Barn Full of Memories:

Jim March
Dodgeville, Wisconsin

Within this feature the Dairy Star  catches up to retired farmers to talk about the ups and downs they had when dairy farming. The feature includes how each individual farm changed throughout the farmer’s career and what each has been doing since they hung the milkers up.

What year did you start farming and what year did you retire? I started farming on my own in 1979. I grew up on our family farm, and in 1979, my younger brother, Roy, and I bought it from my mother.  

Tell us about your farm when you started and describe what it looked like when you retired, including how many cows you milked when you retired. We always stayed between that 50- to 60-cow range. That was pretty much it throughout our time on the farm. In 1987, Roy left and went out on his own. From there, we never really changed. We stayed with that number of cows. At that point, we started finishing out steers at Roy’s and we rented some land. On the home farm, we had about 176 acres, and at one point, rented 35 from another neighbor. 

What were some of the big advancements you made during your career? We had a few big advancements throughout my career. The biggest ones were the installation of the pipeline and barn cleaner and the skid loader. My dad put in the pipeline in the early 1960s, and in the 1980s, we added the barn cleaner. The skid loader might have been the best thing invented. It saved a lot of hand labor. 

What did you love about milking cows? I really liked the growth of the heifers. You calve them in and you take care of them, make sure they are healthy growing up, and then they come into the herd. Seeing the full growth of our animals, and knowing we were helping take care of them, was really what I enjoyed the most. 

What was the highlight of your dairy career? In 2002, we built the house here on the farm. We built some other buildings around here, too, that helped us over the years. We had stayed in my childhood home, which was smaller than what we put up. It was an old square farmhouse, two stories with a rock wall basement that was getting bad. With the new house, we can sit in the kitchen and, because we are higher up on the hill, get a better view of the farm.

What is the biggest challenge you faced in your career and how did you overcome it? Some of those drought years were really tough. We always managed to find what we needed. The drought in 1988 was the worst. One of my classmates who was in the trucking business came into some hay out west. That helped us get through that year. We usually managed to come up with enough feed, or we’d sell enough cattle to get through the winter. Those years were always some of the most challenging

If there is one thing you wished you could have done differently during your farming career, what would it be? I think I would have tried to add more land when I could. We had land that came up for sale that we thought about buying, but the price at the time seemed too much. But 30 years down the road, that price looked pretty cheap. We didn’t want to stick our neck out at that time, but looking back, I wish we had added a few acres.

What piece of equipment or technology has been introduced that you wish you had for your dairy career? There have been so many advances in technology since I was farming. What amazes me the most now is the robots. We kind of wished that we had gone to robots, but we did just fine. Now, just like a pitchfork, everyone has the total mixed ration. I think TMR was better for the cow, but hindsight is always 20/20.

What do you miss most about dairy farming? I do miss the cows, but I think what I most miss is the people I got to work with. Whether you saw them every day or once every six weeks, there were always some I got along with really well. You don’t realize that they aren’t going to be coming by as often anymore when you don’t have the cows.

What advice would you give to a young farmer today? I think the biggest thing would be to watch your expenses, and it’s tough. It’s tough for these young guys to get going. I’m not sure what else I could tell them. But that is the biggest thing I can think of: make sure you have your expenses in check and you’re not overspending on things. We had older equipment and my son did a great job of making sure it ran in tip-top shape.

What is your tie to the dairy industry today? I don’t have much of a tie to the industry now. I keep up to date on some of the markets. I have some neighbors who are still milking, so I try to see how things are going.

Was retiring an easy or hard decision/transition? Selling the cows was a hard decision, but I got to the age where it was just hard to do it anymore. My son farmed with me for a bit before he wanted to do something else. If it wasn’t for him being here, I wouldn’t have lasted as long as I did. We milked in a barn that was half tie stall, half stanchion, and that was pretty tough on my body.

What have you been doing since you retired? I still work the crops, the corn and the beans. I rent out my ground to a young guy and he’s just kind of getting out on his own. He has some beef cows and uses the pasture here and he rents some of the buildings. Our driveway goes through the pasture, and it’s nice to see them every day. They’re a nice bunch of cattle.