Koesters focus on genetics to achieve high production

The Koester family, Koester Dairy Inc. Dakota, Illinois | Stephenson County | 400 cows

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 current herd average is 35,493 pounds of milk, 1,595 pounds of butterfat and 1,135 pounds protein, with tests of 4.5% butterfat and 3.2% protein.

Describe your housing and milking facility. All cows are housed in a 6-row, sand-bedded freestall barn and milked in a double-12 parallel parlor. Cows are housed in two groups: 2-year-olds and fresh cows in one group and cows in their second lactation and higher in another group. All cows receive the same ration. Heifers reside in a separate barn on a bedded pack until 8 months of age before moving to sand-bedded free stalls.

Who is part of your farm team, and what are their roles? Dan and Amber Koester farm with their children — Lance, Kyle, Brent and Bria — as well as Lance’s wife, Cynthia, and several employees. Dan is the herdsman and Amber helps with calves and babysits the grandchildren. Lance manages crops and mixes feed; Kyle is also a herdsman, on the milking crew and manages the farm business; Brent helps with calves, milking and crops; Bria helps with calves and milking; and Cynthia is on the milking crew. The farm’s employees include Caleb Heck, Dan Cary, Tito Hurtado, Dan Ziegler and Casie Mawanda, who help with milking and crops.

What is your herd health program? We conduct herd health with our veterinarian, Dr. Abe Trone of Lena Veterinary Clinic, every Monday morning. We follow a consistent vaccination program in which animals are usually given one vaccine at a time. Heifers receive Bovi-Shield, SRP and Ultrabac at 8 months and 12 months of age. Lactating cows get Bovi-Shield and Endovac after they freshen. Cows receive Vira Shield at dry off and SRP and Endovac during the dry period.

What does your dry cow and transition program consist of? Cows are dry for 7 weeks and housed in the freestall barn where they are fed a straw-based, dietary cation-anion difference diet.
They start in the far-off dry cow pen and move to the closeup pen 3-4 weeks before calving.
When cows are close to calving, they move to the calving pen, which features a bedded pack. They enter the milk cow group 24 hours post-calving.                                                              

What is the composition of your ration, and how has that changed in recent years? Our milk cow ration consists of corn silage, haylage, ground corn, gluten pellets, bean meal, cottonseed, protein mix and molasses. We feed once a day and push up feed about 10 times a day. We have not really changed our ration other than to make minor adjustments as needed.

Tell us about the forages you plant and detail your harvest strategies. We farm around 1,000 acres and plant haylage and brown midrib corn silage. We do five cuttings of alfalfa, which we harvest every four weeks on a 28-day cutting schedule. We keep an alfalfa stand for three years. We do all our own harvesting except for chopping corn silage, which we hire a custom operator for. After we take off corn silage, we double-crop rye on a portion of acres to chop for heifer feed and come back with soybeans. This has worked well for us and yields 65 bushels of beans per acre.

What is your average somatic cell count and how does that affect your production? Our somatic cell count averages between 100,000-150,000 throughout the year. We strive to maintain a low cell count, but with higher production, it can be more challenging. We look at SCC and mastitis resistance when picking bulls. Our goal is to use bulls that are under 2.80 for SCC.

What change has created the biggest improvement in your herd average? We have been over 30,000 pounds of milk for a long time, and our production has been pretty consistent for the past 10 years. We have seen the biggest change in production through an increase in components, specifically butterfat percent. Years ago, our butterfat was at 3.7%-3.8%. Today, it is 4.5%. A lot of that increase is due to genetics. Every bull we pick has high components; some are extremely high for components.

What technology do you use to monitor your herd? We installed the SenseHub activity monitoring system two years ago, which provides health and reproduction alerts. All cows and breeding-age heifers wear a SenseHub ear tag. The system has helped improve reproduction and helps us identify health issues sooner.

What is your breeding program, and what role does genetics play in your production level? Our goal is to keep increasing the genetic level of our herd. All our animals are genomically tested, and we use this data for matings, flushing and merchandising decisions. We use the top bulls and had our first animal hit +3000 for Type Production Index a few years ago. Today, we probably have 70-80 animals at that level. We try to focus on making cows with a balance of production, type and health traits. Our current herd favorite, K-Star Renegade Affect-ET, is a perfect example of this. As a 3-year-old, she made 53,320 pounds of milk, 2,678 pounds of butterfat and 1,720 pounds of protein in 365 days, with tests of 5.0% butterfat and 3.2% protein. She scored Excellent 91 with a 93-point mammary system in her second lactation. Her grandson, K-Star-FS Alcatraz-ET, was recently released at Select Sires. We have more than 20 daughters out of Affect with more to come. We do a lot of embryo transfer work, especially on two families that are high in components. We breed for average to above-average stature with enough strength, width and capacity to maintain production.

List three management strategies that have helped you attain your production and component level. Quality forages, cow comfort and genetics. We work with our nutritionist, Gerrit DeBruin, quite a bit to ensure we produce the highest quality forages and feed the highest quality ration. He has been with us since we built our new facility 15 years ago. One thing we’ve changed over the years is to look more at amino acids. To ensure cow comfort, we built our freestall barn with 50-inch-wide stalls that we bed with sand. We installed rubber belting by the feed bunk, which provides nice traction and allows cows to stand on rubber when eating. We also have rubber flooring in the parlor for added comfort for cows while being milked. In the barn, there are fans over the headlocks and on the outside rows as well as above the stalls. We also have sprinklers that run on timers. In addition, we place a lot of emphasis on genetics. When choosing sires, we pick bulls that are over 3200 for Genomic TPI and at least 1.5 for type and udders with an acceptable daughter pregnancy rate. We use high-genomic bulls, and sometimes we use pre-released semen in our in vitro fertilization program.

Tell us about your farm and your plans for the dairy in the next year. Koester Dairy is home to K-Star Registered Holsteins — a 100% homebred herd. Dan is the third generation on the farm, which has been in our family for many years. We ship our milk to Klondike Cheese Company in Monroe, Wisconsin. We have won the Herd of Excellence award eight times and the Progressive Genetics Herd award 33 times. We sell about 100 young dairy cows every year to other dairy producers. In the next year, we plan to continue improving and keeping our cows healthy and producing well. Each day is a new challenge, and we try to do the best we can.