sourdough bread is a process that takes several days to complete. The day before she plans to make bread, Van Dyk feeds her starter with unbleached our and water.
After the starter ferments and grows, Van Dyk uses it to make dough. Van Dyk kneads the dough four times,
stretching and folding it to strengthen it. This is done every half hour, letting it rest each time.
The dough is then proofed, and after it has doubled in size it can be made into bread.
Each recipe usually calls for a cup of starter. What is not used can either be fed again or discarded.
A day or two after she makes the dough, Van Dyk spends an entire day baking bread. She typically bakes the day before a market, so the bread is fresh, and then bags it and labels it the morning of the market.
A plain loaf of sourdough bread consists of starter, our, water and salt; but Van Dyk enjoys experimenting with a variety of avors and textures when baking her bread.
Van Dyk has found recipes online, but she also enjoys creating her own combinations. Jalapeno cheddar is one of her best sellers. Other popular avors include blueberry lemon, s’mores, wild rice cranberry and caramel apple.
“I came up with the s’mores recipe and that worked really well,” Van Dyk said. “A lot of times I just try things I think would be good. One time we had Cajun cheese curds on hand, so I put them in bread and that turned out pretty good.”
future is now. And it starts with her. Help her maintain normal digestive health and support a functioning immune system with First Arrival® total eubiotics. This easy-to-feed product is available in powder or paste. Kickstart tomorrow’s production today.
DANIELLE NAUMAN/DAIRY STAR
Rikki Van Dyk holds a loaf of sourdough bread Jan. 15 in her kitchen on her family’s farm near New Richmond, Wisconsin. Van Dyk began making sourdough bread a er a friend gave her the starter a year and a half ago.
Con nued from VAN DYK | Page 32
Van Dyk uses TikTok for inspiration and also works with customers to add new creations to her repertoire.
“A neighbor wanted a weekly order of bagels, so I started making those,” Van Dyk said. “I’ve also tried English mufns and pretzels, and I’ve thought about doing noodles, but doing those things is all more work and more time.”
Van Dyk sells her breads under Wisconsin’s cottage food law, which requires her to include a label that discloses her breads are made in a private home and lists ingredients. For the time being, Van Dyk is content selling bread on a small scale under those provisions.
lemon sourdough bread cools Oct. 16, 2024, in Rikki Van Dyk’s kitchen on her family’s farm near New Richmond, Wisconsin. Blueberry lemon is one of Van Dyk’s most popular avors of bread.
“I don’t want this to become a job,” Van Dyk said. “I want it to stay a hobby, at least for now.”
Van Dyk rst started marketing her bread by approaching a nearby greenhouse, Erin Prairie Plant Co, about selling her products there.
“I started out taking 10 or 15 loaves down there,” Van Dyk said. “It usually sold out, and I was really surprised by the response.”
From there, Van Dyk began attending local farmers markets to purvey her breads. As she built up a following of customers, she began taking direct orders.
“I never really thought the sourdough would come to this — selling bread, people wanting to buy bread,” Van Dyk said. “I like pleasing people. Making bread for others to enjoy brings me joy.”
A variety of sourdough breads cool Nov. 19, 2024, in Rikki Van Dyk’s kitchen on her family’s farm near New Richmond, Wisconsin. Van Dyk enjoys trying new recipes and techniques when baking sourdough bread.
KERNEL PROCESSORS
DANIELLE NAUMAN/DAIRY STAR
Blueberry
PHOTO COURTESY OF RIKKI VAN DYK
New year, updated deadlines
By Steve Frericks Stearns County FSA executive director
Welcome to 2025. I hope everyone has had a great start to the new year. Our programs are starting to roll out. The No. 1 question we are getting regards the farm aid and disaster aid provision approved Dec. 20, 2024. With this note, we do not have any new information to provide. We will relay this important information as soon as we can. Recently, in a U.S. Department of Agriculture news release, we had the announcement of the start of the 2025 Dairy Margin Coverage signup and the 2025 Agriculture Risk Coverage and Price Loss Coverage election process. Please note the deadlines below for these program signups.
USDA announces 2025 enrollment periods for crop, dairy safety net programs
The USDA announced the 2025 enrollment periods for key safety net programs — ARC and PLC as well as DMC. Agricultural producers can submit applications to USDA’s Farm Service Agency for ARC and PLC for the 2025 crop year from Jan. 21 to April 15 and for DMC for the 2025 coverage year from Jan. 29 to March 31.
