O f T h e F e n c e Of The Fence

from January 28, 2023 Dairy Star - 1st section - zone 2

Hands down, our favorite way to eat chicken-stock rice is to combine it with the leftover chicken to make chicken fried rice. It’s delicious, nutritious, and, since it’s made with both chicken and eggs, the best recipe for a family involved in the 4-H poultry project.

Segundo Gonzalez Weyauwega, Wisconsin Waupaca County 700 cows

How do you prepare your animals and farm for blasts of cold weather? We make sure curtains and doors are closed. We have automatic pen scrapers, so we keep them running 24 hours to prevent manure from freezing. We turn on water heaters to assure cows have plenty of water in each pen.

What challenges have you had on the farm during cold weather and how did you overcome them? Our main issue during cold weather has been frozen manure in pens where we have no automatic scrapers. We use a payloader with a bucket to scrape each pen. Once it’s nished, we spread a small amount of salt and sand to prevent cows from falling and injuring themselves.

What do you do to maintain equipment in cold weather? Our machinery is serviced during the fall to minimize issues during the cold weather. Unfortunately, we don’t have a big shop to keep our tractor and mixer inside. We maintain them inside of the cow barn and place them at the end of the barn, so they don’t interfere with pushing up feed.

What apparel would you not leave the house without during cold snaps? I’m from Ecuador and haven’t grown up with this kind of cold weather, so I have learned to use skiing apparel under and a water-proof coverall every day during wintertime. An insulated hooded jacket with a pair of winter working gloves is a must for a cold day. A pair of Tingley overshoe rubber boots keeps my feet dry and warm during the long day.

Describe the toughest winter you remember. We had a cold winter in 2014 with temperatures in the single digits for several days. Manure was frozen and the milking hoses were unmanageable at the beginning of each milking shift. Cows were fed around noon because our tractor didn’t start, and we had to ask for help to keep it running.

If you could get away during the winter and go anywhere, where would you go? I wouldn’t think twice and go to my home country. The weather is nice with temperatures that uctuate between 40 and 80 degrees year-round with 12 hours of daylight.

Tell us about your farm. We are milking 700 cows split in two farms: Gonzalez and Inka dairy farms. Our total acreage is about 50. We purchase all feed and supplies because our main focus is our cows. There is a double-12 parallel parlor at Gonzalez Dairy Farm and a double-8 herringbone parlor at Inka Dairy farm. Cows are milked three times a day, and the milk is shipped to Agropur from the rst farm and Weyauwega Star Dairy Inc. from the second one.

Chad McCauley LaValle, Wisconsin Sauk County 280 goats

How do you prepare your animals and farm for blasts of cold weather? I get the barn cleaned out and shut up before cold weather comes. The outside group gets a lot of good straw on top of their bedding pack.

What challenges have you had on the farm during cold weather and how did you overcome them? The only challenge I had was keeping the animals watered. I ran hot water out of the milkhouse with a new garden hose. I have to shut the water off in the barn if it gets too cold. Then, I have to ll tanks with a hose from the milkhouse.

What do you do to maintain equipment in cold weather? If it’s really cold, I get all my stuff done prior to cold weather so I never even re it up when it’s too cold out. Otherwise, I don’t have a lot of equipment because I feed mostly baled hay. To put a big bale outside, I get that done before cold weather hits. If I need to use any equipment, I plug it in the night before.

What apparel would you not leave the house without during cold snaps? My gloves. Everything else I pretty much always have on.

Describe the toughest winter you remember. The toughest was 2013. January was so cold for the longest time, and that was when we were raising our rst batch of babies. We just couldn’t get enough calories into them. We added heat lamps that winter for the kids.

If you could get away during the winter and go anywhere, where would you go? I’ve never thought about leaving over the winter. I don’t know if I would want to go anywhere warm because it would be hard to come back.

Tell us about your farm. I milk about 280 goats with my ancée, Robin. We rent about 60 acres. The milk goes to Saputo. We milk in a homemade parlor with 12 units. We’ve been milking since 2017.

Herman Massmann Melrose, Minnesota Stearns County 67 cows

How do you prepare your animals and farm for blasts of cold weather? We make sure to give plenty of straw to our heifers and steers that are in group housing. All the animals are kept inside a shed in the winter. Our youngest calves are kept in group housing attached to the barn and get wheat straw. Older heifers and steers get corn straw.

