May 27, 2023 Dairy Star - 1st section - Zone 2

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Picking the next Alice in Dairyland

A double dose of bad luck

Two Clark County farms suffer damage in spring snowstorm

By Danielle Nauman danielle.n@dairystar.com

THORP, Wis. – Two Clark County dairy farm families are hoping the old wives’ tale that bad things happen in threes does not hold true. Both have twice faced major structural troubles and tragedy on their farms and do not wish to do so again.

Finals held in Walworth County include visit to Loudenbeck goat farm

By Stacey Smart stacey.s@dairystar.com

LAKE GENEVA, Wis. – Before the 76th Alice in Dairyland was crowned May 13, the top six candidates spent time touring farms and businesses as part of the three-day Alice in Dairyland Finals held in Walworth County.

On May 12, nalists Ashley Hagenow, Shannon Lamb, Lydia Luebke, Jackie Rosenbush, Charitee Seebecker and Jodie Weyland, along with the current Alice in Dairyland, Taylor Schaefer, visited Loudenbeck Farm – a dairy goat operation near Lake Geneva that milks about 400 goats.

Siblings Seth and Hannah Loudenbeck, who farm with their dad, Steve, and their uncle, Matt, welcomed the nalists while sharing details of their dairy. The Loudenbecks’ mom, Chris, and younger brother, Ryan, also help on the farm.

A spring snow storm April 1617 dumped over 2 feet of wet, heavy snow across a narrow band of Clark County. Sander and Amy Penterman’s 850-cow Dutch Dairy and Brandon and Meredith Maier’s 200cow Maier’s Acres, located just over 2 miles apart from each other near Thorp, both fell victim to the storm, losing signicant portions of the freestall barns housing their respective milking herds.

Unfortunately for both farm families, this is not the rst time adversity and misfortune have affected their farms. The Pentermans have dealt with a roof collapse before, in the aftermath of a February 2019 snowstorm. In February 2022, the Maiers suffered a re that destroyed their calf barn, claiming the lives of the calves housed inside.

“We were just fortunate and grateful that all our people and all our cattle were safe,” Meredith Maier said. “I truly believe that God works in mysterious ways. In February (2022), we had just started milking three times a day. If we hadn’t made that change, there is a good chance no one would have been in the barn at that time, and things could have ended a lot differently.”

Maier said at approximately 11:30 a.m. on the second day of the snowstorm April 17, an employee was in the freestall barn moving cows toward the parlor for the midday milking shift when he heard the beams in the barn cracking and creaking. The employee immediately called Brandon, and the cows

“All dairy, all the time”™

PHOTO SUBMITTED

Half the roof of the freestall barn housing the milking herd collapsed during a snowstorm April 16-17 at Maier’s Acres near Thorp, Wisconsin. Because an employee reported hearing creaking in the barn, cows were moved before the collapse.

PHOTO SUBMITTED

Over 2 feet of wet, heavy snow collapsed three sec ons of the roof of a freestall barn April 17 at Dutch Dairy near Thorp, Wisconsin. No cows were lost in the event, but 180 were temporarily relocated.

PHOTO SUBMITTED

Ashley Hagenow (le ) is crowned the 76th Alice in Dairyland by the 75th Alice in Dairyland, Taylor Schaefer, May 13 at the Grand Geneva Resort in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Hagenow is the daughter of Bob and Lisa Hagenow of Poyne e, Wisconsin.

ST R

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Deadlines

The National Milk Producers Federation has submitted its proposal to update the Federal Milk Marketing Orders. This proposal goes beyond the changes sought by the International Dairy Foods Association, which is only calling for an update in the make allowances used in pricing milk.

“We’re really excited that (this) is a plan that will point a way toward a much brighter future for us (in the) dairy industry,” said Jim Mulhern, president and CEO, NMPF.

AFBF wants USDA to go further

The American Farm Bureau Federation wants the U.S. Department of Agriculture to hold a hearing on milk pricing reforms. Chief economist Roger Cryan said changes that go beyond the current proposals should be considered. “Processors asked USDA to have a hearing just to update make allowances,” Cryan said. AFBF also wants to go beyond the policy issues advanced by the NMPF in its proposal.

Ending misleading labels

Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Idaho Sen. Jim Risch are leading the charge against plant-based products using dairy labels. The two senators wrote a letter to the Food and Drug Administration, saying, “It’s imperative that the FDA enforce existing standards of identity for dairy in both current and future guidance.”

Labor is No. 1 challenge

National Council of Farmer Cooperatives President and CEO Chuck Conner is urging lawmakers to take action on ag labor. “Labor has quickly taken over as the No. 1 challenge facing cooperatives and farmers,” Conner said. Two years ago, the House passed legislation expanding the amount of time immigrant workers with H-2A visas could

work in the U.S. However, the Senate version did not pass. “It failed because of the controversy over border issues and the whole immigration space that isn’t particularly targeted at farm labor,” Conner said. Action is needed because Conner believes U.S. dairy farms can’t operate strictly on family labor.

Torres Small faces conrmation hearing

The Senate Agriculture Committee hosted a conrmation hearing for USDA’s deputy agriculture secretary nominee Xochital Torres Small

“My own roots are both rural and urban, and we’re all connected by land, resources and food,” Torres Small said. Torres Small, who is the USDA rural development undersecretary, identied several challenges in the department. “Outdated technology, antiquated loan and grant applications, and the ongoing need to do more with less are all challenges I foresee,” Torres Small said. If conrmed by the Senate, Torres Small would succeed Jewel Bronaugh

Senate Dems take aim at China

Senate Democrats are proposing legislation to reduce China’s inuence worldwide. This proposal would limit the ow of advanced technology and investment to China

year

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Con nued from AG INSIDER | Page 2 while boosting similar efforts in the U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said, “The Xi regime is working every day to catch up and surpass the United States.”

Farm real estate debt is record high

According to the USDA Economic Research Service, farm sector debt tied to real estate is expected to hit a record high of $375.9 billion in 2023. Farm real estate debt has been increasing since 2009. The average value of farm real estate reached a record $3,800 per acre in 2022, up 12.4% from the previous year.

Farm income decline

According to USDA, the average net cash income of U.S. farm businesses is expected to decline by 18% in 2023, compared to 2022. Farm businesses across the country are forecast to see higher production expenses and lower cash receipts.

Supply, demand report released

According to the latest USDA supply and demand report, 2023 milk production was estimated to be at 228.6 billion pounds. That’s down 100 million pounds from the most recent forecast. The 2023 all-milk price declined 15 cents to $20.50 per hundredweight.

Strategies for heat stress abatement

As temperatures begin to rise, dairy cows become at risk for heat stress. Purina Animal Nutrition technical support dairy nutritionist Stuart Rymph said heat stress can begin when temperatures hit 72 degrees. Humidity and sun exposure will only increase the problem. “From the nutrition side, reduced feed intake is the thing that we worry about as much or more than anything else,” Rymph said. “We can get to the point where we have lethargic cows that really don’t want to do a whole lot and that would be the most extreme case.” There should be plenty of water available for the cow herd. In the area of nutrition, Rymph encouraged dairy farmers to feed more highly digestible feeds. “That doesn’t mean feeding less forage,” Rymph said. “In my book, it means feeding better forage.”

Farmers versus foodies

The keynote speaker at the Animal Agriculture Alliance Stakeholders Summit is the author of the book, “Farmers Versus Foodies.” “There seems to be two prevailing sides of the food system,” Ray Starling said. “The aggies and the consumers, there’s this growing chorus of folks that says the food system is broken and has major problems.” Starling said the agriculture industry needs to be watchful of negative inuences on agriculture practices and policy. “I think the food system is doing great, but I’m concerned outside forces will try to ‘x’ the food system,” Starling said. Starling was the chief of staff for former Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and now serves as the general counsel of the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce and president of the North Carolina Chamber Legal Institute.

DATCP appointments announced

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers has appointed four people to the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection Board. Miranda Leis of Cashton and Paul Bauer of Ellsworth were reappointed. Leis is the senior director of dairy handling and supply for Organic Valley/CROPP Cooperative, and Bauer is the chief executive ofcer of Ellsworth Cooperative Creamery. The new appointees are Tina Hinchley of Hinchley’s Dairy Farm at Cambridge and Chippewa Valley Bean President Cindy Brown of Menomonie.

Trivia challenge

Pending conrmation, Xochital Torres Small is the incoming deputy secretary of agriculture. That answers our last trivia question. For this week’s trivia, when did June ofcially become dairy month? We will have the answer in our next edition of Dairy Star.

Don Wick is owner/broadcaster for the Red River Farm Network, based in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Wick has been recognized as the National Farm Broadcaster of the Year and served as president of the National Association of Farm Broadcasting. Don and his wife, Kolleen, have two adult sons, Tony and Sam, and ve grandchildren, Aiden, Piper, Adrienne, Aurora and Sterling.

2023 BOSS TRAILER

Finalists had the opportunity to milk a goat in the parlor, interact with kids and see where the goats are housed while asking Seth questions about the operation. Other stops on the two-day tour included Pinn-Oak Ridge Farms, DeBuck’s Sod Farm of Wisconsin and Staller Estate Winery – all located in Delavan; Sunshine Genetics in Whitewater, Complete Feed Service in Sharon and Hill Valley Cheese in Lake Geneva.

Although six ladies had their hearts set on the crown, it was Ashley Hagenow who was selected as the next Alice in Dairyland at the Grand Geneva Resort in Lake Geneva. Alice in Dairyland is a one-year, fulltime communications professional for the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, who educates the public about the importance of agriculture in Wisconsin. Hagenow will begin her term July 5.

“I am excited and humbled to be able to serve in this role for the next year as the 76th Alice in Dairyland,” Hagenow said. “There is a lot of tradition with this program, and it brings people together, which I think is so cool. I am eager to continue that tradition while putting my own spin on the position as well.”

Hagenow is the daughter of Bob and Lisa Hagenow of Poynette. Although she did not grow up on a farm, Hagenow’s connection to the dairy in-

dustry started early in life. Her father grew up on a dairy farm in northeast Wisconsin where his family milked 60 cows in a tiestall barn. He would later become a nutritionist and sales manager for Vita Plus while ensuring Hagenow and her sister, Sarah, remained close to the dairy industry.

“My dad has such passion for the industry and made sure our family understood the hard work and long hours that go into making high-quality dairy products,” Hagenow said. “My sister and I received a well-rounded experience in dairy and agriculture that has set us up for success.”

As a youth, Hagenow was active in 4-H and FFA. She leased dairy heifers to show, starting with Holsteins and later adding Milking Shorthorns to her string that were provided by a family friend. Her sister has started a small herd after purchasing some of the animals she has shown.

“Showing cattle was always a fun family affair,” Hagenow said. From attending June dairy breakfasts to the Cows on the Concourse event, outreach advocacy promotion on behalf of dairy farmers has always been important to Hagenow.

“I have a huge appreciation for what dairy farmers do and the great products they produce,” she said. “There is a lot of tradition, pride and heritage that goes into dairy farming, Turn to ALICE | Page 7

Ashley Hagenow 76th Alice in Dairyland

STACEY SMART/DAIRY STAR

Jodie Weyland (front) and other Alice in Dairyland nalists milk goats May 12 at Loudenbeck Farm near Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. The farm was one of seven stops during the three-day Alice in Dairyland Finals held in Walworth County.

Con nued from ALICE | Page 6

and that’s an exciting and important message to share with consumers who enjoy dairy products.”

Hagenow recently graduated from the University of Minnesota with a bachelor’s degree in agricultural communication and marketing and minors in animal science and agricultural and food business management. During college, Hagenow was involved in Agriculture Future of America, the National Agri-Marketing Association, the Gopher Dairy Club and the University of Minnesota dairy challenge and dairy judging teams.

Four of this year’s nalists hailed from dairy farms. Lamb grew up on her family’s farm near Waunakee, where she continues to feed calves each night in addition to working as an analytical development scientist at MilliporeSigma, a pharmaceutical company.

Luebke grew up on her parents’ and grandparents’ 150-cow dairy farm, Kissinger’s Family Farms, near Kiel and is employed at Sargento Foods Inc. as a microbiology specialist.

Seebecker grew up on a familyowned dairy farm near Mauston and works as a farm broadcaster at the Mid-West Farm Report.

Weyland grew up on her family’s dairy farm near Neenah and is an associate consultant at Tilth Agronomy Group LLC. When Weyland is not scouting elds, she spends time working on her sister’s dairy farm.

As the end of Schaefer’s reign as Alice in Dairyland draws near, she said it is bittersweet to see it come to a close but is excited for the opportunities that await the next Alice.

“This job is a great opportunity to

meet many people, and the more times you say yes, the more that you’re able to do and the more that you’re able to learn,” Schaefer said. “I love everything I’ve done during my term –from visiting schools to visiting farms and talking to people from all walks of life.”

Schaefer said she has many favorite memories from the past year, but her favorite events were Green Coun-

Alfalfa Dealer. Brunner Seed, Corn & Soybeans, PWI Seed Corn

ty Cheese Days in Monroe and Warrens Cranberry Festival in Warrens.

“I ate so much cheese at Cheese Days,” Schaefer said. “It was a lot of fun.”

Like Schaefer, Hagenow is also looking forward to the many opportunities that lie ahead when she assumes the role of Alice in Dairyland.

“I am so excited to travel the

state in the upcoming year and meet the many people related to different types of agriculture and connect with folks who don’t have direct ties with the industry,” Hagenow said. “I look forward to building connections and cultivating relationships with consumers, farmers, processors and agribusinesses that drive our ag industry forward.”

