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Serving rural Benton County, Morrison, Mille Lacs & Kanabec Counties.
BENTON AG Plus
Sauk Rapids Herald
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2017
Calf care all under one roof O & S Dairy improves management with new facility BY JENNIFER COYNE STAFF WRITER
RICE – As Missy Schreindl looks across the pens of young calves, a smile reaches both corners of her face as she explains the structure of the housing facility for youngstock. Her husband, Troy’s, pride is just as evident. “We should’ve done this earlier,” Troy said. The Schreindls and their children, Tanner and Emily, work in a partnership with Missy’s parents, Bruce and Linda Olson, where they milk 250 cows at O & S Dairy near Rice. Last January, the families finished construction on a facility that houses the calves. Inside a 52- by 180-foot, forced-ventilated barn are eight group pens that house heifers – from newborn to 8 months of age. Feeder steers are also housed in the same pens. A center wall separates the weaned calves from the
growing ones. Newborn calves enter the facility on the south side and are placed in individual calf hutches until 5 days of age. “We bring the newborns in from our maternity pen and keep them separate from the other calves so there’s PHOTOS BY JENNIFER COYNE no contact and reduce Troy and Missy the risk of becoming Schreindl house their sick,” Missy said. calves – from newborn “At 5 days, we try to 8 months of age – in and start them on a newly constructed the feeder. When facility on their farm near they move to the Rice. The Schreindls and group pen all deMissy’s parents, Bruce pends when they are and Linda Olson, operate able to get a good, O & S Dairy, where they strong suck.” milk 250 cows. In front of the row of hutches, and 80 feet of the barn’s total length, are four pens centered around two au- percent powder supplement. tomatic calf feeders. The first A 300-gallon bulk tank feeder’s nipples are washed holds the milk and then is after each visit to eliminate transferred to the two autobacteria transfer in the sus- matic feeders through a pipeceptible immune systems. line system driven by a variThe feeders contain milk able frequency drive. consisting of 70 percent pasThe calves in these pens teurized waste milk and 30 also get free-choice grain.
“We keep calves in the first group pen until they’re about 15 days old, then we start moving them on up throughout the other pens,” Missy said. Up until the calves are weaned, both steers and heifers are monitored with RFID
tags. They are also housed together until a change in ration is needed. “All of the heifers have permanent tags for DHIA records, but the bull calves each have collars with the tags. That way we can delete their data when they’re done
receiving milk and reuse the tags,” Missy said. “I thought this was a simple way to save money.” Once the calves are weaned, they are moved to the growing pens, where Tan-
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we’re cleaning up dead and the larger bases are Schmiesing, Arnold keep trees; stuff,” Arnold said. “We don’t used for Arnold’s outdoor even cut standing dead trees wood heater. Oftentimes, hydraulically-operated unless there is a danger out a busy chopping wood there. In other words, we splitter, which attaches to a BY NATASHA BARBER STAFF WRITER
basically clean up wood that has already fallen, already tipped over.” The wood never runs out. Each year the men choose a section of woods to clear — cutting the wood and removing the invasive buckthorn as best they can. The following year they move on, but may return to a prior section if necessary. “You clean one little area, and you look around. It’s unbelievable how much dead wood is out there,” Arnold said. “…We can go back into the section we just cleared and cut wood there again because of all the trees that were dead and standing fall over.” When Schmiesing and Arnold locate the tree they want to cut, which more often than not chooses them by dropping across their path, they cut the tree in sections. The top portion of the tree with smaller limbs is sawed and split for camp fire sales
skid loader, is used to split and stack the largest pieces. Collectively, the woodcutters chop between 20-30 cords of wood each year. Arnold uses about 12 cords for heating his home and the rest is sold to residents within the county; cabin owners residing in the Briggs Lake Chain have found the split wood to be a useful commodity. “The majority of the wood goes to cabin residents in the area that live along Briggs, Julia and Rush Lakes; they buy the wood for their campfires,” Arnold said. “Red and white oak are probably two of your best hardwoods for burning. It coals nice, it holds a lot of heat and it’s not a fast burning wood like pine or some of your softer woods. It’s good firewood.” The two men are careful to inform buyers
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CLEAR LAKE — The answer as to whether a tree falling in the forest makes a sound when no one is around, does not much matter to two Sherburne County residents. They only care that the tree fell. It means it is time to cut wood. Palmer Township resident Felix Schmiesing has been harvesting wood on his family’s 100-acre property nearly all his life; Pat Arnold began chopping wood on the same land roughly 20 years ago after mentioning to Schmiesing that he needed the fuel source for his home. Since retirement, the two have partnered in the hobby, passing time and making PHOTOS BY NATASHA BARBER some spending cash on the Pat Arnold explains what purpose different sizes of wood side. pieces are used Nov. 29 in Clear Lake. Arnold chops wood “It’s good exercise, it with Pat Schmiesing as a hobby. gives us something to do and
keeps us out of our wives’ ways,” said Arnold, who is coowner of Arnold’s Equipment but retired in 2015. “We have a little more time on our hands and we decided we have all this dead wood. …We’re just kind of cleaning up Felix’s woods is what we’re doing.” Schmiesing’s woods are a mixture of white and red oak. Much of the red oak has died due to maturity or oak wilt that was detected in the area 20 years ago. Despite trying to stop the spread of the disease, Schmiesing was unsuccessful and the fungus affected many of his trees. “It was one of those battles that you aren’t going to win, but you try and slow it as much as possible,” said Schmiesing, a current Sherburne County Commissioner. The dead oaks have left plenty of dried wood to harvest. “We’re not cutting live