What challenges have you had on the farm during cold weather and how did you overcome them? We’ve had frozen heated waterers that needed repair or replacement. All of our youngstock and steers are in group housing in sheds and each has a heated waterer. We’ve had at least four out of the six waterers that we have freeze up over the years. We’ve also had silo unloaders break down and need repairs. I’ve also had to chip away at frozen feed inside silos.

What do you do to maintain equipment in cold weather? We keep our skid loaders, tractors and manure spreader in a heated shop.

What apparel would you not leave the house without during cold snaps? I wear a ski mask, insulated pants, heavy jacket and layered socks with boots when it gets really cold out.

Describe the toughest winter you remember. During the winter of 2013-14, it stayed cold for the longest period. We had lots of ice chipping and went through a lot of bedding that winter.

If you could get away during the winter and go anywhere, where would you go? I like being home, so in the house. I don’t have a desire to travel anywhere else because I have everything I want or need here.

Tell us about your farm. I milk my cows in a tiestall barn and raise my youngstock including nishing out about 50 steers. I farm 260 acres of corn, alfalfa and oats. I have three kids and four step-kids. Some of the older kids help when they are home on break from college. My mom and wife also help when I need an extra hand. I am a third-generation dairy farm, and I ship my milk to Land O’Lakes.

Prairie Farm, Wisconsin Barron County 75 cows

How do you prepare your animals and farm for blasts of cold weather? With different types of facilities for animals of different stages of life, we have multiple ways of keeping our animals warm. Starting off with calves, our babies are housed in a calf barn with individual hutches. In the winter, along with calf jackets, we bed the hutches with sawdust in the morning and night and straw every other day to keep every newborn warm and dry. Our steers and heifers 9 months of age and over are in our heifer barn which is an open-sided bedded pack with 10 bays to hold groups of heifers and similar-aged animals. We bed the heifer barn year-round with corn stalks and sawdust for the steers. In order to keep our animals warm and dry in the winter, we make it a point to clean the front of the heifer barn every day to keep snow and rain out. We also bed all the bays with sawdust along with corn stalks in the winter to help keep animals dry. Depending on weather, we will clean the bedding of the heifer barn about once a week. Our springing heifers and dry cows are usually out to pasture, but with Wisconsin winters, they move up into our outdoor free stalls. Our barn is a tiestall that holds 47 cows, so any switch cows along with the dry cows stay in the free stalls in the winter. This makes separating out the two twice a day a special chore, but luckily, the cows get into a routine and usually know if they need to be locked up to be brought into the barn for milking. We bed the free stalls with sand and also provide windbreaks on the open sides of the feed bunk as well.

What challenges have you had on the farm during cold weather and how did you overcome them? We deal with the occasional outdoor water cup freezing, so it is just a

Roger Grade (second, from left) pictured with David Grade (from left), Sandy Grade; and Janet and Travis Clark Eldorado, Wisconsin Fond du Lac County 150 cows

How do you prepare your animals and farm for blasts of cold weather?

We make sure all of the water heaters are working by going around and checking them before the blast hits. Our animals all have protection from the weather – a building or hut or someplace where they can go in. We feed our cows outside, but we have buildings that break the wind, so they don’t seem to mind. The buildings are situated so that real cold wind doesn’t hit directly where they eat; they are always protected. Cold rain would be the only thing that bothers them. Our calves start out in huts, and we put panels in front of the door when it gets really cold. The huts are facing south, which also helps. All calves wear jackets in the winter until they are weaned and moved to a super hut where they are grouped four to ve to a pen. Each super hut has a heated waterer. We use big square bales of wheat straw that we run through a bedding chopper to bed our calves. We make sure they are bedded good and deep, and we give them fresh bedding at least every other day. It keeps them dry and builds up a pack which gives off heat. Cows are bedded with sand in free stalls, and it rarely gets cold enough to freeze things in the freestall barns. Both barns are cross ventilated with fans on a thermostat. When it gets cold, it cuts down on the number of fans running. At least one fan will always run on low speed to keep air moving.

What challenges have you had on the farm during cold weather and how did you overcome them? We haul manure every day, and our biggest challenge used to be keeping the spreader thawed and not built up with frozen manure. We solved that because we now have a pretty big shop with heated oors and we’re able to park the spreader in the shop overnight. It thaws out and is ready to go the next day.

matter of being diligent and checking on water supply for the heifers and dry cows as many times as we can during the day. We try as hard as possible to prepare our equipment for winter; however, we do sometimes face a barn cleaner or manure spreader failure. Then, it’s all hands on deck to try and get chores done as those issues are xed.

