Achieving production through type

How many times a day do you milk, and what is your current herd average, butterfat and protein? We milk three times a day. Our herd average is 31,135 pounds of milk, 1,288 pounds of butterfat and 991 pounds of protein, with tests of 4.1% butterfat and 3.2% protein.

Describe your housing and milking facility. Our cows are housed in a freestall barn with mattresses or on a bedded pack and milked in a 14-stall flat-barn parlor. We house 2-year-olds in a separate pen. Cows stay in the same pen for their entire lactation. Calves are housed in individual stalls in a calf barn, with the overflow housed in hutches. After weaning, heifers are sent to a farm down the road that we rent. They come back home for breeding and return to our heifer facility until it is time to calve.

Who is part of your farm team, and what are their roles? The four of us run the farm with help from a full-time employee, Jeff Winkel, who handles day-to-day tasks, and a group of employees who do the milking. We have a total of five employees. Ben, Jane and Kimberly take care of the heifers. Jane also does the bookwork and payroll. Ben and Michael do all the breeding. Michael also does the feeding and manages employees. Ben trims hooves as needed between hoof trimmer visits. Michael and Kimberly’s children — Bryson, Wyatt and Chloe — feed all the bull calves and help take care of our show animals. They also cut back the piles of feed.

What is your herd health program? We do herd health visits with our veterinarian twice a month — every other Monday — and fetal sex all pregnancies via ultrasound. For vaccinations, we give Pyramid 10 to calves at 6-8 weeks of age, which is followed by a second dose 2-3 weeks later. At 5 months of age, they receive Vira Shield 11 and Ultrabac 7, followed by a booster of each vaccine 1-2 months later and another booster at breeding age as well as before calving. Milk cows receive both Vira Shield 11 and ScourGuard 4K twice and J-VAC, 4-5 times during their lactation.

What does your dry cow and transition program consist of? Our dry period is 60 days long. At dryoff cows receive Orbenin dry cow tubes for mastitis prevention as well as ScourGuard 4K and J-VAC vaccines. Dry cows are housed in a separate freestall barn and have access to pasture. Their ration consists of marsh grass, straw, corn silage, a little haylage and minerals. They transition to a pre-fresh diet 2-3 weeks prior to calving that contains straw, corn silage, a little haylage and minerals. At this time, they are moved onto a bedded pack in a different barn that also contains four individual calving pens. After calving, if they clean and are off to a good start, they go to the regular milking pen by day two or three.

How long is your voluntary waiting period? 60 days.

What is your average days in milk? 166.

What percentage of your herd is in their first lactation? Forty-three percent. Second-lactation animals make up 28% of the herd, and animals in their third lactation or greater make up 29% of the herd. We sell a lot of cows as replacements.

What is the composition of your ration, and how has that changed in recent years? Our ration contains 50% corn silage/haylage, protein mix with minerals, roasted bean soybean meal, distillers, ground corn and whey. Over the last few years, we seem to do really well on the amount of haylage we’re making, so we’ve gone heavier on haylage. Sometimes, we’re at 70/30 haylage/corn silage. It seems like cows do well on it. We chop our own haylage, whereas we custom hire the corn chopping. If we have winter kill in the alfalfa, we could change that if we need to and flip things around, and milk production pretty much holds.

Tell us about the forages you plant and detail your harvest strategies. We plant a fair amount of alfalfa and corn. For haylage, we try to stay on a 28-day window — weather permitting. We do some baleage for heifers and show cows as well as some dry hay occasionally. For corn silage, we want digestibility and starch, but those things sometimes do not go hand in hand. We play around with varieties and work heavily with our agronomist on it. Every year, it seems harder to hit corn at a point where there is enough starch and decent moisture. We shoot for 65%-68% moisture. The biggest thing we have learned is that just because something works for the neighbor doesn’t mean it will work for you, because you might have different soils.

What is your average somatic cell count and how does that affect your production? Our average for the year last year was 107,000. It was the first year that we didn’t make it under 100,000. In January, we were at 59,000. Having a healthy udder helps production a lot. If the cow is healthy, you’re not dealing with mastitis and she can do what she was bred to do — make milk.

What change has created the biggest improvement in your herd average? Two years ago, we redid our parlor and put in new milking equipment, including SCR takeoffs and flow meters. It was a night and day difference. It improved milk quality, and we got our SCC lower than ever before. A healthier udder and healthier animal means they are able to produce more milk.

What technology do you use to monitor your herd? We use DairyComp software and Dairy Herd Improvement services to track our herd.

What is your breeding program, and what role does genetics play in your production level? We breed for a balanced cow that will last for many lactations and make it look easy while doing it. We want great feet and legs and a great udder that any farmer would like to milk. When picking sires, we look for bulls that are plus on milk and 2+ on type. If we need a tiebreaker, we’ll pick a bull that is A2A2. We use AAA as a mating tool. We use sexed semen in our flushing program, and 75% of our heifers are used as recipients. If we were strictly a commercial herd, our genetics would play a bigger role in production. With some of the bulls we use, cows start out slower, but by her second lactation, she’s making a huge record. We breed for type, not so much for production. If we have type, we’re going to get production. If we just have production, we’re never going to get the type.

List three management strategies that have helped you attain your production and component level. 1. Getting cows off to a great start each lactation; this starts the day they go dry, just by taking good care of them. 2. Harvesting forages at the proper time; we try our hardest to make the best haylage we can, which can be very stressful with the weather. We also want to make sure corn is chopped at the right time, but corn silage has a bigger window than haylage. With haylage, you can lose protein and digestibility so much faster, which is why we try our best to shoot for that optimal harvest window to get high-quality forage. 3. Having a great crew in the parlor; they let us know if there is a problem or if a cow has issues. That gives us the ability to get her turned around before it’s too late. Communication with the parlor is key.

Tell us about your farm and your plans for the dairy in the next year. My parents, Ben and Jane, bought this farm in 1988. They moved here with 40 cows and grew it to where it is today. I’ve been very blessed to work alongside my father, learning what he knows while running a farm and taking care of the cattle. We farm 725 acres and rank fourth in the nation with a BAA of 109.3 for herds with 250 cows or more. We’re a family farm, and this year we look forward to working with our children as they get more involved with doing chores and showing cattle. We also plan to improve our commodity shed.