Building their dairy dream

BONDUEL, Wis. — Luke Stern was drawn to dairy farming as a young boy, even though he did not grow up on a dairy farm.

“My dad is an agronomist and has a herd of beef cows,” Luke said. “I grew up on a farm, just not a dairy farm, but his friend had a dairy farm and I spent a lot of time there growing up.”

That early fascination led to high school jobs milking on dairy farms. Eventually he found himself working at Brian Engel’s dairy outside of Bonduel, where his future would be laid. 

“When Brian started out, he did it on his own, like me,” Luke said. “Since he started like that, he wanted to see it keep going. He mentioned it one day, and I thought about it and decided it was something I wanted to pursue.”

The two struck up a deal where Luke would purchase the cows from Brian when he retired, and rent the barn. After five years as Brian’s employee, Luke purchased the milking herd May 1.

“Brian shipped to Mullins so we continued to ship there,” Luke said. “That transition was really smooth; it was basically just switching names on the check.”

Luke and his girlfriend, Alyssa Diemel, are milking 62 cows. Alyssa works full time off the farm as a lab technician for CentralStar Cooperative Inc. and helps Luke on the farm milking in the evenings.

“That has been nice,” Luke said. Doing it by myself, I was out there until 10 p.m. sometimes. Now doing chores together we can get done usually by 8 or 8:30. She milks and I milk the bucket cows, and feed the calves and cows.”

Alyssa previously worked on a dairy farm as well.

“I like it; I want to be here,” Alyssa said. “It can be stressful some nights, but most of the time it’s pretty good. When I’m not here, I wish I was.”

Brian still owns the heifers, which Luke is purchasing as he needs replacements. Brian handles the cropping duties making the feed for their commingled animals. The two plan for Luke to eventually take over the cropping duties as well.

“Brian’s been really good to me and we have a great working relationship,” Luke said. “He still helps me out in the barn and is a great mentor.”

The cows are fed a total mixed ration, with everything grown on the farm.

Luke has some equipment he owns and uses for custom work, creating an additional revenue stream.

Since taking ownership of the cows, Luke has begun learning the ins and outs of dairy farming.

“One of the biggest challenges has been stuff with the cows,” Luke said. “I have milked cows for seven years, but milking is different than owning them — knowing when to treat and what to treat them with and treating them at the right time, that has been the biggest learning curve.”

Over the past seven months, Luke has made changes to the barn to streamline his fledgling operation.

“I put in a bigger bulk tank right away in May,” Luke said. “We were at the point that we were almost running it over on every-other-day pick up, and I wanted to stay on every-other-day.”

In August, Luke removed some youngstock pens at the end of the barn and replaced them with additional tie stalls, eliminating the need for switching cows and simplifying his choring routine.

With half a year under his belt, Luke has one eye firmly on the future.

“Right now, I just want to focus on paying for the cows and preparing to purchase the farm,” Luke said. “I just want to keep improving on what is here. In the future, I’d like to maybe put up a freestall barn for housing the cows.”

Once the house Brian is building is complete, Luke and Alyssa will move into the farmhouse. Luke is currently living with his parents three miles away while Alyssa lives 15 minutes from the farm.

“Three miles isn’t that far, but being on the farm will be nice,” Luke said. “It will be nice to be able to just come out and keep an eye on things.”

So far, dairy farming has been everything Luke dreamed it would be.

“I like being my own boss,” Luke said. “I worked at a soda factory and milked here nights and weekends — a 10-hour shift there and milking here, that was draining. I worked two other jobs before that, too. Farming is hard work, but so far, it’s been worth it.”