2022 NATIONAL HOLSTEIN CONVENTION Find out more about the convention starting on page 13 of the second section!
DAIRY ST R
April 23, 2022
“All dairy, all the time”™
Volume 24, No. 5
“I couldn’t see anything beyond the tractor’s hood. I had to use the tractor’s GPS system to nd my way back home from the other farm ...” – Luke Hintz
April blizzard ravages North Dakota
Hintz family grappled with heavy snow, high winds By Jerry Nelson
jerry.n@dairystar.com
FLASHER, N.D. – A mid-April blizzard roared across the northern Great Plains, blasting the region with heavy snow driven by hurricane-force winds. “It seemed as if Mother Nature was mad at us,” Bob Hintz said. “The wind was erce. It was trying to tear all of our buildings apart.” Bob and his wife, Debbie, and their sons, Luke and Mark, milk 250 Holsteins on their dairy farm located near Flasher in southwestern North Dakota. The Hintz family has four robots that handle the bulk of the milking on their farm. The Hintzes continue to milk a small number of cows in their milking parlor.
Luke said that Monday, April 11 was a beautiful day, 55 degrees and sunny with no outward signs a blizzard was brewing. By the morning of April 12, the ferocious winter storm was ravaging the Hintzes’ dairy farm. “I looked out the door on Tuesday morning at 6 a.m., and we had total whiteout conditions,” Bob said. “Travel was impossible. They closed (Interstate) 94 all the way from Billings, Montana, to Jamestown, North Dakota. The milk truck couldn’t make it to our farm for three days. Thankfully, we had enough milk storage to see us through. I think there may have been some dairies in the path of the storm that were forced to dump milk.” Blinding snow and high winds would continue to harass the Hintz farm and a vast swath of the surrounding region for three straight days. Luke said the family did what they could to prepare for the blizzard, fueling up tractors and skid loaders, mounting and servicing the snowblower Turn to HINTZ | Page 7
PHOTO SUBMITTED
Several calf huts are nearly buried by a three-day blizzard that hit the Hintz dairy farm near Flasher, North Dakota. The calves that had been in the huts were moved into the safety of a nearby barn shortly before the storm arrived April 12.
A kidney for Gabriel
Ryan family reects on journey to organ transplant By Kate Rechtzigel kate.r@dairystar.com
PHOTO SUBMITTED
The Ryan family – (from leŌ) Micayla, Isaac, Mabel holding Luke, Millie and Eric holding Gabriel – milk 200 cows near Goodhue, Minnesota. Gabriel is recovering aŌer having a kidney transplant last fall.
GOODHUE, Minn. − April is National Donate Life Month which is a special time for Eric and Micayla Ryan’s son, Gabriel, who received a kidney transplant September 2021. “He has this feistiness for life, he’s independent and really sweet,” Micayla said of their 2-year-old son. Eric agreed. “For all the struggles that he’s been through, he’s maintained a very high level of happiness,” he said. “He smiled through a lot of struggles and has been very inspiring to us and to many people.” Eric and Micayla farm with their children − Isaac, 7, Mabel, 6, Millie, 3, Gabriel, 2, and Luke, 3 days old − and Eric’s family. The family milks 200 cows and farms 350 acres of corn and alfalfa near Goodhue.
At Micayla’s 20-week ultrasound with Gabriel, the Ryans were told Gabriel had bilateral multicystic dysplastic kidney disorder. “Both of his kidneys were very full of cysts,” Eric said. “The diagnosis was fatal. Best case scenario, we were going to hold him for a few hours if he survived pregnancy.” In most cases, the baby passes away at 24 to 28 weeks gestation because there is no uid to develop the lungs, Eric said. “It was devastating,” Micayla said. Eric agreed. “People often asked me, ‘Why does God do this to good people?’ But the reality is, if God doesn’t allow bad things to happen, we’ll never fully realize how good life is,” he said. “So, we continued to remain hopeful, as there was just a tiny amount of uid left.”
Turn to RYANS | Page 6