MINNESOTA DAIRY INITIATIVE

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STACEY SMART/DAIRY STAR

Alice in Dairyland nalists Jodie Weyland (from le ), Ashley Hagenow and Lydia Luebke; Hannah Loudenbeck, Steve Loudenbeck, Jesse Ramaker, a Saputo eld representa ve; Seth Loudenbeck, 75th Alice in Dairyland Taylor Schaefer; Alice in Dairyland nalists Charitee Seebecker, Jackie Rosenbush and Shannon Lamb stop for a photo May 12 before the nalists head out on the rest of the day’s tours in Walworth County. The Loudenbecks milk 400 goats near Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.

were moved from the pen quickly and safely. Twentyve minutes after the initial phone call, the roof collapsed.

“By the time the construction crew removed the damaged parts of the roof, about half of the roof over the freestall barn where the milking cows are housed was gone,” Maier said.

Earlier that morning, just up the road, the Pentermans were hoping they would wake up and realize they had just suffered a bad dream, Amy Penterman said. Three sections of the roof on their freestall barn had collapsed and two additional damaged sections needed to be removed.

“I’m not sure how much snow we had; it was so hard to measure with all the blowing and drifting,” Penterman said. “There were spots on top of some of the roof with 7-foot drifts. I have never seen drifts the way this storm drifted, all over the farm, and it just kept snowing. … You kept thinking you’d get a break and it just kept going.”

However, this time around, Penterman said things could have been worse than they ended up being.

“We almost lost the holding area too,” Penterman said. “I don’t know how the guys from RZ Builders in

Loyal got here through the storm, but they did right as the freestall roof was collapsing. They took one look at the holding area and got up there with my husband to try and get that snow off as quickly as possible.”

In the hours following the collapses, the Pentermans relocated 180 cows to another farm that was able to accommodate them. The

PHOTO SUBMITTED Brandon and Meredith Maier milk 200 cows on their Clark County dairy farm near Thorp, Wisconsin. The couple has been in the process of reconstruc ng their freestall barn a er a roof collapse in April due to heavy snow.

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Sander and Amy

once in February 2019 and most recently in April.

Maiers were able to keep their cows at home by relocating some cows to another barn on their farm and overcrowding another pen. Neither situation has been ideal, and the pressures – both nancial and emotional – have been wearing on the winterweary dairy farmers.

Both families thought they had done everything right in terms of building their barns to withstand everything an angry Mother Nature could throw their way. The Maiers’ barn was constructed largely of steel with limited numbers of wooden crossbeams, while the Pentermans double-reinforced everything throughout their entire barn when the damage was xed from the rst roof collapse.

“It is so frustrating; you think you do everything right to correct the problem the rst time,” Penterman said. “I guess steel is our next option, but then I look at how Brandon and Meredith’s barn was built, with steel, and watch as they are going through the same thing. It is just disheartening to not know what more you can do to prevent this sort of thing from happening.” Maier agreed.

“I guess all we can do is have the steel rafters remade,” Maier said.

The Pentermans are becoming concerned about the timeline with repairing their roof.

“Our builder is so short-staffed and backlogged right now,” Penterman said. “They aren’t sure when they might be able to get to our job, so we are looking at other companies to work with. I am starting to worry we might not be able to get it taken care of before winter comes again.”

The Maiers are faring better with their reconstruction efforts and said the process is nearly halfway complete.

“We are hoping to be able to move the cows back in by the end of May,” Maier said. “They are really showing the signs of stress from everything they have been through and the less-than-ideal conditions they have been dealing with for the last few weeks.”

Maier said besides a decrease in milk production, they are seeing more foot-health issues and some pregnancy loss in their cows as well as having a harder time detecting heats among the herd.

“The insurance company has been good with dealing with the replacement of the barn roof, but there is nothing to compensate for lost production or the other issues the cows are suffering,” Maier said. “We know we will feel those effects for a long time.”

Those effects weigh heavily on the minds of both farm families as the dairy industry enters another time of turbulent milk prices, increasing input costs and supply chain issues.

“This has been so hard, so draining,” Maier said. “I hate that the Pentermans are dealing with this for a second time, but I am so grateful to have friends like them who understand the frustration, the nancial issues and know how emotionally draining this is.”

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Penterman milk 850 cows on their Dutch Dairy farm near Thorp, Wisconsin. The roof of their freestall barn has twice collapsed due to heavy snow,

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Bring your own fun

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Pleasant Grove Pizza Farm creates synergy of good food, memories

By Amy Kyllo amy.k@star-pub.com

WASECA, Minn. – An energy of happiness and excitement mixes in the air with woodsmoke, pizza, garlic and folk Americana music on a Sunday afternoon at Pleasant Grove Pizza Farm.

Out in the grassy yard, guests relax with a beer or wine they brought with themselves, or a favorite snack, as they wait in anticipation of a woodred pizza made on-site.

A customer bites into the featured pizza of the week, Peary Spring. Instantly, taste buds are met with the sweet avors of pear blending with the richness of caramelized onions, a tart note of Gorgonzola cheese, smokey bacon and the fresh spring avor of dill.

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On the perimeter, children play games, making instant new friends with kids who were strangers just hours ago, and a football ies through the air among friends.

Established in 2015, Pleasant Grove Pizza Farm is owned by husband and wife Bill Bartz and Emily Knudsen. Their business is open May through October on-site, and their winter menu pizzas are available for takeout and delivery at Half Pint Brewing Company during the offseason.

Approaching the site in rural Waseca County, the entry road to Pleasant Grove Pizza Farm looks like just another gravel driveway, but what happens at the end of that driveway is special. There, families and friends connect, and somehow the busier it gets, the better the energy.

• 5 sizes from 45 to 100 cu. ft.

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“You don’t spend an hour here; you spend an afternoon here,” Knudsen said.

She said agritourism is important to her because it is a new way to use their land.

“My goal is to teach kids and adults alike that there’s just more to do on a property than traditional farming,” she said.

Their pizza farm focuses on high-quality ingredients, locally sourced when possible. Some ingredients come from their own gardens where they raise herbs, vegetables and owers. They

also do collaborations with local farms to highlight an ingredient from an area farm on the pizza special of the week.

“When I create a pizza, I kind of pick one main ingredient and then build the avor proles from that,” Knudsen said.

She crafted the menu herself with tasting input from employees, family and friends. Her creations focus on synergistic blendings of ingredients.

“I love to build pizzas off of avor combinations because it leaves everybody excited for the next bite,” Knudsen said. “Food just tastes better when it’s paired … with other foods that intensify the avors.”

A pizza special must be totally perfected before it is served. An hour before they open, staff will share the special of the week together. If everyone cannot agree that it is ready, it will not be served.

“If one of us is like, ‘Oh no, there’s something off,’ we are changing that,” Knudsen said. “We are coming up (with changes) within minutes.”

The farm has also been known to collaborate with chefs from the Twin Cities to create the special of the week.

Customers bring their own chairs, plates, utensils, drinks and any other food they want to go with the pizza. Many also bring games. Guests are asked to pick up after themselves and leave their dogs at home.

While event-goers are most often focused on food for themselves, some bring snacks for the kids to feed to the two pet goats on the farm. The llama and alpaca who also live there forego snacks as they like to keep to themselves.

During the busiest part of the summer, the farm will make 200 pizzas in a night and use 500 pounds of cheese in a week.

Having a pizza farm has been a dream for Knudsen ever since she visited her rst one at 21 years old.

“It was just a concept that blew my mind,” Knudsen said. “I just remember thinking in my head, ‘I would love to own one of these one day.’ So, every time I went to that pizza farm, I couldn’t shake it.”

Fast forward eight years, and Knudsen began dating her now husband who owned a 50acre property with a horse stable on it. When she suggested they start a pizza farm, he was initially

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AMY KYLLO/DAIRY STAR

Husband and wife, Bill Bartz and Emily Knudsen, stand April 26 near a Pleasant Grove Pizza Farm sign on their farm near Waseca, Minnesota. Their business is situated on 50 acres and has plenty of greenspace for guests to play games and be ac ve.

unimpressed by the idea, but after a date to a pizza farm together in eastern Wisconsin, Bartz was interested too.

“Part of me got a little worried because I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I just gave my dream to some guy I’m dating,’” Knudsen said.

Two years later in August 2015, their pizza farm opened.

“Everything just naturally owed,” Knudsen said. “We were very excited and very inspired to do this, and it just really felt right for both of us.”

Their business has grown over the years. In 2020, Knudsen quit her job and started working at their pizza farm full time. Knudsen said that year they saw a lot of growth,

as people were gravitating toward outdoor experiences.

Also in 2020, they were featured in the New York Times food section in June and were part of an episode of a show on the Magnolia Network in the fall. Knudsen said they had a couple y from Florida to visit their farm after seeing the episode.

Knudsen enjoys her guests, whether they have own from Florida; driven from the Twin Cities suburbs, Mankato, Rochester or Owatonna; or stopped during a camping trip.

“I love being able to come out and talk to our customers,” Knudsen said. “I love watching families and friends hanging out … and I love watching kids play.”

DHIA DIRECTOR PROFILE

We are grateful to dairy farmer Directors who share their time, their ideas, and their common sense to help keep DHIA services relevant. From time to time we will use this space to recognize these leaders and to say thank you. This time we will feature Peter Seitzer. Peter has been a DHIA director for 13 years.

What are some of your duties as director?

Peter Seitzer

Saint Peter, MN DHIA Director for 13 years

My duties include attending state and national meetings, along with helping nd new tests from the milk sample to improve the ef ciency of the dairy farmer. I also want to keep DHIA moving forward for long into the future.

What do you like about this role? I like being involved in helping to keep the dairy industry strong, and I like to help give dairy farmers new tools to help them in managing their farms, so they can be as productive as possible.

Why is DHIA important to you? DHIA is important to me because it helps me make good production and management decisions for my own herd.

Tell us about your farm. I am the fourth generation on the farm, which is located in Saint Peter, MN. We milk 65 registered Holsteins. We also farm 630 acres of corn, soybeans and alfalfa.

DHIA: Now MORE than ever

“I like to help give dairy farmers new tools to help them in managing their farms.”

AMY KYLLO/DAIRY STAR

Light shines April 26 on the woodre ovens at Pleasant Grove Pizza Farm near Waseca, Minnesota. Each week of the summer season features a pizza special, cra ed by Emily Knudsen or a collabora ng creator.

Relishing a robot retrot

Brunmeiers switch herd to 8 robotic milking systems

By Stacey Smart stacey.s@dairystar.com

NEWTON, Wis. – When faced with updating their 25-year-old milking parlor or going in a new direction, the Brunmeier family chose the latter. They left the parlor behind in favor of a fully automated system.

“Rather than sticking money into our parlor and holding area, we decided to invest in robots,” Jeff Brunmeier said. “We were also crunched for time between milkings and were dealing with employee turnover. One shift was a constant rotating door.”

The farm’s future would ourish in robots, which were retrot into the existing freestall barn in 2021.

Following in the path of their parents, Jim and Karlene, three Brunmeier siblings operate Brunmeier Dairy Farm.

Brunmeier farms with his brother, Mike, and his sister,

The Brunmeier family – Mike (from le�), Kim Pahl, Jeff and Lindsey – take a break in their freestall barn April 27 on their farm near Newton, Wisconsin. The barn was retrot with eight Lely A5 robo�c milking systems in 2021 in which the Brunmeiers milk 430 cows.

Kim Pahl, as well as his daughter, Lindsey, who represents the fourth generation. The Brunmeiers milk 430 cows with eight Lely A5 robotic milking systems and farm about 900 acres near Newton.

Kim is in charge of calves and bookwork, Mike manages feeding and crops, while Brunmeier oversees the barns. Lind-

sey is one of the herdspersons and serves as backup for calves while also managing data from the robots.

The Brunmeiers did two startups of robots about six weeks apart – ring up the rst four at the end of October 2021 and the second four the last week of November 2021.

“Since it was a retrot, we

were able to train cows before we started milking with robots,” Brunmeier said. “Cows started getting pellets manually by top-dressing them on the TMR 10 days prior to startup to get them to recognize the pellets and want them.”

A few days before startup, the Brunmeiers pushed every cow into the robot where pel-

lets were then delivered in the feed bowl, enticing cows to go through on their own. The arm would also start moving to get cows familiar with the process.

“After the rst time through, about one-third of the rst-lactation cows revisited on their own,” Brunmeier said.

After the second startup, the Brunmeiers shut down their double-8 parallel parlor and have not milked in it since.

“We pulled out the old bulk tank, and everyone goes through the robots, including fresh cows and hospital cows,” Brunmeier said.

Robots t well into the Brunmeiers’ setup, eliminating the need to build new facilities. Their freestall barn was built in 2010 and added onto in 2017. Robots were already on the family’s radar during the 2017 expansion. In anticipation of installing a robotic milking system one day, provisions were put in place under the concrete to create the infrastructure that would ensure the barn was robot-ready when the time came.

“Our vision changed a little, but we were still able to utilize some of those features,”

STACEY SMART/DAIRY STAR

STACEY SMART/DAIRY STAR

This pen of 180 cows features three robo c milking systems arranged in a L shape, with the same arrangement mirrored in the pen across the feed alley, at Brunmeier Dairy Farm near Newton, Wisconsin. Cows average 95-96 pounds per day on 2.8 to 2.9 milkings.

Brunmeier said. “At rst, we thought we could get by with six robots, but then cow numbers went up. We also envisioned putting them on the outside wall of the barn.”

Instead, robots are positioned in a L shape within the barn’s two largest pens, creating a central milking area. Each pen houses up to 180 cows that are milked by three robots. Cows are grouped by lactation, and one pen is designated for rst-lactation and smaller second-lactation cows while the second pen is for mature cows in their second through fourth lactations. Fetch areas in each pen contain 17 stalls and are also used to sort cows for breeding and hoof trimming.

A pen for cows in their fourth lactation and higher contains one robot, while a special needs robot serves a hospital pen of 40 cows. The Brunmeiers said the hospital robot is a feature unique from what they saw when touring other farms. Heifers are also trained on this robot. Cows move directly from the fresh pen to the hospital pen through a breezeway that connects the main barn to the dry cow/heifer barn for easy transfer of cattle.