What do you do to maintain equipment in cold weather? Having a heated shop space is a lifesaver for keeping our skid loader and spreader running. As far as silo unloaders go, it’s cross your ngers and say a prayer.

What apparel would you not leave the house without during cold snaps? Insulated boots. All ve of us have the same pair, but luckily, we all have the same shoe size. We have mastered the art of dressing in layers. A hot commodity during these really cold snaps are insulated overall bibs, which make those outdoor chores a bit more tolerable.

Describe the toughest winter you remember. The toughest winter I recall was in 2019. I was a junior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and there was a two-week stretch in January that was so brutally cold they even canceled classes. Everything on the farm was freezing up. The motor on the silo unloader broke, and Dad spent a couple hours up there xing it and then a couple hours huddled under a blanket warming up. My sisters at Prairie Farm High School had more days off in a row than I ever did.

If you could get away during the winter and go anywhere, where would you go? The beach. Our family has been lucky enough to make the trip to Cancun, Mexico. The memories of sun, white sand and warm water make for much-needed daydreams on days it is 40 below zero.

Tell us about your farm. Our farm is located on top of a hill in Prairie Farm, Wisconsin, a small town about an hour east of the Wisconsin-Minnesota border. We raise Holsteins along with a few special Jerseys. We milk between 60 to 80 cows, depending on the time of year, in a tiestall barn. Along with milking cows, we farm about 300 acres of corn, alfalfa and soybeans which feed our animals and lets us sell some on the side. We ship our milk to Ellsworth Cooperative, known for its cheese curds, but our family favorite are the pizzas that are made with a pound of cheese. We are lucky to call this little family farm home.

What do you do to maintain equipment in cold weather? When it’s really cold, we make sure to plug in the heaters on the tractor and skid loaders. By taking these precautions early on, they are warm and ready to go in the morning when it’s so cold. We use winter blend diesel fuel so it doesn’t gel up in the tractor and cause it to die. The tractor on the spreader is equipped with front wheel assist. If we have a lot of snow, it’s a tremendous help to get through snow drifts.

What apparel would you not leave the house without during cold snaps? My insulated hooded coat, insulated gloves, insulated jeans and sunglasses because the glare on the snow bothers me.

Describe the toughest winter you remember. I don’t remember the exact year, but it was in the early 1980s. This was before we had tractors with cabs and before we had a heated shop. It was a challenge to get everything running and keep it running to haul manure. The snow came early that year, and we had corn we couldn’t combine. The snow drifts in the corn eld stick in my mind. That January, there was a spell where we had a lot of snow. Tractors with chains on them couldn’t even get through, so we had to pile manure for three months before we could spread it. Things like that you remember, and it makes you proactive for winter in Wisconsin.

If you could get away during the winter and go anywhere, where would you go? We try to get away for a little bit every winter and head south. We’ve gone to Arizona several times to visit friends and relatives. Next month, we are heading to New Orleans for two weeks. We’ve been to Mexico a couple times also. We’re fortunate we have family on the farm which allows us to get away. It breaks up the winter.

Tell us about your farm. I was born and raised in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, on our family’s farm. My wife, Sandra, and I moved north to our current farm 50 years ago. We farm with our son, David, and our daughter and her husband, Janet and Travis Clark. My kids and grandkids are the fth and sixth generations at Vision Aire Farms. We milk 150 cows in a double-8 pit parlor and ship our milk to BelGioioso. We farm about 1,100 acres of soybeans, corn, alfalfa and winter wheat and also do close to 1,000 acres of custom work, including combining wheat, corn and soybeans. We’re also set up for no till. We have a tile machine for doing eld tile on our farm as well as for other farms. We have heavy soil here and found an advantage in yield benets by tiling.

We have a new family member!

This year, GEA ProManure welcomed a NEW addition to the 10-inch lagoon pump family, the Lagoon Agi-Pompe.

The 10-inch Lagoon Agi-Pompe features a ﬁeld-proven heavy-duty propeller capable of displacing tens of thousands of gallons of manure every minute. No matter the quantity or consistency of manure you have to deal with, GEA ProManure has a ﬁve-star pump made for you!

Your Local GEA Manure Equipment Dealers: