66th Annual HOARD’S DAIRYMAN ROUND TABLE
They share their best buys and decisions
Certain investments of time and money reaped great rewards for these four farms.
by Hoard’s Dairyman staff
E
VERY farm is unique. Over time,
each dairy producer must figure out
what works best for them and what
investments make the most sense.
We asked these four dairies to share their best
buys or decisions made in the past 10 years on all
areas of the farm.
Housing and cow comfort?
Buessing Holsteins: Doing our own construction: Working with my cousins and uncles, we have
built a hay and commodity shed, three pit silos,
three freestall barns, three manure pits, a dry cow
shed, a calf barn, a weaned calf shed, heifer feed
lines, a bedded pack heifer shed, and a shop. Doing
our own work saved me hundreds of thousands of
dollars. We ended up with very nice, labor-efficient
facilities for one-third to one-half of the cost.
Royalwood Farms: Sand-bedded freestalls:
Using washed sand bedding helps us maintain a
low somatic cell count, keeps cows cleaner, and
gives them a comfortable stall, which encourages
more lying.
More ventilation: During the summer months,
heat abatement is essential to keeping cows in
peak production.
Converting a four-row barn into a six-row barn:
Looking at ways we could add more cows with
minimal cost, we found our barn was capable of
being added onto from the outside without inhibiting airflow in our naturally ventilated system.
Schaap Dairies: Sand bedding: Housing in
the Southwest is very simple. Most open lot dairies have shades and sloped pens for rain runoff.
We put sand under our shades in June to fill any
holes and for added cow comfort. During the hot
weather, we harrow pens weekly.
United Dairies: Sand bedding: Over the past
10 years, we have committed to converting all of
our barns to sand bedding. We chose to do this to
improve cow comfort, pregnancy rates, lameness,
mastitis prevalence, and to reduce slipping injuries in the colder months. There is a hard cost on
what it took to switch everything over, but it is
very difficult to quantify all the benefits that have
followed. It made our old facilities more habitable
with the growing size of the Holsteins.
Herd health and sick cow care?
Buessing Holsteins: Hoof trimming class: By
taking a hoof trimming class with Jan Shearer
from Iowa State University, I learned the proper
way to trim and treat hooves.
Herd management class: Another beneficial
class I took was taught by Mike Brouk at Kansas
State University. We covered several ways to detect, treat, and prevent health problems, which
have helped me improve my herd’s overall health.
Royalwood Farms: Drenchmate cow pump:
This tool makes pumping cows easier and quicker.
Water treatment system using hydrogen peroxide and LPC-5 from Hawkins Inc.: This system
was added to aid in our water system since we use
well water in our plate cooler, which is then used
HOARD’S DAIRYMAN
Buessing Holsteins, Baileyville, Kan.
738
More than anything, fourthgeneration dairyman Brent Buessing of Buessing Holsteins feels
his investment in education has
benefited him as a dairyman. The
Kansas State University graduate
owns the Baileyville, Kan., farm
with his wife, Kara.
Labor efficiency is another key to
their success, and Brent, his dad,
Vern, and three high school students make up the farm’s entire labor force. The addition of an automatic calf feeder a few years ago is
just one example of how the farm
operates with less people power.
December 2016
The herd of 250 registered Holsteins averages 26,608 pounds
of milk, with 3.7 percent fat, 3.2
percent protein, and a 180,000
average somatic cell count. Cows
are milked 2x in a double-12
parallel parlor and are housed
in a trio of three-row monoslope
freestall barns they built themselves with help from extended
family. All young stock are raised
on the farm. The Buessings own
and operate 320 crop acres as well,
growing corn and alfalfa.
Pictured are Brent, Kara, and
their children, Kadence and Cole.
to water all the cows. Since adding the system, we
have noticed healthier cows and better production.
Johne’s testing: We use our DHIA milk test as
a means to Johne’s test all cows that will be going dry. The results are recorded and used to flag
cows that will be calving to keep newborn calves
safer. Cows that test positive are culled.
Schaap Dairies: Discontinued use of intramammary tubes: Mastitis treatment is an area we have
learned to keep simple. We quit using intramammary tubes five years ago. Cows with mastitis are put
in a hospital pen and stripped daily. If temperature
is elevated, we use aspirin, or when a cow is sick beyond the mastitis, we will treat it accordingly.
United Dairies: Low stocking rate: At each of
our facilities, we have a designated special needs
or hospital pen. These pens tend to be stocked
at 80 percent or less most of the year. This helps
cows get back to normal health faster. We can
also watch over them more closely. At our fresh
cow facility, we also keep any slightly lame, oversized, and older cows rather than moving them to
another farm to minimize risk of injury.
