Wagler Dairy

~story and photos by Paige Langenderfer

Growing up in a family with eight children meant everybody had a job. Kenny Wagler was not fond of his first childhood chore, the dishes.

“The two oldest brothers got to go out and work with dad on the farm,” Kenny said. “Dave, Dorothy, and me, got stuck with the dishes. And there were a lot of dishes. Three meals a day for 10 people makes a lot of dishes.”

Luckily for Kenny, when he turned 10, he was promoted to taking care of the calves.

“I made sure they were fed (bottles of milk) and had feed every morning and night,” he said. “And the older I got, the more I got to do with dad.”

Kenny and his seven siblings grew up on the Wagler farm near Morgantown.

The farm was founded in 1952 when Henry and Frances Wagler, moved from their Daviess County home in southern Indiana to help grow the Bean Blossom Mennonite Church.

“Mom and Dad grew up Amish,” Kenny said. “They were married in the Mennonite Church and had a calling to help grow the church.”

Henry and Frances moved to Brown County and bought the original Wagler farmstead. They had 167 acres, 18 cows, 4 sows and a farrowing barn full of piglets.

“We milked cows, raised pigs and sold eggs at the Morgantown hardware store,” Kenny said. “That’s where they bought the coal to heat our house too.”

With so much work to do, the Wagler children were not allowed to participate in any extracurricular activities until their sophomore year of high school.

“There was just too much work to be done,” Kenny said.

After graduating from high school, Kenny said he was ready to look for opportunities away from the farm.

“The older boys were working on the farm with dad and I went out and found a different job,” he said. “I went to work at a rock quarry in Brown County and found out that was harder work than working on the farm.”

Kenny left the quarry for a job in Indianapolis with Detroit Diesel Allison as a machinist. While it didn’t turn out to be a lifetime career, he learned things he

Lesa and Kenny Wagler with granddaughters Emma, 10 , and Eliza, 5.

has used his entire life. “I learned how big businesses were run, how to recruit employees and how to treat employees,” Kenny said.

In 1977, Kenny married his wife Lesa, and in 1978 he took a 75 percent pay cut to go back to work on the family farm.

“I had a really nice 1969 Corvette that I sold to buy cows,” he said. “It was a huge pay cut, but I believe that God moves you where you need to be.”

Kenny bought into the family farm at 25 percent share. His brothers Lloyd and Howard also held 25 percent share and their father Henry held the remaining 25 percent share.

In 1985, Henry retired and the three brothers owned equal thirds of the farm. In 1990, Howard felt called to join the ministry and left the farm to go to seminary. Kenny and Lloyd split the shares equally until 2014, when Lloyd chose to opt out of the dairy farm to focus on crops.

Kenny has managed Wagler Dairy on his own since 2014, and takes great pride in the strides the farm has made since its humble beginnings with 18 cows.

At the time Kenny bought in, Wagler Dairy owned approximately 100 animals and milked 75 cows, two times a day. Each cow produced close to 50 pounds of milk per day.

Today, Wagler Dairy has grown considerably. Cows are milked three times a day now and produce approximately 90 pounds of milk.

Transponders on their legs let Kenny know vital statistics like how many steps per day each cow takes, how much milk each cow produces each day, and the somatic cell count. “Fewer steps could mean the cow isn’t feeling well or is having hoof problems. More steps could mean they are in heat and need to be put in with the bulls,” Kenny said. The somatic cell count helps Kenny know if a cow is having issues with their udder. The higher the count, the greater the chance a section of the udder is infected. A mastitis infection can be devastating to a cow and a dairy farm.

Kenny said he has been able to increase milk production by focusing on animal health, nutrition, and comfort. “We don’t want any animal standing for more than three hours a day,” he said. “We want them to be comfortable, eating the proper nutrition, and feeling free of any stress.”

A hoof specialist visits the farm every three weeks to trim hooves on a rotating basis. “Keeping the cows’ hooves healthy is vital,” Kenny said. “If a cow doesn’t feel well, or her hooves hurt, she will not produce as much milk.”

One fact Kenny is extremely proud of is that the farm has only purchased 13 cows the entire time the family has been farming.

“We put a lot of focus on our breeding program and buying the right bulls,” he said. “We look for bulls with good legs and good feet.”

While Kenny has enjoyed the work, the hours have been tough.

Continued on 20

WAGLERS continued from 17

When he and Lloyd were partners, they would switch who had to milk each morning. “One of us would get up at 1 a.m. to go milk and the other got to sleep in until 4 a.m.,” he said. “Then we would farm all day and wake up and do it again the next day, but switch who got up early.”

In 2005, they began milking the cows three times a day, and decided that hiring help was a necessity.

“We decided if we were going to have any kind of life at all, we were going to need help,” Kenny said. “It’s been a good life. No matter what, we have tried to put God first, then family, then work. Sometimes you get those things mixed up and you have to get them back in order.”

Kenny’s wife Lesa grew up in Nashville. Her parents worked at Cummins and her grandparents owned Cox Drugs.

Now the farm’s full time bookkeeper, Lesa said she loved raising her family on the farm. “There are times when the work seems to never end, but there have been so many blessings,” she said. “It has really been a good life. God has blessed us.”

Kenny and Lesa have two children, Shannon Verhaeghe and Justin Wagler, and five grandchildren. Shannon is an ag education teacher in Plymouth and Justin owns a custom application business next door to the dairy farm.

In his limited free time, Kenny enjoys participating in tractor pulls with his son, Justin. They have been pulling together for 27 years, and have twice won the Lucas Oil Pro Pulling National championship.

Kenny said if there is one thing he could change it would be the misconception people have about the negative impacts farming has on the environment.

“People think that the dairy industry has this major negative impact on greenhouse gasses,” he said. “According to Frank Mitloehner, Ph.D., professor and air quality specialist in the Department of Animal Science at the University of California, Davis, the dairy industry contributes just two percent of all greenhouse gasses in the U.S. The majority of the gasses come from transportation, power production, and the cement industry.” 

Kenny on the farm at age 10, with his horse Ginger.