ARC and PLC provide nancial protections to farmers from substantial drops in crop prices or revenues and are vital economic safety nets for most American farms. Meanwhile, DMC provides
producers with price support to help offset milk and feed price differences.
The American Relief Act, 2025 extended many farm bill-authorized programs for another year, including ARC and PLC as well as DMC.
ARC and PLC
Producers can elect coverage and enroll in ARC-County or PLC, which provides crop-by-crop protection, or ARC-Individual, which protects the entire farm. Although election changes for 2025 are optional, producers must enroll through a signed contract each year. Also, if a producer has a multi-year contract on the farm it will continue for 2025 unless an election change is made.
If producers do not submit their election revision by the April 15 deadline, their election remains the same as their 2024 election for commodities on the farm from the prior year. Farm owners cannot enroll in either program unless they have a share interest in the cropland.
Covered commodities include barley, canola, large and small chickpeas, corn, crambe, axseed, grain sorghum, lentils, mustard seed, oats, peanuts, dry peas, rapeseed, long grain rice, medium grain rice, safower seed, seed cotton, sesame, soybeans, sunower seed and wheat.
USDA also reminds producers that ARC and PLC elections and enrollments can impact eligibility for some crop insurance products including Supplemental
Coverage Option, Enhanced Coverage Option and, for cotton producers, the Stacked Income Protection Plan (commonly referred to as STAX). For more information on ARC and PLC, producers can visit the ARC and PLC webpage or contact their local USDA service center.
DMC
DMC is a voluntary risk management program that offers protection to dairy producers when the difference between the all-milk price and the average feed price (the margin) falls below a certain dollar amount selected by the producer.
DMC offers different levels of coverage, even an option that is free to producers, minus a $100 administrative fee. The administrative fee is waived for dairy producers who are considered a limited resource, beginning, socially disadvantaged or military veteran.
DMC payments are calculated using updated feed and premium hay costs, making the program more reective of actual dairy producer expenses. These updated feed calculations use 100% premium alfalfa hay. For more information on DMC, visit the DMC webpage.
Farm Service Agency is an equal opportunity lender. Complaints about discrimination should be sent to: Secretary of Agriculture, Washington, D.C., 20250. Visit www.fsa.usda.gov for application forms and updates on USDA programs
Keith Harlan Davison
On April 2, 1980, Mark and Ida (Eness) Davison brought their newest arrival home to their farm outside of Norwalk, Wisconsin. Their third child, a son, Keith Harlan, quickly showed them that his personality may have been more in line with being born on April Fool’s Day. Quick-witted and clever from an early age, his mom hated to let him follow his brother and sister off to school because he was so pleasant and entertaining to have around. Being the younger brother, he was made tough by the occasional BB gun war and there was nothing you couldn’t dare him to do. He was eager to be old enough to drive a tractor on their farm, and when his dad obliged at long last, his prowess with 4-wheeled things began to show itself and grow.
Keith was a mechanical genius, willing to try to nd the problem on any piece of equipment that found its way under his scrutiny. His passion for anything International led to many friendships welded together over the years by a shared appreciation for all things International Harvester. He worked for Beck Farms, where he was a jackof-all-trades, master of most. In addition to keeping the grain dryers running smoothly, climbing the bins, staying on top of the seed corn deliveries and making sure crops went in and came off without a hitch, he also kept his own shop full of implements needing his care.
Keith and his ‘Hon,’ Jacqui (Mlsna), said their vows on June 19, 2004, at Burr Wesleyan Church. This may have been the last time he was clean shaven. After 20 years of marriage, he said they still were “a pretty good pair.” Keith’s personal motto — “no sense in rushing” — made his wife be patient to start their family. When their rstborn, Ira, began to talk, Keith asked him if he wanted to call him Pa or Dad — to which Ira responded, “Pa-PaPa-Pa.” As Keith and Jacqui grew their family to include Dane, Henry and Cora, there were more little voices to echo ‘Pa’ and more little hands to help turn wrenches. Pa made sure his brood developed a healthy appreciation for all things seasoned with a bit of rust. They each had their own lawn mower to practice driving with at the ripe old age of 5. He crafted a piston water bottle holder for a particular girl and he attached blocks of wood with a zip tie to the gas pedal as deemed necessary for little legs. As his boys grew, deer hunting became a source of great stories and bonding — from harvesting his own record-breaking nontypical buck and getting to share in the excitement with his sons, to poring over trail camera photos together and plotting their own hunting adventures as they grew old enough to join Pa in the woods. It was hard to tell who was more elated after each of their rst bucks were bagged, the boys or their Pa.