Parlor or milking equipment?
Buessing Holsteins: Turner Inc. stalls: These
stalls are very durable and problem-free.
Catch pens: We have catch pens on each exit
lane to treat and breed cows.
Goossen Moo-ver Dairy Crowd Gate: These
gates are very affordable and very effective.
Royalwood Farms: Peroxide teat foamer: The
Royalwood Farms, Brandon, S.D.
The Ode family of Brandon, S.D.,
owns and operates Royalwood
Farms. The farm is an LLC between
Robert Ode and his sons, Gregg and
Doug. Gregg heads up the finances,
employees, and feeding, while Doug
takes care of genetics, reproduction,
fresh cows, and calf care. Gregg’s
son, Alex, is the fifth generation to
be involved with the operation.
Their Holstein herd of 380 cows
averages 30,426 pounds of milk,
with 3.7 percent fat, 3.0 percent
protein, and a 200,000 somatic
cell count. Cows are milked 3x in a
double-8 parallel parlor. A four-row
barn was converted into a six-row
freestall barn to house the milking
herd. Dry cows are kept on pasture and supplemented with TMR.
Calves are raised in individual
hutches and then transitioned into
groups housed on open lots with
drive-by feeding. They also raise
dairy steers up to 500 pounds.
The farm runs 800 acres of
owned and rented farmland. The
decision to utilize custom planters
and harvesters for their crops has
allowed the family to focus their
energy on the dairy herd. Pictured
are Doug, Gregg, and Alex Ode.
66th Annual HOARD’S DAIRYMAN ROUND TABLE
Art and Renee Schaap and their
family own and operate Art Schaap
Dairies in Clovis, N.M. The 5,800cow milking herd of Holsteins, Jerseys, and crossbreds is housed on
three sites. Highland Dairy and
Back Nine Dairy are conventional
operations, while Native Pastures
Dairy is organic.
All three dairies use open lots
with shades. Most pens also have
wind breaks. Heifers are raised on
grass ranches for a majority of the
year and on drylots during the winter months. Calves are housed in
individual hutches. The herd aver-
ages 22,000 pounds of milk on 3x
milking, with 4.0 percent fat and
3.5 percent protein. Average somatic
cell count is 220,000. With nearly
6,000 acres of crop and pastureland,
the farm grows about 90 percent of
its forage silages and purchases hay
from local farmers.
Besides the dairy, the Schaaps are
also part owners in a cheese plant, a
feed and milk testing lab, and an offload rail feed service and trucking
business. Pictured are Art (center);
his son Ryan, general manager at
Highland Dairy; and Jorge Soloman,
herd manager at Highland Dairy.
teat foamer helps get full coverage on every teat
and controls waste of predip.
Double-8 parallel parlor: Our double-8 parallel
parlor was purchased used when it was less than
3 years old. We kept costs down and still got the
style of parlor we were looking for.
PC Dart with DHIA: These two items go hand in
hand. PC Dart keeps all cow data and records organized and within spreadsheets that can help us
evaluate data. DHIA gives us cow data and test results that can be used within those spreadsheets.
Schaap Dairies: ECAL Logical machine: This
machine makes a concentrated chlorine out of
salt. We use the concentrate to clean pipelines
and disinfect areas of the dairy. We also use concentrated chlorine as a predip. It is mixed with
water and a soap concentrate.
Chiller system from WHRL Solutions: This
chiller recovers heat from the compressor to make
hot water. Both this and the ECAL Logical machine are money-saving equipment.
United Dairies: BECO Pulsation Monitoring
system: One of our best investments has been the
BECO Pulsation Monitoring system. It ensures that
our milking equipment is always working, and repairs to the pulsators are easy to do. This system
also tracks parlor throughput, unit on/off time, and
helps ensure that the employees are following a consistent routine 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
BouMatic Front End Conversion package: We
updated one of our parlors with the BouMatic
Front End Conversion package, which was crucial to help prevent injuries. This improved cow
throughput as well.
Nutrition, feeding, and feed storage?
Buessing Holsteins: Balance own rations:
The best decision I made was to learn how to do
my own nutrition work from John Shirley at Kansas State University. It has allowed me to bid out
rations at different feed mills. Centralized feed
area: Centralized feed commodities and silages
United Dairies LLP, Watkins, Minn.
United Dairies LLP is a group of
four dairies located in Minnesota.
One site houses dry cows, fresh
cows, and calves up to 120 days of
age for the other three operations.
Cows spend 21 to 30 days at the
fresh cow facility before traveling to
one of the other locations based on
age. Cows return to the fresh cow
location to be dried off at the end of
their lactation. The farm also leases
a heifer raising operation in Kansas.
All four locations have sand-bedded freestall barns and parallel
milking parlors. The herd of 6,400
Holsteins averages 27,950 pounds
all in one area save me time.
Royalwood Farms: Shredlage: This harvesting process has helped us improve milk production and cow health.
Professional nutritionist: Our nutritionist, Jason
Prins, does a great job evaluating the cows, looking
at milk production, fat, and protein, and tweaks
the ration to best maximize our current feedstuffs
as well as keep costs down and production up.
Forage over 150 RFV: Putting up high-quality
haylage and dry hay over 150 RFV (relative feed
value) makes getting more milk that much easier
because cows are getting adequate protein and
proper ADF and NDF levels.
Schaap Dairies: Bypass fat/Rumensin: That
is all we use for feed additives. We test our forages biweekly for dry matter and adjust if we have
any fresh cow problems.
Storage: Feed is stored in cement bunkers or on
caliche pads.
United Dairies: Professional consultants: Our
operations rely on Don Deetz and King Hickman of
GPS Dairy Consultants to help manage our nutrition and animal health. With their team, they put
on feeder schools, custom harvester training meetings, and utilize many of their partners in the industry to help audit and correct issues that arise.
We have had some really good nutritionists
and tech service employees in the last 10 years
who have helped us streamline feeding, from
minimizing shrink to improving quality. Tom
Oelberg of Diamond V spent many years on our
farms developing his TMR audits, which helped
us decide which brand of mixers worked the best
and how we can load and unload mixers to minimize
any errors.
Heat detection, breeding, or genetics?
Buessing Holsteins: Select Detect: We have
had the system since 2012. We went from a pregnancy rate of 14 to 16 percent to a rate of 24 to 27
percent in two years.
of milk with 3.8 percent fat and 3.1
percent protein on 3x milking. Close
to 3,000 acres of owned and rented
land is used for cropping.
Steven Landwehr serves as general
manager for all four of the dairies.
Pictured are Steven (right) and Jeff
Borst, herd manager for Union Dairy,
their Sauk Centre, Minn., location.
“Our best buy has been investing in our employees,” said Steven.
“When there is an opportunity for
employees to go to training courses, or when outside resources are
available for farm meetings, take
advantage of those opportunities.”
Select Sires: We use all Select Sire bulls and
use the Select Mating Service (SMS).
Royalwood Farms: Reproductive hormone
therapy (double ovsynch, 7-2-1) and timed A.I.:
With more cows producing more milk, and with life
busy as usual, you can’t always have eyes in the
barn catching every heat. Hormone therapy programs give us the exact days that breeding needs
to take place and aids us in getting cows pregnant.
Proven genetics: Proven genetics from semen
companies helps us select bulls that fit our style
and what we are trying to do on our farm. Knowing
that we are using the top bulls to start with gives
us confidence that we are always progressing.
A.I. breeding: A.I. has been a blessing to us and
the industry. It gives everyone access to great genetics and improves safety. We know our employees are
much safer by not having a bull on the farm.
Schaap Dairies: Heat detection: Spray aerosols
and tail chalk are our methods of heat detection.
A.I. sires: Utilizing ABS, Genex, and Alta, we try
to find a good bull and stick to it. We have one dairy
that is all Jersey/Brown Swiss/Holstein crosses,
and we are breeding some Holsteins to Jersey and
some Jerseys to Holstein. That is always a work in
progress. We want to keep an F1 style animal.
Herd health checks: Our vet check is every two
weeks. Cows on our conventional dairies are reenrolled to an ovsynch program if found open.
United Dairies: A.I. company support: United
Dairies has relied on Byron Anderson of Alta Genetics since 2006 to help improve genetics and train
our staff on breeding and heat detection. We have
been able to develop a team with Alta’s support. We
don’t have to stress about breeding because of the
continued monitoring and ongoing training.
Synchronization: We utilize double ovsynch with
a chalk and breed protocol. First-lactation animals
have an 80-day voluntary waiting period (VWP)
and can be cherry picked as soon as they are 50
(Continued on following page)
December 2016
HOARD’S DAIRYMAN
Art Schaap Dairies, Clovis, N.M.
739
66th Annual HOARD’S DAIRYMAN ROUND TABLE
(Continued from previous page)
days in milk (DIM). Second-lactation or greater
cows have a 72-day VWP and can be cherry picked
at 50 DIM. This allows us to get close to 25 to 33
percent of the herd pregnant prior to their VWP.