“Our hospital group is purposely undercrowded for extra attention,” Pahl said. “We only collect rst colostrum from fresh cows, and after that, they are allowed to go through the robot at free will.”

Cows were milked three times a day in the parlor and now average 2.8 to 2.9 milkings daily in the robot. The milking herd grew up with automation, drinking from automatic feeders as calves, and therefore trained faster on the robots.

“They know when they go through the robot, they will get something in return,” Brunmeier said. “They retained that memory, and heifers train really quick. The fact it was a retrot also helps.”

During the retrot, there were ve construction projects going on in the barn at once, which Pahl said was a stressor for the cows. The barn lost 59 stalls when adding robots to four pens which prompted a 120-foot addition to the barn as well in 2021.

It took a few months for milk production levels to match those from the parlor, but by six months in, cows were averaging 95-96 pounds per day. Components also crept up and are now around 4.3% for butterfat and 3.3% for protein.

Waste milk is collected from the robots and pumped 608 feet to the calf barn where it is pasteurized and fed to calves.

“That’s been a big plus,” Pahl said. “There’s a cost benet to it as we were

feeding milk replacer before, but we also see benets in calf frame, hair coat and overall health. We’re growing a bigger, stronger calf on whole milk.”

The calf barn was built in 2004 and retrot with an automatic feeding system in 2014. The system contains one feeder and two drinking stations – one in each pen. Calves drink an average of 8.5 liters per day per calf but are allowed up to 14 liters. Average daily gain is 2.25 pounds.

A reduction in labor was a key benet the Brunmeiers realized when switching to robots as they were able to eliminate ve people from the payroll. The family now employs six full-time people as well as three part-time helpers. The robots eliminated issues with labor, and Pahl said employees seem happier.

“There is more variety in their work, and they’ve adapted fairly well to the robotic technology,” she said.

In the past, someone was in the barn for 18 or 19 hours every day. Now, from 7 p.m. to 5 a.m., the barn is on its own, and the family gets the work done with less people. The Brunmeiers appreciate the time saved by milking with robots compared to milking in the parlor. They also like the ease at which cows can be automatically sorted and routed for breeding, moving or treatment.

“We have a lot less lockup time now, and that’s important,” Pahl said. “We want to spend the least amount of time disturbing the cows. The more you stay out of the pens, the better they do.”

The amount of data produced by the robots astounded the Brunmeiers, who altered their management style as a result.

“We have tons of data we didn’t have before when testing milk only once a month,” Pahl said. “We have more information and better information for managing, and we’re catching things a lot quicker, such as mastitis. The robot senses a change in milk and calls it out before there’s anything to see.”

Brunmeier said the data is also helping the family make better breeding and culling decisions. The Brunmeiers breed 80% of the milking herd to beef while the top 20% and all heifers are bred to sexed semen. That philosophy is starting to change as they utilize more data and take advantage of genomic testing which they started in November 2022.

Grateful for the benets robots provide, the Brunmeier family is happy they chose the path of automation.

“We put our money in the right place when we went with robots,” Brunmeier said.

from our side our side OF THE FENCE THE

High school graduates: How has farm life prepared you for what’s next?

Brianna

Meyer Parents: Larry and Jennifer Meyer Chilton, Wisconsin Chilton High School

Tell us about your greatest high school accomplishment. My greatest high school accomplishment is graduating as valedictorian of my class. I have worked hard over the past four years to prioritize my academics, and I am very proud to be graduating No. 1 in my class.

What do you plan to do after high school? After high school, I will be attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison to study dairy science with aspirations of attending vet school and pursuing a career in largeanimal medicine.

What are some benets of being raised on a farm? Being raised on a farm has been the greatest blessing of my life, as the everlasting importance of responsibility, strength and a strong work ethic were fostered early in my childhood. This helped me take on a multitude of activities and projects and get involved in many organizations as I was taught how to work hard and work efciently to accomplish what needed to be done.

How has farm life prepared you for what’s next? Farm life helped prepare me for what’s next as it helped me to nd my place in the world. I was able to nd my passion for dairy and agriculture from a young age, and I knew serving my agriculture community in the role of a large-animal veterinarian was right for me. Farm life also helped me to build connections and relationships in my life that have been instrumental in my journey thus far and will continue to help me as I continue into college. Further, being involved with my family’s farm and other outlets and organizations within the agriculture industry has shaped me into the person I am today, helping me to grow my condence in myself and dene my personality.

Where do you see yourself in ve years? In ve years, I hope to be completing my rst year in vet school and continuing my path to becoming a large-animal veterinarian.

Tell us about your farm. My family’s farm is Jenlar Holsteins and Brown Swiss, located in Chilton, Wisconsin. We milk about 100 Holsteins and 25 Brown Swiss with two robotic milking systems, and our milk is shipped to Baker Cheese. My parents, Larry and Jennifer Meyer, own the farm, and my grandparents, Andy and Joan Meyer, as well as my siblings and I all help manage and operate the farm. We raise all our own heifers, and we farm 450 acres. We also enjoy traveling throughout the state with our show string.

Allison Ahrensmeyer Parents: Larry and Laurie Ahrensmeyer Baraboo, Wisconsin Baraboo High School

Tell us your greatest high school accomplishment. My greatest high school accomplishment was making the high honor roll every semester while taking challenging classes and earning lots of scholarships. My GPA is 3.8 on a 4.0 scale. I have earned scholarships from Foremost Farms, Compeer Financial, Baraboo FFA, HCE, Farm Bureau, United Cooperative and more. As a senior, I received the Wisconsin State FFA Degree.

What do you plan to do after high school? After high school, I plan to go to the University of WisconsinPlatteville for dairy science. I plan to work on their dairy farm. My nal plan is to be a manager on a big dairy farm.

What are some benets of being raised on a farm? Some benets of being raised on a farm are you know how to work, you’re not afraid to get dirty, and it teaches responsibility while enjoying what you do. I know and can explain how food gets to the store because I am making that happen. Another benet is you are outside getting fresh air and exercise daily.

How has farm life prepared you for what’s next? By working on the farm, I know I am interested in pursuing a dairy science career. I have known this for quite some time. Most seniors don't really know what they want to do after high school, so they begin college undecided.

Where do you see yourself in ve years? In ve years, I plan to be graduated from UW-Platteville. I hope to have found a guy who wants to farm with me. I would like to come back to my home farm and continue our operation or work at a big farm somewhere in the state of Wisconsin since Wisconsin is the dairy state.

Tell us about your farm. My family farm is located just outside of Baraboo, Wisconsin. We milk 170 Holstein cows twice a day in a double-8 parallel parlor. My father and I milk the cows. My father, grandma and uncle are full-time workers while I do the milking at night through the Youth Apprenticeship Program. My mother helps after work and on the weekends wherever she is needed. We ship our milk to Foremost Farms. I am the fourth generation of our farm. Besides milking the cows, I also assist the veterinarian, hoof trimmers and A.I. technician. In 2020, our farm was presented the Century Farm Ownership Award. I enjoy being on the farm and am glad I was raised this way.

Star Blends has been helping Midwest farm families by providing, high-quality feed, dairy nutrition, and commodity contracting for more than 20 years.

Our state of the art mill can accuratelyblend anything from a custom pre-mix to complete feed,

Brooklyn Schwoerer

Parents: Rick Schwoerer and Mina Gumieny Edgar, Wisconsin Edgar High School

Tell us your greatest high school accomplishment. One of my greatest high school achievements was being selected to go on an international dairy judging tour trip through FFA, which will be this June.

What do you plan to do after high school? After high School, I plan to attend the University of Wisconsin-Madison to pursue a degree in dairy science.

What are some benets of being raised on a farm? From a young age, I always enjoyed being around animals, especially my dairy cows. This has truly shaped me into the person I am today. Working on a farm has taught me the value of hard work and determination. It has given me the opportunity to meet and get to know locals who are involved in the dairy industry, allowing me to expand my knowledge and prepare me for the future.

How has farm life prepared you for what’s next? Farm life has prepared me for what’s next by giving me a passion for working with dairy cattle. This has further allowed me to expand my knowledge of what the dairy industry has to offer, which will help me work toward a career in the same eld.

Where do you see yourself in ve years? In the next ve years, I see myself graduating from college. From there, I hope to have a job working with dairy cattle genetics and improving the outcome for future generations of dairy cattle. I am not sure if this will entail working for a larger farm in a herd manager position or running my own dairy farm, but either way, I want to work with dairy cattle.

Tell us about your farm. In 1995, my parents established Red Rock Dairy Farm. Today, the farm is run by my mom and dad along with my two brothers and me. We milk 62 cows in our tiestall barn. Our milk is shipped to Nasonville Dairy, where it is made into cheese products. Our herd consists of registered Ayrshires, a few Brown Swiss, purebred Holsteins and Dutch Belted. We raise our youngstock and do most of our eldwork. We own 250 acres and farm roughly 170.

in balancing diets, or work with your private nutritionist or dairy consultant.

Carol Traynor

Parent: Brenda Traynor

Milton, Wisconsin

Milton High School

Tell us about your greatest high school accomplishment. My greatest accomplishment throughout my high school career, besides being a part of the Milton FFA Chapter, is probably being awarded the Rock County Dairy Promotions Scholarship at our high school’s scholarship night.

What do you plan to do after high school?

After I graduate high school, I plan to attend the University of Wisconsin-Platteville to major in agricultural business with an emphasis in communications and marketing. After college, I plan to use my degree to become an advocate for agriculture also known as an agvocate. Besides becoming an agvocate, I plan to return to my family’s dairy farm and continue working alongside my family in production agriculture.

Bo Afdahl

Parents: Brad and Kristin Afdahl

Arkansaw, Wisconsin

Durand-Arkansaw High School

Tell us your greatest high school accomplishment. I am proud of how far I have come in band throughout the years. I play the baritone saxophone.

What do you plan to do after high school? I plan to continue dairy farming on my family's farm.

What are some benets of being raised on a farm? It builds a strong work ethic from a young age.

How has farm life prepared you for what’s next? Farming is a very diverse industry, so you have to be prepared for anything. You might have a rough idea of what is going on in the morning, but there are always some curveballs.

Where do you see yourself in ve years? I hope to still be farming with my parents and having a larger role in the operation of the farm.

Tell us about your farm. We milk around 40 Holsteins and own about 170 acres. We ship our milk to Ellsworth Cooperative Creamery.

What are some benets of being raised on a farm? Some of my favorite benets of being raised on the farm include being taught the value of hard work and learning how to adapt to situations that are constantly changing.

How has farm life prepared you for what’s next? Farm life has prepared me for my future by teaching me the value of hard work, which has shown me I can achieve anything I put my mind to.

Where do you see yourself in ve years? In ve years, I see myself working for an agricultural company where I can be an agricultural communicator/marketer promoting production agriculture. In addition to promoting production agriculture, I also plan to work on my family farm with the dairy cattle.

Tell us about your farm. On my family farm, we are milking around 50 cows and shipping all of our milk to Foremost Farms. There are three generations working on the farm – stemming from my grandfather down to my mother and uncles, all the way down to my brothers, cousins and me. Since our farm is seven generations old, we have gone through many setup changes, but currently, we milk in a tiestall parlor and rotate in ve groups of cows.

Mason Sobeck

Parents: Tim and Michele Sobeck

Lena, Wisconsin Lena High School

Tell us your greatest high school accomplishment. Receiving Marinette & Oconto All-Conference academic honors.

What do you plan to do after high school? I plan to attend St. Norbert College in the fall to study business.

What are some benets of being raised on a farm? The biggest benet of being raised on a farm is denitely the work ethic you develop from a young age. I was so fortunate to grow up around such great, hardworking men. My dad and grandpa taught me about working hard in order for your dreams to come true.

How has farm life prepared you for what’s next? Farm life has prepared me for the next chapter in my life by giving me a really good foundation of skills that I will use in my next endeavors of life.

Where do you see yourself in ve years? In ve years, I see myself as a college graduate chasing my dreams as an entrepreneur and hopefully working on products I want to develop in the future.

Tell us about your farm. Our family farm was established in 1899 by my great-grandpa. It was then passed down to my grandpa and then my father. The future is looking bright as my brother has already returned to the farm after college. We milk around 400 cows and ship to BelGioioso Cheese. Being able to work with family all through school has truly been amazing. It is so special to work with the people you love. I especially am grateful for being able to work with my grandma and grandpa in our calf barn every day. Working with them is something I will forever cherish and wouldn't have traded for anything. We take pride in making our operation a family affair and not hiring out so much help. Almost everything on our farm is done by someone in the family, and that's awesome because it shows the hard-working spirit of our family.

High-quality forages at center of Abel Dairy Farms’ feeding program

Describe your farm and facilities. We are a family farm founded in 1857. I farm with my brother, Bill, and my father, Allen. We milk 4,300 cows. The cows are housed in tunnel-ventilated freestall barns and milked three times a day on an 80-stall GEA carousel parlor. Our heifers are raised in western Nebraska at Oshkosh Heifer Development.

What forages do you harvest? We harvest mostly HarvXtra alfalfa and mostly brown midrib corn silage as well as some oatlage from new seeding for dry cows.

How many acres of crops do you raise? We raise 1,800 acres of corn silage and buy another 1,700 acres from local growers. We also raise about 1,200 acres of alfalfa and buy another 300 acres from local growers.

What quality and quantity do you harvest of each crop? We typically harvest about 6,000 ton/dry matter of haylage that tests between 165180 RFQ. We harvest about 75,000 tons of BMR corn silage that test about 33%-37% starch.

Describe the rations for your livestock. We feed milk cows and dry cows at our dairy, and we try to feed rations that are relatively high in high-quality forages, containing 60% to 65% forages. The ration is mostly comprised of corn silage, alfalfa haylage, wheat straw, ne ground corn, soybean meal, corn gluten feed and cottonseed. Dry cows are fed oatlage, corn silage and wheat straw.