Keith Harlan Davison was so many things to so many people: A son who could suss out the problem in your brand-new truck before the dealership could. A brother who would bale hay and keep tractors running. A husband who would shake his head and then dedicate yet another chunk of lawn to a ower bed. A Pa who would make pancakes on Sunday mornings, build campres on Sunday nights, and snuggle you up in a blanket fort on the couch. A friend who would be there at a moment’s notice to help build a haymow oor for a wedding. A mentor who would gently teach you the ins and outs of tractors and deer hunting. He was the guy you called to brag about your kid’s rst big buck, fully expecting him to tease you for being a bad shot, while simultaneously congratulating your child and making them feel important. He was the guy you tracked down to work on a stubborn piece of equipment with one broken part, and while he was at it, tune it up. Young and old would seek out his
advice on broken tractors, broken hearts and broken spirits. He would give honest, straight-shooting answers, and became a human barometer for people in his circle. He was a loyal and patient man. He also was a quiet, gentle, steadfast, loving man who made sure not to draw attention to his helping hands or his giving heart.
A self-proclaimed “simple guy,” he was happy with life’s simple pleasures: pulling his “Unnatural International” 966 at local tractor pulls. Sitting in a deer blind with his sons. Relaxing on the porch swing next to his wife and his wild daughter enjoying the summer sunset. One would have thought growing up on a farm, he would have horses in his blood, but his love of animals was limited to those he could ll a freezer with. In the summer you may have wondered if his shirts were missing buttons, but rest assured he was just airing out his chest, baring it to the sun. His classic sleeveless annel shirt look resulted in some interesting tan lines and a welding burn or two. His teenage years were lled with antics with the Cabin Crew — sofas mounted on skis, some questionable experiments with driving trucks in snow, and, above all, memories made and friendships cemented.
In the wee hours of the morning on January 15,
surrounded by close friends and beloved family, amid laughter and tears, and followed by a reworks show betting him, Keith headed out on his nal tractor ride. We will continue to nd those itty-bitty pieces of paper rolled up and we will think of him and his dexterity that could x a tractor or dress a Barbie doll. When one of his clever children responds with a witty retort that brings to mind his deadpan humor, we will smile and think, “You learned from the best.” We will hear the thunder boom in the summer and know it is him hitting the throttle for a full pull. When we see the brilliant sunset, we will know he’s throwing ames. We will aim to make decisions based on his solid advice: “No sense in rushing.” But most of all we will continue to live with purpose, help others when needed and give with all our hearts.
Keith will be missed by many, but especially his wife, Jacqui, and their children, Ira, Dane, Henry and Cora; his dad, Mark, mom, Ida (Gene von Ruden); brother, Matthew (B.J.); and sister, (Katrina). He was a much-loved son-in-law to Jim Mlsna and brother-in-law to Stacy, Peter (Lynzie), Thomas (Abby) and Tony (Taylor) and uncle, cousin, nephew and dear friend to so very many special people.
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In memory of Keith
By Jim Mlsna
I’m sure most of Dairy Star’s readers have read my daughter Jacqui’s last column by now. The battle that Jacqui and her husband, Keith, waged for the past ve years ended Jan. 15 with Keith’s passing on to his tool shop in heaven.
Life is a commodity that we may try to control, but it really is sacred and its value is in how that life is lived and appreciated by others. Keith would have told us that he was a simple man, and he truly was. He was able to instill a purpose in his life with my head-strong daughter and the many real – not Facebook –friends that he had.
Stacy’s two boys — asked Jacqui’s brother, Peter, to help them light up the sky with reworks. The blasts opened the door for his soul to pass. Farmers, especially dairy farmers, are resilient. They have to be. Others experience similarly bad situations and many others have far worse situations. But every day on a dairy, whether it has 10 cows or 1,000 cows, is a challenge and priorities change often in the course of a day. It is not uncommon to understand that the most successful dairy people are the ones who don’t blame others for their problems. They just solve them.
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Those friends started in high school with Jacqui and Keith being unofcial members of what we called the “Cabin Crew.” As parents we always worry about the friends our kids keep. We want them to be right. The Cabin Crew was this dad’s idea of the right friends. They had a cabin on a farm in the hills and valleys near the settlement of Valley where they would get together and have good, honest fun – no drinking, no smoking, no drugs or any of the other nonos. They would go mud bogging and snow bogging. They played softball on Sundays with other kids and adults. They had their share of bonres and woodsy trips. It was just the kind of fun my generation did, with the exception of a few beers. It was the kind of fun kids had before cell phones and helicopter parents. All their parents gave them respect because they gave it back to us as parents. When the ag teacher at the high school needed help, the Cabin Crew came forward, often with their parents, if needed.
Our country needs more men — and women — like Keith.
When I graduated from the University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine, I wanted to be the best mixed animal practitioner I could be. It didn’t take long to realize — after being bit by a few dogs — that I only wanted to work with large animals. And after working on horses who their owners couldn’t control, I realized that dairy cows were my passion. All those 20-, 30-, 40-, and 50-cow dairy farms had salt-ofthe-earth people living on them. People didn’ t only live paycheck to paycheck — or milk check to milk check — they also knew the importance of being neighbors.
Neighbors and real friends are the true support system that we all need in good times and bad. We trusted the other Cabin Crew parents to treat our kids like their own and vice versa.
The friendships between Cabin Crew members are as strong today as they were back then. And those friends were so compassionate during Keith’s last months.
After Keith took his last breath, four of the kids — two of Keith and Jacqui’s boys and Jacqui’s sister
Keith didn’t like crowds, but he was so helpful to anyone who asked. How often did we hear this exchange between Keith and someone he had helped: “What do I owe you?” “Nothing. I’ll need your help someday.” Today 15 neighbors showed up at Jacqui’s house to help cut the wood that will keep their house warm for the rest of the winter. What goes around comes around.
As the small farms have disappeared, so have the kids who were raised to share Keith’s mentality. Farmers built this country and preserved it. Our country needs more men — and women — like Keith.
Combining reduced-lignin alfalfa with brown midrib corn silage
Something to Ruminate On
High-quality forages are essential to maximize performance of lactating dairy cows, especially if your goal is to feed high-forage diets. In the 2024 crop harvest year, many farms across the Midwest struggled to achieve high levels of ber digestibility, especially with alfalfa. As next year’s crop plans and seed hybrids are nalized, some producers are considering pairing reduced-lignin alfalfa with brown midrib corn silage. The question arises, can pairing these technologies result in too much digestible ber?
By Barry Visser Nutritionist
While controlled research on feeding both reduced-lignin alfalfa and BMR corn silage is limited, producers are having success with this strategy. The decision and extent to move toward reduced-lignin forages are farm-specic.
Fiber digestibility
A complex organic compound, lignin binds cellulose molecules and hardens and strengthens plant cell walls. Lignin content increases as plants mature and gives structural support to the plants as they become taller. Lignication is most pronounced in older stems of mature plants and least pronounced in young, developing plants. The increase in lignin in mature plants negatively affects forage quality and interferes with animal digestion rates.
In numerous controlled dairy feeding trials from multiple locations and years, BMR corn silage nutrient composition improvements have
translated into greater dry matter intake and milk yield. Agronomic and yield drag concerns remain in certain locations and growing conditions. Even so, BMR corn silages have become the preferred hybrid choice for many high-producing dairy herds.
More recently, reduced-lignin alfalfa varieties have become commercially available. Alfalfa forage with reduced lignin will digest faster in the rumen, allowing for increased intake. This increased rate of digestion can result in greater milk production.
Harvest exibility
Alfalfa forage yield is generally highest at full maturity (full bloom), but forage quality decreases with plant maturity, generally due to the increased lignin content that accumulates as plants mature. The downside to cutting at earlier plant maturities and imposing shorter intervals between cuttings has been reduced alfalfa dry matter yield per acre, more cuttings (and harvest costs) per year, and compromised stand longevity.
One option with reduced-lignin alfalfa is to simply capture higher-quality forage through greater neutral detergent ber digestibility at your current harvest maturity and cutting frequency. Another option might be to widen the cutting interval to capture more yield per acre of alfalfa similar in quality to normal-lignin varieties. The latter approach can eliminate a cutting and save associated harvest costs.
Reduced-lignin alfalfa varieties are showing 5%-15% reductions in lignin content and up to 15% improvement in NDFD compared to normal-lignin varieties in research trials. The greatest differences have been found with transgenic varieties. By contrast, NDFD is typically about 20% greater for BMR corn hybrids relative to non-BMR hybrids.
Ration considerations
Usage rate for reduced-lignin forages depends on several agronomic factors, including land availability, input costs, rental agreements, geographic locations and soil types. Availability and cost of brous byproduct sources — such as beet pulp, soyhulls and corn gluten feed — can also play into this decision. These byproducts can be as much as 60% greater in NDFD compared to normal-lignin forages. Although forages have market value, these byproducts are purchased feeds and can present some handling and logistical concerns. Utilizing BMR and reduce-lignin alfalfa can provide the option to feed higher levels of forages while maintaining desired NDFD levels in your lactating dairy rations.
Signicant attention to detail may be necessary in situations with major lignin reductions and NDFD increases. Changes may include increasing physically effective NDF through greater dietary forage and forage-NDF content, reducing dietary starch content, and/or lengthening silage chop settings.
Cow-side observations of manure consistency, cud chewing and rumination are valuable. Reduced milk fat content or feed efciency (measured as dry matter intake relative to level of milk production) can be good group or herd diagnostic indicators that these types of interventions are necessary.
Determine the best t for your operation
Reduced-lignin alfalfa and BMR corn silage can be combined effectively to feed high-production dairy cows. Work closely with your nutrition and agronomy advisors to determine what is the most strategic and economical combination for your dairy. Barry Visser is a nutritionist for Vita Plus.
How cold is it?
Like age, cold is just a number. It does not matter what the actual temperature is but more of how it feels. Without looking at a thermometer, there are telling signs of just how cold it is outside.
Most mornings I like to stretch before I get moving, but on cold mornings, that can be rather difcult. It feels so snugly warm under a pile of heavy blankets that the only way I am getting out is to just throw the blankets back in one swift motion and jump out of bed. Then there is the scramble to nd warm clothes. I really do not want to move but the calves are calling for breakfast, so I have to get going.
I knew it was cold this morning when the sun didn’t even want to crawl over the frozen horizon. The glow of a purple and red dawn stretching out along the dark horizon is how I have been greeted
most mornings, until today. The rays waited for the sun to burst forth through the silhouette of barren trees be-fore they lit up the skyline. It was so cold, even the sun wanted to stay in bed.
As he wrapped up church services, our priest shared some wise words on how to survive this cold weather snap. He said it is all about putting on enough layers of clothing that you cannot t through the door, so you just have to stay inside. Either I do not have enough layers or else our doors are too wide because I can still cross the threshold.
I feel like the Michelin tire man waddling across the farmyard pulling my wagon of warm milk bottles for a string of hungry calves. I have on enough layers to keep the cold at bay, but then I have to strip when I get in the barn to ll bottles or bed stalls because I am too hot. These temperature
swings are worse than menopause. I actually feel just ne outside as long as there is no wind. That is the deal breaker for dealing with cold temperatures.
Years ago, Mark’s dad did not calve in the winter months. He did not want to try to keep the calves alive during the frigid Minnesota winters. Then someone came up with the clever idea to have a winter calf class at the summer county fairs and voila. Now we calve in December but try to limit January and February calving to only cows that were open too long and needed to get bred back regardless of due dates. We had 21 heifer calves born in the month of December alone. There was only one bull calf, and Mark used very little sexed semen. Just when I thought we should be slowing down, it seems we have ramped up.
At least we only have seven animals to calve in January and February, but I still have over 20 heifer calves to feed outside every day for two months. By the time I empty the domes of December calves, we will start all over with a rush for spring calf class entries March 1. It is a vicious three-month cycle, and I do not seem to get an extended break.
When we were at Expo in October, we talked about how we might need to update our Ritchie water fountains in the heifer shed. We haven’t had a severely cold weather snap in several years, so we have vague memories of dealing with frozen fountains. The waterers we have were originally installed in 1980. In our minds that was not that long ago. However, when someone talks about something happening 30 years ago, we jump to the 1970s and not the 1990s. It is probably time to replace them. You can say we have gotten our money’s worth out of them.
Did we replace them? Well, since it was not an immediate problem to remind us, it kind of slipped to the bottom of the list. That is until the temperatures bottomed out and the heating units could not keep up. Mark has been hauling buckets of hot water to all the fountains trying to keep them open and the cattle hydrated. I think we might need to jump on that replacement project. Heaven knows we have enough calves to raise over the next couple of years to get our money’s worth out of them.
As their four children pursue dairy careers off the family farm, Natalie and Mark Schmitt started an adventure of milking registered Holsteins just because they like good cows on their farm north of Rice, Minnesota.
By Natalie Schmitt Columnist
Out of the darkness
It’s been one month since my shoulder surgery, and it’s been one wildly emotional month.
The rst two weeks were easier than I expected. The initial pain was manageable thanks to the wonders of modern pharmaceuticals and lots of ice. I spent quite a bit of time in the recliner rotating through ice packs with one of our cats purring on my legs. At one point, Daphne said, “Mom, you’re sitting down again? Before your surgery, I never saw you sit down.” I’m not sure that’s a good thing. Sometimes I wonder if it would be more normal to be able to sit and relax for a bit without feeling a pressing need to be “doing something productive.” Perhaps then I wouldn’t have lined up a number of inside projects to tackle during my postsurgical house arrest.
– at my current inability to do some of the most basic tasks and chores. Impatience – at how long it takes to do the things I can. And that perennial scourge: inadequacy. Feeling like I’m not doing enough; I’m not getting enough done; I’m not enough. It’s like once the dark feelings start in on you, even darker feelings emerge from the deepest places.
Dairy Good Life
The kids were home for Christmas vacation, so there was always someone around to help. We were able to gather with my family for Christmas. After cancelling Christmas last year due to work schedules and illnesses, it was extra special to be together for a weekend.
Once the light is gone, you stumble around in the darkness aimlessly, without direction. Getting the bare minimum done each day, the days slip by with seemingly nothing accomplished. The lack of desire to do anything more than the minimum feeds the dark feelings. It starts to feel like you might never emerge from the darkness again.
By Sadie Frericks Columnist
Thankfully, though, there were still embers smoldering and I knew what I needed to do to coax them into ames.*
I had a good talk with Jacqui. My sister called – sometimes I think sisters just know when we need them.
•
Between our kids, our employees, and our friends, Glen has had enough help with the farm chores. We’re keeping the house running, too. The kids have taken over most of the cooking – there’s not much I can do in the kitchen with one arm – and they’ve done a great job keeping us fed. A couple of thoughtful friends brought homemade meals over, which helped us get through some extra busy days. I can do a fair bit of the laundry with one arm, so nobody’s had to wear dirty socks to school.
But then a bucket of water was dumped on my re and all at once, I was surrounded by darkness.
Surgery alone could have doused my re, but I had braced myself for its impact. January itself can put a damper on ames, with its lack of daylight and tendency to keep us indoors.
The bucket of water on my re, though, was the death of my dear friend Jacqui’s husband, Keith. Even though I had known for some time that Keith would be taken from us far too young, my grief was still intense. Grief is like that: there’s no way to truly prepare for it. More than any other emotion, grief can douse even the strongest of ames.
Once the ame is out, the darkness that has been kept at bay moves in. All of the feelings that lurk in the darkness seem to attack at once. Along with grief, the strongest feelings this time have been frustration
Repair vs. Replace
I started walking laps inside the house. Movement has an incredible impact on how I feel. It would be much better to get outside for some fresh air and sunshine, but it’s 25 degrees below zero right now. Before this cold snap, I was taking advantage of the fact that our gravel road is still gravel and not packed ice.
I took a hot bath. I took a sauna. I put on some upbeat music. I did as much yoga as I could with one arm. I said out loud the dark thoughts I had been trying to keep quiet.
I reminded myself of what is going well: how helpful our kids have been; how committed our employees have been; how pleased my physical therapist is with how my shoulder is healing.
I reminded myself of what I can do: I’ve been able to watch more of the kids’ wrestling meets than ever before. I’ve had more time to wrap up our year-end nancial records.
I reminded myself that resting and healing are productive work. The sooner I recover, the sooner I can get back out to the barn and back to everything else that requires two arms.
*Sometimes we need more than friends, family, self-care, and self-talk to rekindle the re. Or to help us process our grief. Sometimes we need someone to teach us how to restart the re. I worked with a counselor during the dark times brought on by post-partum depression, the losses of family members, and other buckets of water. The more you restart the re, the easier it gets.