On our leased heifer operation, we use MGA (melengestrol acetate) synchronization to minimize
labor. At the custom grower, they are bred with
tail chalk heat detection. We primarily use sexed
semen on heifers. We are also breeding all first
service standing heats on our first-lactation cows
to help grow our operation and improve genetics at
a faster pace.
Employee training and management?
Buessing Holsteins: Labor efficiency: I am
constantly striving to be labor efficient. Examples
of this are my centralized feeding area, automatic calf feeder, and double-12 milking parlor. Any
time I build or buy anything, I always keep in
mind how it can make us more labor efficient.
Royalwood Farms: Working with employees:
We work alongside employees regardless of the
task. We know there are some jobs that no one enjoys, but if we are the first ones to grab a pitchfork
or shovel, it shows our employees that we aren’t
above them. This makes them feel more respected.
Teamwork: We aim to teach employees to care
and help them feel like they are a part of the big
picture. Asking employees for their input makes
them feel like they have ownership. It also lets us
know what they are seeing on a day-to-day basis
and if there are some recurring problems that
they may have solutions for.
Written protocols: Set protocols ensure that
vaccinations are not missed, milking is consistent, and that everyone is handling situations the
same. We have protocols for newborn calves, fresh
cows, drying off cows, moving calves and heifers,
milking, and so forth.
Training and classes: Any time there is an opportunity to learn, we as owners always seem to
make time for it. We feel that employees should
get the benefits that go along with these learning
opportunities as well. Continuing to improve our
employees helps the dairy improve as well.
Schaap Dairies: Employee handbook: All employees receive a handbook of protocols, farm safety
instructions, and animal welfare guidelines. We
post signs and are constantly letting employees
know we care about them and our farm. All three
farms have separate teams, but we try to use the
same procedures on all three operations.
United Dairies: Promotion: We always look to
promote from within, which helps motivate people.
Training: Over the years, we have utilized Carlos Tellez of People First/Alta Genetics to help
train our managers and key employees. This was
a very important investment to help build trust
and teamwork. We were very fortunate to be part
of People First’s pilot program in building the
leadership and management training because of
the long-standing relationship with Carlos. We
have had the privilege to work with Jeff Johnson
of Land O’Lakes, Jesse Randall of Zoetis, Jorge
Delgado of Alltech/Elanco, and Erin Royster of the
University of Minnesota to help train the milking
and cow handling crews.
HOARD’S DAIRYMAN
Calves and heifers?
Buessing Holsteins: Automatic calf feeders:
The feeders save on labor. Initially, we had some
respiratory problems with the barn. We started
changing bedding much more frequently, and
that has seemed to solve the problem.
Head locks: For breeding heifers, this has been
extremely useful.
Bedded pack shed for heifers: Heifers are protected from the weather, and we have high-quality
manure to spread on fields.
740
December 2016
Royalwood Farms: Calf protocols: We give
all calves Calf-Guard, Enforce 3, and 1/2 to 1
gallon of high-quality colostrum. Providing the
proper vaccines and antibodies to a newborn calf
has proven essential to getting the herd into top
shape from the start. This carries with them the
rest of their productive life.
Perfect Udder Colostrum bag: These bags are
great for always having colostrum available. If a
cow calves late at night, or a fresh cow doesn’t produce colostrum, you can always have some stored
in the freezer, and it doesn’t take long to thaw.
Concrete: Our heifers used to be on open dirt
lots, but through the years we have poured concrete in all of them to help with feeding, bedding,
and to enhance feed efficiencies since heifers don’t
have to fight the mud.
Schaap Dairies: Calf protocols: Every morning we have a route to pick up calves and waste
milk. Milk is mixed with hot water and milk replacer, depending on the volume of milk collected
that day. Cleanliness is the main goal for the
baby calves. Make sure you have plenty of hot water available in the calf feeding area.
Calves are housed in individual hutches with
sand bedding. We use sand year-around unless a
snowstorm hits; in that case, we use cotton burrs
to keep them warmer. All calves are tagged to
identify the dairy they’re from and their birthdates. All heifers return to the farm where they
were born to be bred A.I.
United Dairies: Committed calf staff: Keeping
calves at the calf facility until 120 days of age is
one of our strongest assets. We have a very welltrained staff committed to growing healthy, strong
calves. These people understand that they control
a large proportion of our destiny in their hands.