Describe your harvesting techniques for alfalfa and corn silage. We have our own equipment but also have a local custom harvester help us with harvesting both haylage and corn silage. We run a New Holland chopper while he runs a John Deere. Haylage is cut on approximately 28-day intervals with triple mowers with ail conditioners. Once it is dry enough (40% dry matter), it is merged and chopped into trucks. Corn silage is chopped at about 35% dry matter and processed. High-quality inoculants are a must.

NEW & USED EQUIPMENT ON HAND

USED TRACTORS USED

STACEY SMART/DAIRY STAR

Steve Abel pauses in an alfalfa eld May 18 at Abel Dairy Farms near Eden, Wisconsin. Abel farms with his brother, Bill, and his father, Allen, milking 4,300 cows and farming about 3,000 acres.

Turn

“We use Udder Comfort™ on fresh cows, works tremendously on fresh 2-yr-olds. It softens udders quickly, reducing pressure and increasing comfort for better performance. We have used Udder Comfort for 10 years, blue spray in the parlor, white lotion at shows. There’s a real benefit from the start of bagging to milking out after,” says Jeff King, Kings-Ransom Farm, Schuylerville, New York, milking 1000 reg. Holsteins producing over 30,000M at 90,000 SCC.

Award-winning King Brothers Dairy products start with quality udders making quality milk. They credit good staff, milking routines, genetics, sand bedding, cow comfort, including Udder Comfort for fresh 2-yr-olds. With over 120 EX in this large freestall herd, they produce A.I. sires like Dynasty, Cadillac and Dropbox from homebred cow families like Cleavage, Cleo, Dextra.

“It’s easy to love the great ones but when you have cows walk in the freestall barn with good feet and legs and udders full of milk, cows the kids enjoy showing and do well with and learn from, that’s what it’s about,” adds Jan King.

Jonathan, Jeff and Jan King with

(Right) Jonathan, Pandora,

Con nued from FORAGE | Page 18

What techniques do you use to store, manage and feed your forages? Our corn silage is stored on one large drive-over pile using a Lactobacillus buchneri inoculant. We emphasize packing density and covering quickly. Haylage is stored in large bunker silos with an inoculant. The walls are wrapped, and it is covered immediately after lling. The plastic is cut daily, and the forage is faced with a silage rake.

Throughout your career, have you changed the forages you plant, and how has that decision helped your operation? We have changed from conventional silage to BMR corn silage. Haylage has all been transitioned to HarvXtra. This has allowed us more exibility in our harvest window while increasing RFQ. We used to plant and feed some winter rye, but we were not able to consistently make highquality dairy forage from it.

Corn silage is stored on one large drive-over pile Corn is stored on one drive-over pile and faced with a silage rake at Abel Dairy Farms and faced with a silage rake at Abel Farms near Eden, Wisconsin. During harvest, the Abels near Eden, Wisconsin. harvest, the Abels emphasize packing density and covering quickly. and

Describe a challenge you overcame in reaching your forage quality goals. It was taking too long to harvest our haylage with our conventional sickle mowers, and we had too much variability in our moistures. We invested in a triple mower and shortened up the time our hay laid on the ground. This improved consistency and helped us eliminate any butyric acid in our bunkers.

How do quality forages play a part in the production goals for your herd?

Cows at Abel Dairy Farms eat their ra on May 18 near Eden, Wisconsin. The Abels focus on feeding their cows high-quality forages, which make up 60% to 65% of the ra on.

You can’t get high production out of low-quality forages. Every forage we feed needs to be very high quality. We will not sacrice on quality during harvesting our forages or feeding it to our cows.

What are management or harvesting techniques you have changed that have made a notable difference in forage quality? We needed to make the conscious decision that we would only harvest the best quality forages. If the quality is not perfect, we will not put it in the bunker. We purchased a large hay tedder so we could better control the moisture of the haylage we were chopping. We also put an emphasis on kernel processing of our corn si-

lage. We pull samples for kernel process scoring daily during harvest to ensure we are doing a good job.

STACEY SMART/DAIRY STAR

STACEY SMART/DAIRY STAR STACEY STAR

STACEY SMART/DAIRY STAR Steve Abel holds a sample of the milking herd’s ra on at Abel Dairy Farms near Eden, Wisconsin. The ra on is mostly comprised of corn silage, alfalfa haylage, wheat straw, ne ground corn, soybean meal, corn gluten feed and co onseed.

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JD 9700 2020, PRWD, 1166 hrs., 835 CH hrs., #543646 .......................... $503,000

JD 9800 2019, PRWD, 899 hrs., 660 CH hrs., #550175 ............................ $503,000

JD 9900 2020, PRWD, 844 hrs., 661 CH hrs., #553436 ............................ $508,000

JD 9800 2021 PRWD, 416 hrs., 302 CH hrs., #550106 ............................. $518,000

JD 9900 2020 PRWD, 784 hrs., 455 CH hrs., #561177 ............................. $523,000

JD 9700 2020, PRWD, 961 hrs., 500 CH hrs., #552460 ............................ $524,900

JD 9800 2021, PRWD, 569 hrs., 369 CH hrs., #552624 ............................ $553,000

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DeLaval Dairy Service Kaukauna, WI 866-335-2825

Joe’s Refrigeration Inc. Withee, WI 715-229-2321

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Melrose, MN 320-256-3276

Brookings, SD 800-636-5581

Paul helps put farms on a protable track

By Stacey Smart stacey.s@dairystar.com

Editor’s note: This story is a continuation of Pauly Paul’s cashow workshop held April 25 in Malone, Wisconsin. The rst story, “Boosting their bottom line: Milking 4 times a day, cutting feed costs helps Laveys cash ow” appeared in the May 13 issue of Dairy Star.

MALONE, Wis. – In a time of ination and rising inputs, many dairy farmers are looking for ways to cut expenses and raise income to ensure profitability.

Pauly Paul, dairy management consultant with Complete Management Consulting, helps farms do exactly that. Taking farms out of the red and into the black on their nancial statement is Paul’s specialty.

“We look at everything on an operation inside and out,” Paul said. “I’m able to see things that are out of place on a farm.”

Paul led a workshop, “What you need to know to cash ow,” in partnership with Peggy Coffeen – Uplevel Dairy founder and podcast host – April 25 near Malone. The workshop began with a tour of a local dairy farm that Paul works with and continued at LaClare Creamery with lunch and additional conversation.

Putting together a projected cash

From red to black

ow statement for a dairy farm is one of the rst things Paul does when working with a client. This two-page report notes all avenues of income and every expense line by line and month by month for the entire year on page one. Page two of the report lists personal loans or draws, loan payments to the bank or Farm Service Agency, money borrowed and assets purchased.

“This piece of paper is key,” Paul said. “We can show you where you’re at today and where you’re going to be in the future. We try to keep it as simple as possible.”

Page two of the report also includes the gure Paul is most interested in –the net margin. This is the amount of income left over after debt payments have been factored in.

“This is the number that tells me if a dairy is actually making money, and it’s the number I’m always looking at,” Paul said.

During the workshop, Paul shared the report of a dairy farm he helped bring out of debt. When the farm owners began working with Paul, their net margin number was red and had been for years. The farm was losing hundreds of thousands of dollars annually.

“They had a lot of loans and a lot of debt services to make, and we had to determine on the expense side how to work that out,” Paul said. “I wanted to gure out how to generate more income to get this dairy out of a nancial rut.”

At Paul’s advisement, the farm began milking four times a day.

“We don’t do that on every farm, but this farm was at the end of their rope and needed to make money instantly,” Paul said.

Milk ultimately increased by 15 pounds per cow – a jump Paul said was due not only to the additional milking but also to resolving management issues on the farm.

“They generated more income, but milk prices were not stellar at the time, so it was hard to make income for them,” Paul said.

However, more milk is only one piece of the puzzle and does not tell the whole story about a farm’s nancial position, Paul said.

“Some dairies getting 100 pounds are struggling because they’re paying

for their milk,” Paul said. “You can have an 80- or 75-pound herd making more money than someone getting 100 pounds.”

Paul then focused on trimming the farm’s expenses and tried to chop even just $50 a month off anything he could. He drove breeding costs down by more than half from what the farm was previously spending.

“Every little thing kept adding up as we kept going down the line,” Paul said. “If you can save $50 or $100 somewhere when you’re in dire straits, you have to do it.”

Paul worked especially hard on the feed side and was able to lower the cost of the ration, nding many things in the ration the farm did not need. He was able to take $20,000 off their feed bill – dropping it from $55,000 to $35,000.

“They had a lot of band-aids in there, and as desperate as this farm was, we pulled all of those things out,” Paul said. “You need to constantly go through and look at what’s in your ration. Whether or not you can or can’t pay your feed bill month to month, there’s always room for improvement.”

Hoof care also got an overhaul.

“This farm had state-of-the-art everything, including an automated footbath, but they couldn’t afford it,” Paul said.

They reduced the amount of copper sulfate being used to a lower yet effective amount and trained employees to do some of the treatments.

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Pauly Paul, dairy management consultant with Complete Management

When it comes to repairs, Paul recommends a farm employee handle as many repairs as possible to reduce expenses incurred from outside services.

“Milking equipment repairs on farms tend to be high as well as repairs in general,” Paul said. “Find somebody on-site to take care of a lot of the basic stuff if possible.”

For this farm, that included changing inations and rebuilding pulsators.

Furthermore, Paul said an overowing inventory of supplies is not cost effective.

“I’ve gone into foreclosed farms that have enough semen to breed for years and milking gloves to last for months,” Paul said. “Those sorts of things cost you a lot of money.”

Paul also looks at which expenses are directly tied to increasing cash ow versus which are just nice to have. For example, paying for a milk testing service may be something the farm has always done, but if the data being collected is not used to drive income, then it may simply be an unnecessary cost when times are tight.

“It’s nice to test and get that information, but what are you going to do with it?” Paul said. “If I’m in dire straits, these types of services are something I would cut.”

Paul said the example farm also used vaccines heavily, but with better

management, they were able to eliminate some and cut costs in this area down to $1,800 a month.

In the end, Paul helped the farm achieve a $300,000 ip from the red into the black.

“Every farm should sit down with their nancial advisors and key people on their operation to look at what’s being shelled out in expenses in every area,” Paul said. “You might be surprised to learn your neighbor is paying half the price for seed corn and you’re buying the same type of seed.”

Paul encourages farmers to spend cautiously and not be afraid to make serious cuts when situations call for drastic intervention.

“If things are desperate, you do what you have to do and learn to live within your means,” he said.

By determining where more income can be squeezed out and where spending can be curbed, Paul is helping farms increase prot.

“No matter what situation you’re dealing with on your farm or what issues you see, there is always a way to get things running smoothly,” Paul said. “No matter how much debt you have, you can make a go of it, and then no one has to stay awake at night wondering what’s going to happen the next day.”

“Every farm

sit down with their nancial advisors and key people on their operation to look at what’s being shelled out in expenses in every area.”

PAULY PAUL, COMPLETE MANAGEMENT CONSULTING

Managing manure for prot, sustainability

Groteguts’ digesters provide renewable natural gas, recycled bedding

By Stacey Smart stacey.s@dairystar.com

NEWTON, Wis. – A manure digester can be seen as an investment in alternative revenue as well as an investment in sustainability. For the Grotegut family, their digesters are serving both purposes.

The Dairy Business Association and Edge Dairy Farmer Cooperative held a Farmer-to-Farmer Policy Picnic May 3 that began with a visit to Grotegut Dairy near Newton. The operation is home to two methane anaerobic digesters built in 2008 and 2010, which were the focus of the tour hosted by Eric Grotegut.

Grotegut farms with his wife, Rosario, and his uncle, Doug, and Doug’s son, Kip. The family milks 3,100 cows and farms about 3,300 acres. Cows are milked in an 80-stall rotary parlor built in 2011, and the majority of the herd is housed in a cross-ventilated freestall barn built in 2010 that was added onto in 2014 and 2019. The stalls are deep bedded with separated-manure solids that come from the digester.

“We like that we’re able to use a recycled product to bed our cows, and it’s comfortable for them to lay on,” Grotegut said. “Also, the separation process takes nutrients out of the liquid manure, which gives us more exibility with manure application and reduces the odor of the manure.”

The Groteguts started out selling

electricity from their digesters, which they did for about seven years until it was no longer protable. In 2019, they switched to making and selling renewable natural gas. The dirty gas from the digesters is taken off the line and run a half mile up the road to a cleaning site where it gets scrubbed, cleaned, compressed and injected into the main line.

The Groteguts own and operate the digesters while partnering with DTE Biomass Energy – a Detroit, Michigan-based energy company that purchases the gas from the Groteguts and also handles the carbon credits the digesters generate. By rst selling electricity and now natural gas, the Groteguts are proting from the renewable energy their digesters produce. Each 1.8-million-gallon digester is built for 2,400 cows.

The Groteguts have bedded with manure solids since 2005, having purchased the material for several years before installing their rst digester. Cows are bedded three to four days a week, and stalls are groomed every night.

Manure in the digester is heated to 102 degrees for 21 days to kill pathogens. It is then run through a screw-press, which removes the water. This takes the solids down to 70% moisture, which is what the Groteguts use for bedding. The solids separator provides bedding daily, running about 15 hours per day.

According to Grotegut, the recycled bedding makes for a comfortable bed but does stir up mastitis in the herd from time to time due to pathogens that remain in the solids. However, the Groteguts have learned to manage challenges of the bedding, and for the last two years, the farm has maintained an average somatic cell count of 130,000. The barn’s ventilation system helps dry the bedding, which makes for a cleaner product.

“The bafes force the air down and

Joın the fun!

STACEY SMART/DAIRY STAR

Eric Grotegut speaks about the solids separator, which is used to make bedding from the manure that is sent to the farm’s two digesters, May 3 at Grotegut Dairy near Newton, Wisconsin. The Grotegut family milks 3,100 cows and farms about 3,300 acres.

keep it lower to the ground, which dries the bedding,” Grotegut said. “But in the winter, the bedding doesn’t dry as well, which can cause more problems with mastitis.”

After the tour, the picnic continued with dinner and other speakers at Farm Wisconsin Discovery Center – an interactive educational destination near Manitowoc. Grotegut Dairy has a partnership with the center, supplying cows for calving demonstrations and also offering tours of their farm to those who visit the center.

“We like being able to help educate the community in this way,” Grotegut said.

During the picnic, Kyle Lange, who owns an American Family Insurance agency near Menasha, discussed insurance for digesters. A large portion of Lange’s work is farm insurance, and a couple of his customers have digesters. “Every project is a little different,” Lange said. “Some digesters are on-site, some are off-site. Some are owned by the farmer, and some are owned by the digester company.”

Turn to GROTEGUTS | Page 27

Life skills learned on the farm

This past weekend at church, a friend started talking about the cozy morning they had had next to the replace. Usually, I would think nothing of it, but this time, with only a major twinge of jealousy, I mentally compared said cozy morning to my reality of being jolted awake by a call up the stairs about the beef cows being out and then spending the next 40 minutes out in the damp, cold rain putting the cows back in and getting the fence xed.

Life is just different on the farm.

calf management. I remember an older sibling coming home from college, brimming with new ideas of how we could do things better, and like politicians working together across the aisle, I stonewalled most of them whenever I could.

By Amy Kyllo Staff Writer

I spent all my growing up years helping with calves. I reigned champion over myriads of buckets, bottles, pails of warming water, electrolytes and colostrum, perfecting my tummy rubbing skills and every trick my sisters and I could concoct to coax calves to drink their bottle.

The problem with having 10+ years of calf-feeding experience by the time you nish high school is that it means you started feeding calves when you were young and clueless. I still giggle as I remember my sister reacting in abject horror to the fact I had decided to stir up the milk replacer with the bottle scrubbing brush the night before because I could not nd the usual (clean) whisk. I remember thinking she was way overreacting, but now I realize how ridiculous and completely undermining to our sanitation and disease prevention my young choice was.

Calves teach humbleness. I remember sitting at the kitchen table one Sunday evening in 2020, crying because calf feeding was so overwhelming. We had a new disease in our calves that year, and no matter what we did, it felt like it was not enough. It is those days that make you strong somehow.

On a much lighter note, I honed my negotiation skills in the barn, especially since I was the youngest. I get along really well with my siblings, but the debates always started when it came to

Con nued from GROTEGUTS | Page 26

Lange recommends meeting with the contracting team and thinking about who is responsible for which items within the project.

“It can be tricky when you assume who is responsible for maintaining a certain piece of equipment, such as a sand separator,” he said. “If there is a re or explosion, who is responsible for covering it? You certainly don’t want to nd that out after the fact.”

Lange said digesters are covered under two major forms of insurance – property and liability. The property side includes coverage for things like collapse, explosion and re. Lange recommends an added equipment breakdown endorsement that covers pressure, mechanical or electrical failures.

“Our policy can also cover the income component of that part,” he said. “If you’re responsible for some of the major components, you’re going to want that endorsement.”

The liability portion differs upon the type of setup at each farm. If a farm has a pipeline running straight from its manure pit to the digester, there needs to be an understanding of where the farm’s li-

My problem with the new ideas was they generally always seemed like more work than the old ones, which in my mind worked well enough. With this open and supportive attitude, I did my best to play devil’s advocate and cling to the status quo. Between my sometimes-overzealous sibling and my often-lazy self, we worked out enough of a balance to usually have pretty nice calves.

My secret weapon was to convince Mom that my way was right and then get her to tell my older sibling we were going to do it the way I wanted it done. There is an evil satisfaction in watching your older sibling bend to your will by proxy.

Parents taking vacations creates an infamous experience when you stay behind on the farm whether you feed calves or otherwise. I remember my sister and I and a local high schooler watching the farm for one simple weekend. Our dairy calved seasonally, and that weekend we got one-third of the calves we were expecting the entire fall in three days. We never got that many calves in one weekend before or after.

Yet, dairy farming was not just hard days or life lessons learned. I think of belting gospel songs together with my sisters in the milkhouse, braiding dandelions while I guarded a pasture gate and a lifestyle that could include catching interesting bugs in the farmyard and putting them in the freezer in old salsa jars to be identied later – or more likely forgotten about. Today, I don’t do the hard work of dairy farming, I just write about it. But, who I am is forever changed because I grew up in one of the hardest, and best, places in the world.

ability ends and where the digester company’s liability begins.

“If manure is going down that pipeline and the life expectancy is 25 years, but 17 years go by and all of a sudden there’s a seepage that occurs, whose liability does that go under?” Lange said.

Any shared ownership of the sale of gas or a fertilizer component should be discussed with the farm’s attorney and insurance agent as well, Lange said. If a farm is opening itself up to exposure for this aspect, separating the liability across several entities is recommended.

“There are many different areas of assets on a farm – from equipment to buildings to land – that you can use different LLCs to separate to some of the liability exposure,” Lange said. “You wouldn’t want the dairy farm LLC to own it all since liability is usually where the biggest claims come from.”

From a coverage perspective, Lange said it is better to do due diligence beforehand than to assume and nd out after a catastrophe that the digester was not adequately covered. Taking steps to properly insure a digester project will safeguard a farm from potential issues.

Zumbrota,

IN DAIRY women

Krista Klinkner Genoa, Wisconsin Vernon County 60 cows

Tell us about your family and farm. I farm with my husband Travis and our six children, Liam, Brad, Hank, Alice, Tressa and Aiden, ages 8 and under. We purchased my family’s farm in 2015 and continue the dairy farming tradition.

What is a typical day like for you on the dairy? Milking cows, feeding and managing care for my youngstock (calves 0-3 months),and updating books make up a typical day. During planting and harvest season, I’ll make sure tractor-friendly meals are available for hungry helpers.

What decision have you made in the last year that has beneted your farm? I’ve been pairing up calves after weaning from milk for a few years. Recently, I’ve been pairing up at younger ages, as young as day one. We’ve noted an increase in their resiliency as a result. We’ve also been training our kids on daily chores. This has undoubtedly increased the efciency of our operation. Plus, we’re training our replacements, hopefully.

Tell us about your most memorable experience working on the farm. I have so many. My birthday, being in early May, is usually when the milking cows go out on pasture for the rst time of the year. I look forward to it every year. It is probably going to be one of the biggest memories for the wheelchair for me.

What have you enjoyed most about dairy farming or your tie to the dairy industry? I enjoy the opportunity to contribute a healthy food source to our community in an environmentally conscious manner. I enjoy watching the youngstock I helped raise grow into strong, beautiful and productive milk machines. It’s a thrill to watch them enter the barn, ready for work.

What is your biggest accomplishment in your dairy career? Passing on the tradition to our children. They love and respect the animals and have picked up a great work ethic, which will serve them in their future endeavors. I’m thankful to be able to raise our children on our dairy and watch them grow in their understanding and love for agriculture.

What are things you do to promote your farm or the dairy industry? Education for the public on where their food comes from is something we strive to do. We have had a few elementary classes visit our farm.

What advice would you give another woman in the dairy industry? A good dose of faith, selfawareness and a goal-oriented work ethic will always serve you well.

When you get a spare moment, what do you do? I don’t have many, but I always try to put in a little garden, which my kids help with. They love to see their food grow and enjoy the fruits of their labor.

Prepare now to be ready when tragedy strikes

Last year, during one of my county fairs, I remember walking through the buildings along the fairgrounds and thinking, “It smells strongly of campre.”

After meandering around, I deduced it was not a local campre but instead wildres up north, with the smell of burning carried on air currents. This prompted me to think, “What should livestock producers do to prepare for natural emergencies. What is that rst step?”

In Minnesota, we get it all.

By Dana Adams U of M

Producers should have emergency plans in place for tornadoes, oods, severe snowstorms and res.

I have worked with farms that have a so-called go binder, a binder easily accessible in the farm ofce with the answers. My favorite ones were beautifully labeled and organized with tabs to minimize fumbling during chaotic situations. Physical documents are the gold standard, but there is value in electronic documents. These documents can be easily stored on a shared platform for all members of the operation to access and update via smartphone (at the kitchen table or in the tractor) to keep the emergency plan relevant.

A good place to begin building your farm’s binder is building a complete map of your farm. This should include roads, lanes and driveways. A valuable component for any responding emergency per-

sonnel is to include all fences and gates, locations of all livestock, locations of all hazardous substances, and locations of shut-offs for electricity, water and other utilities. I have worked with farmers to include telephone pole markers in their plan to assist emergency personnel in navigating farms. Dad and Mom may know where everything is, but having this map both accessible and familiar will make guiding emergency responders that much faster.

Binders should also include the important phone numbers up front and center. The top four numbers to have in the cover’s inside pocket are the veterinarian, county emergency management, insurance agent and Extension Educator. Additional numbers to include are of the businesses that supply services to or for the farm. If appropriate, include your milk processor, feed and fuel delivery, and anyone else who is on the farm regularly and should be alerted after something happens on the farm. Taking some time to build this useful list can help minimize the stress of a chaotic situation.

When creating an emergency document with a farm team, take some time to review the farm’s current insurance coverage and emergency supplies stores on-farm. This is an opportunity to be in contact with the insurance agent so you

know your farm’s coverage during emergencies. Are emergency supplies in a consolidated location that everyone on the farm team knows about? Are generators functional and re extinguishers up to date? Better to know the answers to these questions now versus in your hour of need. Keep in mind this internal audit is a great time to check buildings for any structural compromises or loose material. Repairing weak areas and cleaning unused material could help keep animals and people safe during tumultuous circumstances.

To prepare effectively instead of on the y, it is encouraged to have a written plan of spaces to use in an emergency for livestock and equipment relocation. This helps answer the questions of where can the tractor be moved if the roof collapses in the storage shed. Where do the calves go during a ood? Where do the cows in the milking herd go if there is a re in the barn? These hard questions are all too real and deserve answers in the form of a plan.

The utilization of the plan your farm generated comes down to selecting be-

Dana Adams, adam1744@umn.edu

320-204-2968

Joe Armstrong armst225@umn.edu

612.624.3610

Luciano Caixeta lcaixeta@umn.edu

612-625-3130

Gerard Cramer gcramer@umn.edu

612-625-8184

Marcia Endres miendres@umn.edu

612-624-5391

Joleen Hadrich jhadrich@umn.edu

612-626-5620

tween two scenarios: one for shelter in place and one for evacuation. For evacuation plans, reference the map you have diligently and meticulously created. What is the best escape route for animals to a safe space? What doors or gates need to be opened and what needs to happen if the route is blocked? Remember, writing down the evacuation plan puts everyone on the same page rather than assuming. Finally, plan for your people. Write down where they should take shelter and where they should evacuate to.

This binder is a tool. Like any tool, it is most helpful when it is maintained and used rather than collecting dust on the bottom shelf. By taking the time to build an accurate map and placing the binder in a physically and technologically accessible place as well as stating what needs to happen in emergencies, farm teams can effectively hope for the best and make plans for the worst. Having this tool in place can reduce stress for all involved, empowering individuals to control as much as they can and make plans for things they can’t.

Les Hansen hanse009@umn.edu

612-624-2277

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

Erin Royster royster@umn.edu

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

June Dairy Month events throughout Wisconsin

June 2

Marsheld Dairyfest: Hosted by the Marsheld Chamber of Commerce, events run Friday and Saturday. On Friday, enjoy a dairy breakfast from 5:30-9:30 a.m. at the Marsheld Fairgrounds. Breakfast tickets are $7; kids 6 and under eat free. Other events that day include a picnic at Columbia Park with food trucks, music and other fun activities. A movie in the park starts at dusk. Saturday events begin with a parade on Main Street at 11 a.m. followed by Center City Fun Day at Wenzel Family Plaza with interactive activities, live music, giveaways and more. Marsheld Fairgrounds is located at 513 E. 17th St., Marsheld, Wisconsin.

June 3

Dane County Cows on the Concourse: The cows are back in town from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the Madison Capitol Square. Cows on the Concourse is a free, annual and family-friendly event that kicks off National Dairy Month. Kids and adults can meet and greet cows from local dairy farms. Capital Square is located at the 100 block of Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Madison, Wisconsin.

Wisconsin Dells FFA Alumni Farm to Fork Breakfast Fundraiser: Enjoy a breakfast that highlights community businesses and Wisconsin agriculture. Bring the family and check out the new school and the agriscience department’s Brew Farm project that includes gardens, animals, hydroponics and more. The menu features grilled cheese using homemade bread and cheese from local dairies, scrambled eggs from the school’s chickens, locally made sausage, cheese curds, cranberries, donuts, milk and coffee brewed right down the street. After breakfast, head to the school grounds to the New Haven Helping Hands 4-H Club ice cream stand and trac-

tor/car show. Then hop on the wagon for a ride over to the Brew Farm. Buy a ticket to win a restored Farmall A or $2,000. The event runs from 8 a.m. to noon. The cost is $10. Wisconsin Dells High School is located at 1501 Brew Farm Road, Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin.

Crawford County Dairy Breakfast: The breakfast will be hosted by the Alan and Kathy Flansburgh family from 6-10 a.m. Join the family for great food, entertainment, a petting zoo, games and door prizes all while enjoying the atmosphere of a farm. The cost is $3; children 5 and under are free. The Flansburgh farm is located at 58153 State Highway 60, Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin.

Iowa County Dairy Breakfast: Arena Cheese will be hosting the dairy breakfast from 6:30-10:30 a.m., rain or shine. Besides the normal breakfast menu, Arena Cheese will have samples of their prize-winning cheese and great food and dairy products. Tickets are $10 for adults, $5 for children ages 4-11, and free for children under 3. Arena Cheese is located at 300 US-14, Arena, Wisconsin.

Barron County Dairy Breakfast: Come to the Cory and Janelle Picknell Family Dairy Farm from 6-11 a.m. for an antique tractor and machinery display, horse-drawn wagon rides, strolls around the farm, live music and door prizes. Enjoy a Wisconsin omelet, all-you-can-eat pancakes with real maple syrup and butter, cheese, deep-fried cheese curds, applesauce, Culver’s Custard sundaes, milk and coffee for a free-will offering for breakfast and nominal cost for sundaes. The Picknell farm is located at 790 6 1/2 Ave., Prairie Farm, Wisconsin.

Rock County Dairy Breakfast: The Daluge Family will host this year’s breakfast at Glacier Edge Dairy from 6:30-

11 a.m. A morning full of fun for the whole family will include a delicious breakfast, ice cream, farm tours, petting zoo, live music, crafters and much more. Glacier Edge Dairy is located at 2679 North County Road M, Milton, Wisconsin.

Monroe County Dairy Breakfast: Great food and dairy products will be served at Mapltwin Farms LLC from 7-11 a.m. There will be educational displays, children’s activities, dairy barn viewing, a farm equipment display, horse-drawn wagon rides, an animal education area and life music. Tickets are $5 for ages 11 and up, $3 for ages 6-10, and free to children 5 and under. Culver’s will be offering sundaes and asking for donations to support FFA chapters, and cheese curds will be for sale to support Monroe County All Breeds Jr. Dairy Club. Mapltwin Farms is located at 28521 Navajo Road, Cashton, Wisconsin.

June 4

Dodge County Dairy Brunch: This year’s annual brunch will run from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Gault Valley Farms run by brothers Dave and Ken Gault and their families. Brunch will include scrambled eggs with ham and cheese, pancakes, deep-fried cheese curds, assorted cheeses, juice, milk and ice cream. There will be educational booths, music and more, including farm tours showing the milking system for their 290 cows using 5 Lely robots as well as the automatic feeders used for their calves. The cost is $10 for those 12 and older, $5 for ages 5-11 and free for those 4 and under. Gault Valley Farms is located at W1970 Adams Road, Neosho, Wisconsin.

Abbotsford FFA Alumni Dairy Breakfast: The menu will include pancakes, maple syrup, sausage, cheese, applesauce, cookies, juice, coffee, white or chocolate milk and ice cream. The cost is

$5 for those 6 years and older; 0-5 years are free. Register to win a variety of door prizes including chamber gift certicates. This breakfast is sponsored by Abbotsford FFA Alumni and runs from 7 a.m. to noon at Midwest Sidewalls, 213 Circle Drive, Curtiss, Wisconsin.

Stratford FFA Alumni Dairy Breakfast: The breakfast will run from 7 a.m. to noon at Country Aire Restaurant and include allyou-can-eat pancakes, sausage, real maple syrup, milk, ice cream, coffee, orange juice and cheese. The cost is $8 for adults, $4 for kids 6-11 and free to those 5 and under. Country Aire Restaurant is located at 118600 County Road P, Stratford, Wisconsin.

Brown County Dairy Breakfast: Collins Dairy LLC will host the breakfast from 8 a.m. to noon, rain or shine. Breakfast will be preceded by a church service at 7 a.m. Besides breakfast, test your strength at the silage bunker ring toss, view old and new farm machinery, be spotted while taking a picture with a calf or other animals in the petting zoo, continue your agriculture literacy in the AgVenture tent, enjoy ice cream and cheese curd samples and much more. Collins Dairy is located at 3489 Hill Road, Greenleaf, Wisconsin.

Granton Dairy Breakfast: Hosted by Mark and Julie Kayhart Family Farm, the breakfast will run from 7 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and include pancakes, eggs, special eggs, sausage, cheese curds, ice cream, juice, milk, coffee and applesauce. The cost is $8 for adults, $4 for grades kindergarten through fth and free to pre-k and under. Kayhart Family Farm is located at W1225 Granton Road, Granton, Wisconsin.

Turn to DAIRY EVENTS | Page 32

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MISCELLANEOUS

New Red Devil & Agro Trend Snowblowers

June 10

Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin Grilled Cheese Day: Who’s ready for some cheese? Olson Farms welcomes you to visit their dairy farm from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. to get dairy snacks and enjoy family-friendly activities. The menu includes grilled cheese sandwiches, milk, fresh cheese curds and Culver’s custard. The cost is $5 per person; kids 5 and under are free. Olson Farms is located at 6302 County Road MM, Larsen, Wisconsin.

Pepin County Dairy Breakfast: Join us for the traditional on-farm June dairy breakfast. Enjoy food, farm tours, kid attractions and friends and neighbors. We are grateful with the support of our local communities to offer this event free of charge. We do ask for your free-will donations. The menu includes pancakes, sausage, pudding, cheese curds, milk and coffee. The event runs from 6:30-11 a.m. at Churchview Dairy located at N6294 County Road V, Durand, Wisconsin.

Sauk County Dairy Breakfast: Stop by Branders Dairy Farm for a morning of fun with equipment displays, educational exhibits and entertainment. The breakfast will run from 7-11 a.m. and include pancakes, scrambled eggs, cheese curds, applesauce, milk, juice, coffee and Culver’s custard. The cost is $8 for adults, $4 for children ages 7-12 and free to children ages 6 and under. Branders Dairy Farm LLC is located at E3886 U.S. Highway 14 and 60, Spring Green, Wisconsin.

Portage County Dairy Palooza: Feltz’s Dairy Store in Stevens Point will host the palooza with an education area, farm tours, petting zoo, antique tractor display, kids games and free food samples which will include fresh and deepfried cheese curds, ice cream sundaes, milk and other cubed cheese varieties. There will also be food trucks. There is no charge for the event, which will run from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. The only cost involved would be for purchases from the food trucks. There will also be meat rafe tickets available for purchase. Feltz’s Dairy Store is located at 5796 Porter Drive, Stevens Point, Wisconsin.

Washington County Breakfast on the Farm: Roden Echo Valley LLC, which has been in the family for 60 years, welcomes you for guided barn tours including the rotary milking parlor installed in 2022, petting zoo, Roden Barnyard Adventures, antique tractors, archery, milk chug throwing and live music. Breakfast will include all-you-can-eat pancakes with servings of scrambled eggs, sausage, cheese, applesauce and milk. The cost is $8 in advance, $10 at the door and free to children ages 3 and under. Ice cream sundaes can be purchased for an additional $1 each. Breakfast will be served rain or shine. There is parking on-site with a wagon ride to the farm. The event runs from 7-11 a.m. Roden Echo Valley LLC is located at 5545 County Road Y, West Bend, Wisconsin.

Vernon County Dairy Breakfast: Spend time at Vesbach Family Farm just outside of Viroqua. Enjoy a great breakfast with eggs, pancakes, steak, sausage, cheese curds, cottage cheese, milk, juice and coffee. The cost is $12 for a steak breakfast, $8 for a regular breakfast and $4 for a kids breakfast – ages 10 and under. There will be kids activities, a petting zoo, games and farm education. The event runs from 7-11 a.m. Vesbach Family Farm is located at S7303 State Highway 82, Viroqua, Wisconsin.

Dane County Breakfast on the Farm: Enjoy a fun-lled morning on the Kahl Family Farm. The breakfast menu includes cheesy scrambled eggs, pancakes, sausage, yogurt, cheese, ice cream, milk and coffee. Additional samples of other Wisconsin dairy products will be offered in the expo

area. Attendees can enjoy musical entertainment and get up close and personal with cows and more. Hear emcee Pam Jahnke, farm director, as she interviews our hosts. Explore the expo area featuring dairy information and food samples. Move your milk muscles in our dairy tness zone, meet Alice in Dairyland as well as local dairy ambassadors and royalty, get your face painted, test your toss into one of our cheese-hole bean bag games, meet Bessy the Dane dairy cow along with many other furry and feathery friends, view our large machinery displays and much more. The event runs from 7-11:30 a.m. The cost includes parking, breakfast and all entertainment and activities: $10 for ages 12 and up, $5 for ages 3-11, no cost for ages 2 and under – cash or check only. Kahl Family Farm is located at 8385 County Highway A, Verona, Wisconsin.

Lafayette County Dairy Breakfast: Hosted by Meylor Family Farms, a multi-generation family dairy and crop farm, the event includes a great breakfast of scrambled eggs with ham and cheese, sausage links, cheese, donuts, pudding cups, milk and ice cream. There will be a petting zoo, live music, cheese tasting, county nurses booth and conservation awards. The event runs from 6:30-10:30 a.m. with a cost of $5 for adults, $3 for children under 10 and free for preschool age and under. Meylor Family Farms is located at 15425 Hwy G, Darlington, Wisconsin.

Pittsville FFA and FFA Alumni Dairy Breakfast: The breakfast will run from 7-11 a.m. and offer pancakes, potato pancakes, sausage, ham and eggs, cranberry bread, cheese curds, applesauce, ice cream, cranberry juice, coffee and milk. The cost is $7 for those 13 years and older, $3 for ages 5-12 and free to those 4 and under. The event will be held at Badger State Fruit Processing located at 5616 Cranberry Lane, Pittsville, Wisconsin.

June 11

Richland County Dairy Breakfast: Enjoy a breakfast of pancakes, sausage links, applesauce, cottage cheese, cheese curds, string cheese, yogurt, various sliced cheeses, ice cream, coffee and creamer, chocolate and white milk at the Armbruster family’s Red Brae Dairy. The cost is $5 for all ages; no cost to children 3 and under. The event runs from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. There will be buses picking up and dropping off for free at both Riverdale elementary and high school. Park and ride the bus to the farm if you are able, but handicapped and UTV parking are available at the farm. Red Brae Dairy is located at 19974 State Highway 60, Muscoda, Wisconsin. Riverdale Elementary School is located at 800 N. Sixth St. and Riverdale High School is located at 235 E. Elm St., both in Muscoda, Wisconsin.

Taylor County Town and Country Dairy Breakfast: The menu includes a choice of omelet, sausage, fresh buttermilk biscuits and honey, milk, cheese and ice cream. The cost is $7; children under 5 eat free. The event runs from 6:30 a.m. to noon at the Taylor County Fairgrounds, corner of highways 13 and 64, Medford, Wisconsin.

Neillsville Dairy Breakfast: Enjoy pancakes, scrambled eggs, sausage, fresh cheese curds, applesauce, maple syrup, ice cream, coffee, milk and orange juice. The cost is $7 for adults, $4 for children 6-10 and free for those ages 4 and under. The event will be held in the Clark County Fairgrounds livestock building, 1121 E. Division St., Neillsville, Wisconsin.

Oconto County Breakfast on the Farm: Explore Kohl’s Dairy Farm’s facilities and enjoy educational and entertainment activities. The breakfast includes scrambled eggs with cheese and ham, pancakes with local maple

syrup, sausage, cheese curds, fruit, yogurt, milk, coffee, water and ice cream sundaes. There will be antique tractor and modern farm equipment displays; a huge educational tent with booths by 4-H clubs, FFA chapters, farm organizations and others; kids activities; live music by local bands and more. Morning begins with Catholic Mass under the tent. The event runs from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tickets are $10 on the day of the event. Advanced sale tickets are $9 and available at Kelly Lake Kwik Stop in Kelly Lake, Pat’s Market in Gillett, Lena Fast Stop in Lena, Peshtigo National Bank branch ofces in Gillett and Oconto Falls and NEW Credit Union branch ofces in Oconto, Oconto Falls and Suring. Kohl’s Dairy Farm is located at 6214 Klaus Lake Road, Gillett, Wisconsin.

Lincoln County June Dairy Breakfast: Enjoy a delicious breakfast at the MARC/Smith Center that supports local Lincoln County educational programs and FFA alumni and Farm Bureau scholarship funds. Breakfast includes plain and potato pancakes, cheesy scrambled eggs, sausage links, real Wisconsin cheese curds, coffee and chocolate and white milk. Experience fun activities for the whole family including horse and wagon rides, Kraft’s Kritters Petting Zoo and live music by Carl Ja Keon and Jeni. The cost is $8 for adults, $4 for children 6-11 and free to children 5 and under. The event runs from 8 a.m. to noon. MARC/Smith Center is located at 1100 March Drive, Merrill, Wisconsin.

Outagamie County Breakfast on the Farm: Vande Hei Dairy Farm will host the event, which will begin with a prayer service at 7 a.m. followed by a breakfast from 8 a.m. to noon of egg omelets, hash browns, ham, Wisconsin cheese, cinnamon rolls, milk and Culver’s frozen custard. A pedal tractor pull weigh in from 9:30-10:30 a.m. will be followed by a tractor pull at 10:30. Enjoy live music by local musicians and fun activities such as inatables, face painting, petting zoo, farm tours and antique tractor and wagon rides. Advance tickets are available online through Venmo. Vande Hei Dairy Farm is located at N8370 County Road Y, Seymour, Wisconsin.

Grant County Dairy Breakfast: The event will be held at Stoneeld Historic Site in Cassville to commemorate the 175th anniversary of Wisconsin’s statehood. There is a state agricultural museum on-site that has lots of interesting items. All-you-can-eat breakfast will be served from 7-11:30 a.m. and will include pancakes, eggs, sausage links, cheese, applesauce, string cheese, yogurt, ice cream, milk and coffee. The site will be open until 4 p.m. with free admission with breakfast purchase. Also happening will be activities, machinery displays, door prizes, petting zoo and live music. The cost is $8 for those 9 and over; free to children 8 and under. The event will take place rain or shine. Stoneeld Historic Site is located at 12195 County Highway VV, Cassville, Wisconsin. The site is ATV and UTV friendly.

Marquette County June Dairy Breakfast: The breakfast will take place at the Marquette County Fairgrounds from 7 a.m. to noon. Enjoy a delicious meal, wonderful dairy products and fun for the whole family. The menu includes a variety of cheeses, pancakes, sausage, potatoes, fruit, eggs, milk, coffee, juice and ice cream. There will be an FFA petting zoo, children’s games, 50-50 rafe, bingo, tractor display, DJ and more. The cost is $12 for adults, $6 for kids ages 4-8 and free to kids 3 and under. The location of the fairgrounds is 757 Main St., Westeld, Wisconsin.

How many years have you been dairy farming? I have been dairy farming my whole life. I started right out of school at 20 years of age, so 45 years. I grew up with it, with my mom and dad. I know nothing else, only milking cows.

Tell us about your farm and how it has evolved over the years. I immigrated here in December 2005 and started with an empty farm that we xed and cleaned up. We started milking in April 2006 with 399 cows. We started twice-a-day milking and went to three times a day. Then, we started adding on a little bit and growing. We rst added on in 2007 to the dry cow area. In 2014, we added on and remodeled the whole barn to tunnel ventilation. In

2015, we added on the dry cow barn. Now we have stabilized a little bit. We built feed pads in 2020 and 2021. We average nearly 100 pounds a day with a 4.2% fat and 3.3% protein with a somatic cell count between 70,000 and 80,000. We don’t have automatic takeoffs in the parlor. You can milk cows the simple way too.

Tell us about your family. My parents live in Holland, and my daughter Brynley is 11.

What motivates you to keep dairy farming? When you wake up in the morning, you need to be proud of what you have. I have a great team who works for me on the farm, and they are very important to me.

What has been the highlight of your dairying career? Being able to come here to the United States and have the opportunity to grow a bigger farm than I could have in the Netherlands. I am proud of how my cows do, production-wise and reproductively. My pregnancy rate is 31%-32% through the whole year.

What do you love about dairy farming? I love farming; I love having cows with good udders in the barn.

What piece of equipment or technology do you wish you had incorporated earlier on your dairy? Direct-loading

onto the tankers. I don’t have much technology. I like to keep it simple; then, there are less mistakes.

What has been the biggest obstacle you have faced in your dairying career and how did you overcome it? Milk prices have probably been the biggest obstacle. If the prices drop too much below your break-even, you have to be that much better in your farming and your managing to make it work.

What has been the best decision you have made on your farm? There are so many little things that have made big im-

pacts that make it successful. I would say hiring the right people to help make the good team that makes you successful are the best decisions. It pays to be honest and to be kind.

Who has been an inspiration to you during your dairying career? I have talked to my friend Franz Osinga nearly every day for over 17 years. If I have trouble or need to talk about feed or bookkeeping or anything, I can call him almost any time of day to talk about things. There are many other good people who have helped me, but Franz has been a great mentor.

PHOTO SUBMITTED

Marcus DeJong poses with registered Holsteins, which he enjoys exhibi ng at shows. DeJong milks 680 cows near Dorchester, Wisconsin.

PHOTO SUBMITTED

Marcus DeJong and his daughter Brynley display a championship banner won by their Jersey cow. Marcus grew up on a dairy farm in Holland.

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Wishes and tasks for a successful season

By Steve Frericks Stearns County FSA executive director

It is truly amazing how quickly our producers can get the crop in the ground once the conditions are right. Timing is everything in agriculture. May your corn rows be straight, your pre-emerge herbicide application work well and your rst cutting of hay be exceptional. Be proud of what you have accomplished. We certainly are proud of you. May your 2023 crop be everything you hope it could be.

Agricultural producers in Minnesota who have not yet completed their crop acreage reports after planting should make an appointment with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Farm Service Agency before the applicable deadline.

An acreage report documents a crop grown on a farm or ranch and its intended uses. Filing an accurate and timely acreage report for all crops and land uses, including failed acreage and prevented planting acreage, can prevent the loss of benets.

The following acreage reporting dates are applicable in Minnesota: nursery crops May 31, spring-seeded crops including hemp and wild rice July 17, beans other than dry edible Aug. 15, turf grass sod and oriculture Sept. 30 and apiculture and fall-seeded small grains Nov. 15.

Acreage reporting dates vary by crop and by county. Contact your local FSA ofce for a list of acreage reporting deadlines by crop.

To le a crop acreage report, producers need to provide the crop and crop type or variety; intended use of the crop; number of acres of the crop; map with approximate boundaries for the crop; planting date(s); planting pattern, when applicable; producer shares; irrigation practice(s); acreage prevented from planting, when applicable; and other information as required.

If the crop has not been planted by the acreage reporting date, then the acreage must be reported no later than 15 calendar days after planting is completed.

If a producer acquires additional acreage after the acreage reporting date, then the acreage must be reported no later than 30 calendar days after purchase or acquiring the lease. Appropriate documentation must be provided to the county ofce.

If crops are covered by the Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program, acreage reports should be submitted by the applicable state, county or crop-specic reporting deadline or 15 calendar days before grazing or harvesting of the crop begins.

Producers should also report crop acreage they intended to plant but, due to natural disaster, were unable to.

Prevented planting acreage must be reported on form CCC-576, Notice of Loss, no later than 15 calendar days after the nal planting date as established by FSA and USDA’s Risk Management Agency.

FSA offers continuous certication for perennial forage. This means after perennial forage is reported once and the producer elects continuous certication, the certication remains in effect until a change is made. New option to view, print and label maps

Producers with an eAuthentication account linked to their USDA customer record can now access their FSA farm records, maps and common land units by logging into farmers.gov. A new feature will allow producers to export eld boundaries as shapeles and import and view other shapeles, such as precision agriculture boundaries. This will allow producers to view, print and label their own maps for acreage reporting purposes.

Producers who have authority to act on behalf of another customer as a grantee via form FSA-211 Power of Attorney, Business Partner Signature Authority, along with other signature types, or as a member of a business can now access information in the farmers.gov portal.

Producers can learn how to use the farmers.gov farm records mapping functionality with this fact sheet and these video tutorials.

ERP Phase 2 and PARP

Additional emergency relief and pandemic assistance has been made available to producers through the Emergency Relief Program Phase Two and the Pandemic Assistance Revenue Program. These new, revenue-based programs apply a holistic approach to emergency assistance and acknowledge the myriad of crises producers have faced in recent years. As we look to better understand and respond to producers’ overall losses rather than provide assistance solely based on a single disaster or a targeted commodity, we are taking important steps toward providing producers with the support and resources they need to continue feeding our communities. The deadline to apply for ERP Phase Two and PARP is June 2.

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 necessary application forms and updates on USDA programs

CARES: Read Owner’s Manual and all on-product warnings. Always wear protective gear appropriate for the use of this vehicle. Never Scan with camera to view videos, key features and more.

WARN® VRX 45, the WARN logo and THE RED HOOK STRAP are registered trademarks of Warn Industries, Inc. Assembled in the U.S.A. badge does not apply to MULE PRO-MX™ models.

Rock picking: A family adventure

When my father-in-law, Keith Hinchley, was alive, he would beep his horn at the end of the barn and tell me that the neighbors were already in the elds.

“Where is Duane?” he would ask.

Of course, the neighbors didn’t have cows to milk. Duane would be mixing feed or hauling manure while I milked. Keith had his eyes on everything in the neighborhood and would hear the local news at the coffee shop or the co-op. He knew who was selling their cows, their land or even farm tractors or equipment. He knew the best place to buy a truck and also a good place to eat when it was a rainy day after picking up parts. He was the motivation that kept us moving and making sure we could be proud of our herd, farm and elds.

ne-grained sandstones and mudstones with tan calcareous concretions or recessive holes from eroded concretions. They have a distinctive type of hole or bubble look to them. Glaciers moved omars from the southeastern part of the Hudson Bay to central Canada and into the U.S. where they became deposited on moraines as they traveled, carried by a glacier or ice sheet. Omar rock types have been dated to 1.76 billion years old.

We still bring home sparkly stones, ones that would make great stepping stones and ones that look special for whatever reason. The oor of the tractor

By Tina Hinchley

He also was the guy who wanted the tractor greased so he could hop in and get rolling as soon as the soil was dry enough to work it up. If we didn’t have enough help to pick rocks, he would drive the loader, and I would ride in the bucket. We would be cruising along, and I would see a stone, and I would raise my hand, jump off the bucket and pick it up. If he saw a rock and I didn’t, he would beep the horn. That got old quick. I would try to see every rock before he did so the horn didn’t have to blare in my ears. We could run through the elds that were clean very fast, and it seemed we could stay far ahead of the planter. In the elds that were loaded with stones, I would be walking in front of the bucket and tossing them back. We worked together and got the job done. Every once in a while, I would nd a special rock, and I would put it in the cab of the tractor by Keith to bring back to my garden. As the story goes, his wife, Ruth, would bring back special rocks too.

As our kids grew old enough to ride with, we would pick rocks together. I would joke with their friends that they could become a rock star if they wanted to help us. As we were picking up stones and tossing them into the bucket, we were always talking and trying to make the best out of a horrible job. When a cool rock was found, it went into the cab of the tractor. Many times, the rock was sparkly or a dark red, maybe a pretty pink granite one, or it just looked unique. If this is the excitement that makes a dreaded job go faster, I am all for bringing home a few brilliant gemstones to be put around my ower beds.

I know picking rocks is a dreaded spring job we all hate to do but one that must be done. Now, all of our children are gone except Anna. It is a job that seems to fall on her, but she has found a few exceptional rocks as she has picked and found that they are not just any stone; they are actual tools that were used by people from long ago before even the native people from our area.

She has found a few Neolithic mortars and stone tools that were used for grinding, rocks with a soft edge and worn smooth by grinding seeds or grain, and holes in hand-held rocks that were used to make food. I knew they looked like tools, but she looked them up. Sure enough, she was right. They are tools from people who lived on the land we are now farming. These Neolithic people were skilled farmers, using stone tools for the tending, harvesting and processing of crops. They lived here from around 4,300 B.C. down to 2,000 B.C., so 6,000 years before the present.

Anna also has a large collection of omar rocks, or Proterozoic Omarolluk. These are stones that are

cab is a perfect spot to haul them back to the farm. Just knowing that there may be another great stone to

nd keeps Anna’s hopes up as she is clearing the eld of stones to plant next year’s crop. Rock picking is now not only a dusty, dirty job; it is also an adventure looking for the next great rock that is waiting to be found.

Tina Hinchley, her husband Duane and daughter Anna milk 240 registered Holsteins with robots. They also farm 2,300 acres of crops near Cambridge, Wisconsin. The Hinchleys have been hosting farm tours for over 25 years.

Farmer & Columnist

A truly rambling update

Temperatures this week may trick us into thinking we skipped over spring in favor of the heat of summer. The calendar, however, tells us differently.

I am trying to mentally prepare myself for the chaos of summer on a farm. This is not saying that spring has been calm. I am up to my eyeballs in the critter department, and I say this without even a hint of complaint. I enjoy every minute of it; I just wish I had more minutes.

Five of the seven puppies are still taking up residence in a calf hutch with a modied puppy proof calf panel on the lawn. They are lovely, clever creatures that I wish would nd good homes. I have considered taking all of them to the barn with me so they would get some exercise. That thought lasted all of about ve seconds before I decided I wasn’t that crazy. They get out to run a few times a day and are professional landscapers already. They like to zip through my owers without a thought, leveling some along the way. One puppy wouldn’t be bad, but ve is like a small freight train that can level a hosta in seconds.

Dane went to a small animal auction and came home with two rabbits, which we named Blackberry and Choco-

late Chip. He has built them a two-level rabbit mansion that we can drag across the lawn as needed. They are quite efcient little lawnmowers. They can zip up and down the ramp to get to their grassy plot or to their sleeping loft upstairs.

My ock of chickens is doing quite well. I have about 23 hens and two roosters. Our oldest rooster has beautiful plumage, spurs longer than any of the turkeys the boys bagged this spring and a quick reaction time. Everyone has been conditioned by him to keep one eye on him and one eye on the eggs when you go into the coop. He receives a death threat from me weekly, and I keep the dogs close by when I go near. Is there such a thing as a nice rooster?

Next to the chicken coop live our pigs. Two are being raised for the fair; two are being raised specically for the freezer. Bert and Ernie are the fair swine; Abby-Cadabby and Grover are my milk-drinking, leftover eating squealers. I have never had such a friendly batch of pigs. They love to be scratched, and I swear Abby carries on a conversation with me. She is by far the most vocal in her appreciation of the variety in her diet, and it entertains me to no end. They

were a favorite of our recent eld trip guests, because I let the kids feed them their uneaten pizza crusts after lunch.

It wouldn’t be spring without a bouncing crop of speckled black and white Jacob lambs. Their antics are so joyful, one can’t help but feel cheerful. From my six ewes –Tasha, Magdalene, Margaret, Armella, Hermoine and Tinkerbell – I have 10 lambs. Six ewe lambs and four rams. They are so close in markings it is hard to know who belongs to whom as they zigzag around the pen. This year I promised Dane (my chief sheep fence mover) that I wouldn’t keep all of them so long and vowed to sell some by the time they are weaned for his sake. It is a bit for my sanity as well. It becomes tricky to keep them all obeying the fence as they grow in size.

By Jacqui Davison

Calving has been steady this past month. When we go a day or two without one, we catch our breath and then attempt to prepare to be hit hard again. We haven’t even had too many sets of twins. (I probably cursed myself in writing that.) Vesta had a triple wham-my a couple weeks ago. She delivered twins, came down with milk fever and then cast her withers. My dad wasn’t impressed with the phone call that pulled him away from planting corn on a warm Saturday evening. She has recovered nicely and is doing well. I have been drying cows up rapidly in order to keep the pens in balance. There has to be a good ow of cows hitting the pipeline and cows coming out of the pipeline. It is a juggling act to be sure, but I do love my time working with the cows.

Farm kids and the last month of school are a struggling relationship. Late nights do not work well for school days. Cora and Henry are battling snifes that are part of their lack of sleep, no doubt. Every day, I try to get done and get home faster for their sake, but I do not always win. Ira drives separately many days because he can leave school 30 minutes early, which gives him that much more time in a tractor. He is either hauling manure or working the elds and denitely wishes school was done already. Dane is a great help to me, and I am already hoping he doesn’t get promoted to tractor driver quite as fast as Ira did. There are days I know for sure that Henry and Finley get dropped off by the bus, but no one sees them for hours. They head straight to the shop, hop on their lawn mowers and head to the longest grass on the farm. Cora delights in all the critters, and when she isn’t begging to hold a bunny, she is building her extensive farm in the sandbox with the boys.

Keith is doing well. He is on a schedule of an hourlong chemo infusion every three weeks, followed by two weeks of chemo pills taken morning and night. Then he gets the next week off. This regimen isn’t quite as harsh as the previous chemotherapy he received, but it is not without side effects. His cancer isn’t likely to ever be considered gone. It is being treated to keep it from growing at a faster pace.

I have some wild hair, and for those of you who knew my mom, I am the spitting image of her. It’s a bizarre thing to look in the mirror daily and see your mother. Overall, I feel good. I have hormone pills I have to take daily to keep the estrogen sleeping in my body. Everything I do is based on the ‘just in case there is something oating around in there that we didn’t kill with chemo’ principle. I can’t complain too much. I feel 100 times better than I did last year at this time.

Jacqui and her family milk 800 cows and farm 1,200 acres of crops in the northeastern corner of Vernon County, Wisconsin. Her children, Ira, Dane, Henry and Cora, help her on the farm while her husband, Keith, works on a grain farm. If she’s not in the barn, she’s probably in the kitchen, trailing after little ones or sharing her passion of reading with someone. Her life is best described as organized chaos, and if it wasn’t, she’d be bored.

Columnist

Ramblings from the Ridge

A few unseasonably warm days in late April not only melted most of the snow but also reminded us to turn our attention to heat abatement. The effects of heat stress are well documented and costly to the dairy farm as they impact a variety of performance parameters, including milk yield, growth and reproduction.

Something to Ruminate On

Temperature humidity index is a metric that combines temperature and relative humidity, and it is commonly used to evaluate risk of heat stress. High-producing dairy cows can become heat stressed at a THI of only 68. If you haven’t already done so, start thinking about heat abatement strategies for your dairy cows.

The rst line of defense against heat stress is to provide shade to animals. Next, the combination of air velocity, water and time are all key factors to effective evaporative cooling of cows.

during summer months. Lactating dairy cows require between 25 and 35 gallons per day. Water intake may double during periods of heat stress. Provide 3 to 4 inches of linear water space per cow along with a minimum of two water locations per group. Check water ow rates during times of high demand and clean waterers regularly. Availability of clean water to cows leaving the parlor is benecial for increasing water intake during heat stress. This can be accomplished with temporary, low-cost waterers.

By Barry Visser Nutritionist

Work with your management team to prioritize mechanical heat abatement strategies on your farm. Several resources are available to assist in this process. It is imperative that cows feel comfortable enough that they want to go to the feedbunk to eat. Also focus on the areas where heat stress is most severe, such as parlor holding pens. A well-managed cooling system with fans and/or sprinklers will help in these areas.

Providing access to clean, fresh water is critical

Certain dietary strategies can be benecial during heat stress, but the biggest impact will come from focusing on forage quality along with forage and feedbunk management. Minimize the amount of time feed is defaced from bunkers or piles. Provide a majority of the ration during cooler periods of the day to promote greater dry matter intake. Intensity of feed push-up and frequency of feeding can encourage more frequent meals and reduce slug-feeding that naturally occurs during heat stress. If feed stability is an issue, consider adding dry propionic acid to the total mixed ration on hot, humid days.

From a nutrition standpoint, no silver bullet perfectly combats heat stress. Benets can be seen by increasing certain minerals; potassium, sodium and magnesium contribute to an increase in dietary cation-anion difference levels in lactating dairy cows. Potassium is a primary regulator of water secretion from cows’ sweat glands and is secreted at high levels in milk. Research has shown feeding elevated DCAD levels during heat stress has resulted in improved milk yield and milk fat test. Researchproven additives to consider during periods of heat stress include additional buffers, salt, yeast, bypass fat, niacin, Rumensin® and Aspergillus oryzae.

Researchers at the University of Florida recently concluded that minimizing heat stress in dry cows is a valuable management tool to improve performance in the next lactation. Results from three consecutive years concluded that cows heat stressed during the dry period will produce, on average, 13 pounds less milk than cows that are cooled during the dry period. In addition, these studies showed lower immune status and lower calf birthweights from cows exposed to heat stress during the dry period. More re-cent research conrms this reduction in performance in the daughters and granddaughters of heat-stressed cows, making this a multigenerational challenge. Reducing heat stress requires careful consideration of management and nutritional practices. Provide a well-managed cooling system in your dairy barns rst and then look at what feeding strategies and nutritional additives may give you the most economic benets.

Barry Visser is a nutritionist for Vita Plus.

You may be tired of hearing about heat stress, but your cows are not Blue Hilltop, Inc.

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A spring of breakdowns

Sometimes you just have to laugh and heave a heavy sigh as all your best laid plans are kicked to the side by the latest breakdown. The alternative of letting the frustration explode into anger doesn’t do any good. If anything, it may lead to more breakdowns.

This has been an interesting spring season with so many twists and turns. Yet, as we look at the green dotted lines marking a new growing season across the elds, we realize things worked out once again, despite our best laid plans.

Mark always wants to have the corn planter in the ground by the end of April and done by May 10. We count on the spring rains to bring the rst crop hay to harvest height by Memorial Day weekend. Those plans have been tossed out the window very quickly this spring.

As we ipped the calendar to May, very little eldwork was being done. Seed corn was delivered, but the ground was too cold to ll the planter. Snow and frost still had their grip on the land. The delay gave the guys

a bit of extra time to go through the equipment to be ready to hit the ground running when we could nally pull into the elds. Oil and lters were changed. Zerks were greased. Air pressure checked. We were ready to roll, or so we thought.

The only thing starting to grow was the number of breakdowns we didn’t plan on. Four different tractors broke down ve times. The corn planting tractor made two trips to the repair shop on back-to-back days before we even hooked up to the planter. I drove that tractor out to pick rocks when I noticed the yellow warning light blinking. That couldn’t be good. I mentioned it to Mark, and we drove it back to the yard as the temperature of the tractor kept climbing. A quick call to the mechanic determined it was probably just a sensor issue. It turned out to be a different problem in the same area. Two round trips and two bills later, the tractor was back home, ready to start planting.

The breakdowns were only getting started. I ran to St. Cloud for two springs for the planter that broke as

Just Thinking Out Loud

they hit one too many rocks. A bearing on the disk locked up and needed to be replaced. The old farm truck nally decided it was on its last leg. We can’t put the truck in park, so we need to stop on level ground and hope the battery will have enough juice to turn over the engine. I hauled bull calves to the sales barn on a wing and a prayer with the old truck. Thank goodness for a level yard.

The equipment wasn’t the only thing breaking down. Mark had been dealing with something on the ball of his foot all winter long. Finally, he went to the foot doctor to take care of it. The doctor assured Mark it would hurt for a few hours, but he was going to really go after this sore spot. He went after it all right, but it ended up hurting for almost a week. Besides road trips, I was now on call for milking as Mark gimped around the yard. A modern jazz dancer couldn’t even begin to imitate Mark’s body movements as he hobbled around the farm.

By Natalie Schmitt

I had foot surgery several years back and had bought a kneeler scooter. It was now Mark’s turn to y around the house with this fun mode of transportation. I even left the four-wheeler outside the backdoor so Mark would have an outdoor scooter around the farm yard. That lasted only a day. The electric shift locked, and Mark was back to hobbling around the yard again as the fourwheeler was headed to the shop. Another unscheduled breakdown.

It is a good thing Mark’s favorite job is planting corn. This is the 49th corn crop he has put in the ground. It was also a job he could do while staying off his foot. He could never really gure out a way to keep it elevated in the tractor cab though. Eventually his foot has started to feel better, and he’s not hobbling around the farm yard. He’s going to survive this breakdown.

Not to be left out of the breakdown saga, my milk wagon nally gave out. I was struggling all winter with navigating my wagon around the yard. Luckily, we only had a few calves to feed, but spring was coming and so was a baby boom. I found my coupons for Northern Tool and headed to town to pick up another wagon. I ended up making two trips to the store and opening four boxes of wagons to discover the reason they were on sale was because they were all missing parts. The instructions were also missing a couple of steps.

I found the missing parts at the hardware store and used my old wagon as a working diagram of how to assemble the front end. It is amazing how smoothly a wagon pulls when the bearings work and the tires aren’t at. So far, we have had 10 heifer calves this month and counting. We ended up with three calves in three hours on Mother’s Day. It looks like we won’t be running out of replacement heifers for the herd, but we will run out of room for all of them in the barn.

Despite missing Mark’s planned planting dates, things seemed to have worked out. The delayed start in planting gave the ground time to warm up. Mark thinks this may be the best germination of standing corn he has ever planted.

Breakdowns can be kryptonite to any farmer’s patience during the pressure of spring planting. Despite all your best efforts to maintain and prevent problems, breakdowns happen. How we deal with the delay affects our health and well-being. Sometimes we just need to laugh and heave a heavy sigh as we reassure ourselves that things will work out.

As their four children pursue dairy careers off the family farm, Natalie and Mark are starting a new adventure of milking registered Holsteins just because they like good cows on their farm north of Rice, Minnesota.

Columnist

Joy and sorrow

“When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall nd it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.

“When you are sorrowful, look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.” – Kahlil

Gibran

No quote is more accurate when it comes to show cows. Showing cows has brought our kids – and all of us, really – much joy and delight but also tremendous heartbreak and sorrow.

We experienced a rollercoaster of all the emotions when Dan’s beloved Milking Shorthorn cow, Glitzy, calved last month.

family celebrates Christmas there, and our kids attend their summer camps. We even had our children baptized there.

Vern went on to explain that the retreat organizers wanted the participants to learn how to milk a cow.

We’ve had lots of interesting requests to teach cow milking over the years; our students include some famous food bloggers, a senator, and a physician from Nigeria. This was the rst time we’ve been asked to teach cow milking on location.

Of course, I agreed. One of my favorite parts of dairy farming is helping others better understand cows and dairy farms.

“Really?” was Vern’s incredulous reply. I think he thought we’d nd the request too crazy. And, truly, if our kids didn’t show cows, it might have been.

Dairy Good Life

By Sadie Frericks Columnist

To start, Glitzy was overdue, so we were all disappointingly convinced she’d have another bull calf. But, she proved us wrong when Glen helped her deliver a big, beautiful heifer calf. And, by beautiful, I mean gorgeous, with the best Milking Shorthorn markings.

Everyone’s excitement reached peak levels within minutes, thanks to the instant communication text messaging allows. Ideas for naming her were exchanged. Arguments about who was going to show her ensued. Fresh out of the state FFA dairy judging contest, Dan said it was the best day of the month.

But something was wrong. Glitzy’s beautiful baby didn’t have a suckle reex – even after 24 hours. We tried every trick we could think of to get her started. By the time Dan returned from the FFA convention, I was worried; I warned him it didn’t look good.

Glitzy’s calf couldn’t stand on her own either. She held a recumbent position just ne and looked perfectly normal except for labored breathing. I called the vet; he said we’d already done everything he’d recommend. We suspect she had a heart defect or some other congenital abnormality.

Losing her was heartbreaking.

With the sorrows come the joys. One of Monika’s show cows made a delightful experience possible last week.

It started with a phone call from Glen’s dad, Vern. Vern wanted to know if we’d be willing to bring a cow to camp for a young adult retreat.

Vern has worked at Camp Lebanon, a nearby Bible camp, since shortly after retiring from dairy farming. In that time, Camp Lebanon has become a special place for our entire family. Glen’s

I knew immediately which cow would go to camp: Sunlight.

Sunlight is a 6-year-old Jersey who has been on the halter since she was a March calf. Monika showed her for ve consecutive years at our county fair. Sunlight missed last year’s fair due to an untimely pregnancy loss but might return this year. She truly loves people and affection. She also never so much as shifts her weight during milking.

Monika was ecstatic when I shared the news we’d be bringing Sunlight to Camp Lebanon. She said it was the most unexpected combination of two of her favorite things. She beamed a megawatt smile the whole way to camp.

Without electricity and a vacuum pump, we couldn’t exactly show the retreat participants how we milk our cows. But we did show them how to strip milk from a teat and let them all try.

We also answered their amazing questions. We talked about everything from A.I. to homogenization to the economics of the dairy industry.

For all of the opportunities I’ve had to explain dairy farming to others, this was my rst time interacting with a group of young adults. This is denitely a demographic we should be having conversations with more often – either by bringing them to our farms or by bringing cows to them.

Through it all, Sunlight was perfect. She stood calmly while people pet her, posed for pictures, and showed incredible patience while everyone tried milking her. In between sessions, she did a little lawn mowing.

Monika beamed the whole way home.

Joyful experiences like taking Sunlight to camp make the painful moments bearable. And, all in all, I’d say our kids’ joys have outnumbered their heartbreaks.

Sadie and her husband, Glen, milk 100 cows near Melrose, Minnesota. They have three children – Dan, Monika, and Daphne. Sadie also writes a blog at www. dairygoodlife.com. She can be reached at sadiefrericks@gmail.com.