Low death loss: We strive to maintain a 0.5 percent death loss year-round. We feel that this in
not only a goal but a necessity. We need to retain
as close to 100 percent of our heifers as possible,
and it starts at birth. The better we do on the calf
facility in turn helps eliminate issues at the heifer grower and subsequently in the milking herd
as well. By maintaining this high standard, it allows us to start breeding heifers at 370 days old
weighing around 840 to 860 pounds. When we do
these things right, it reduces our breeding costs,
results in more uniform size at calving, and creates a tighter bell curve of calvings.
Crops, equipment, and manure?
Buessing Holsteins: Shared equipment: I own
a silage cutter with my cousins. We work together
to harvest silage, saving us a great deal of money.
Cover crops: Cover crops are great for soil
health and also save on feed costs by providing
fall grazing (oats) and spring silage (rye).
Royalwood Farms: Crop consultant: Our crop
consultant helps us manage our ground for highquality forage production and ensures proper nutrient application. The value of their assistance is
hard to put a number on since they keep an eye
on weed pressure, pests, and fertility. This allows
us to keep our minds on the cows.
Custom hired planting, chopping, and harvesting: With the price of equipment and technology,
many years ago we decided that doing all the crop
farming was too much to handle and too much capital to have sitting around for a few days of use per
year. For that reason, we started custom hiring our
planting, chopping, and harvesting. By doing this,
we have been able to focus solely on the dairy, we
don’t have to worry about equipment breakdowns,
and we can put capital investment elsewhere. It
also helps keep the cost of production down.
Soil grid sampling: This is a technology that
has helped the crop consultant and our custom
hired planters. We now know the fertility of spe-
cific fields and where we need to improve the fertility. We can variable rate plant specific areas
and keep production per acre high and cost low by
not applying unneeded nutrients.
Schaap Dairies: Planned manure application:
Liquid manure is pumped to center pivots on our
farmland. Dry manure is hauled to fields and
dry spread. We do a corn, wheat, sorghum rotation and spread manure on land every other year.
Soils are sampled every year in the spring.
United Dairies: Mapping and monitoring: We
use John Deere RTK (Real-Time Kinematic) GPS
and swath control with prescription mapping to
help reduce input costs and eliminate overlapping
and overapplying of the products we put in the
fields. We also have yield and moisture monitoring
on our choppers to make sure we are harvesting
at the right time.
Some custom harvesting: We take care of about
50 to 60 percent of the harvesting internally and
hire out the rest to another custom harvester that
has a dedicated crew solely for our operation.
BMR corn silage: We have utilized Mycogen
BMR (brown midrib) corn for close to 16 years to
help improve feed quality and reduce ration costs
while feeding high silage diets.
Kernel processing: We use shredlage rolls to improve kernel processing and to help ensure we get
every bit of starch from the grain in our corn silage.
Reduced lignin alfalfa: Recently, we planted 330
acres of Croplan HarvXtra alfalfa as a pilot program to see how it feeds in dairy cattle. We are excited to see what comes out of this feeding study.
Manure equipment: We expanded our custom
cropping harvesting business by purchasing our
own manure equipment. We felt that getting the
liquid manure applied in a timely manner, cost efficiently, and at proper rates will improve relationships with our neighbors and contract growers.
What was your best buy or decision?
Buessing Holsteins: Education has been my
best investment of time and money. I had a great
relationship with my adviser John Shirley at Kansas State University. He knew I wanted to take
over my dad’s dairy. He also knew the challenges
I would face, and he guided me to take several finance classes and all of the dairy classes offered.
We talked weekly about a lot of different topics,
but often it was about how to succeed in the dairy
business. He encouraged me to always find more
efficient or productive ways of doing things and
how to break down every purchase and decision
into its return on investment.
Royalwood Farms: Our two best decisions
were converting from conventionally processed
corn silage to a shredlage processor and installing
a water treatment system. These two changes were
made at about the same time a few years ago. We
have never been able to fully identify which one did
the trick, but we saw an almost instant daily 10- to
15-pound milk production increase per cow.
Schaap Dairies: Extra milk storage and cooling
has been our best buy. We installed extra cooling
capabilities for our milk and have been happy with
that. We also added an extra milk tank at one of
the dairies for emergencies, like when a chiller goes
down or for unexpected storms.
United Dairies: Our best decision has been investing in employees. People are what make your
business. When there is an opportunity for employees to go to training courses, or when outside
resources are available for on-farm meetings, you
need to take advantage of them. People management and leadership skills are a must when you are
growing a business, and you need that core group
of people to help you get to the next level. It is so
important to our operation to continually invest in
the needs of the employees to be successful.
Used by permission from the December 2016 issue of Hoard’s Dairyman.
Copyright 2016 by W.D. Hoard & Sons Company, Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin.