D A I R Y I n i t i a t i v e s N E W S L E T T E R
V o l u m e 1 0 I s s u e 2 S u m m e r 2 0 0 1

Success Doesn't Always Mean Big

Supersizing is not the only way to make it in today's dairy environment. Here's how one dairy family found stability and improved quality of life while still making under 100 head.

JOSEPH KURTZ
Extension News, University of Minnesota

The 14-hour work days were taking their toll on Carver County dairy producers Jon and Jill Zieroth. So were the physical demands of cleaning stalls by hand and pushing a heavy feed cart through their tie-stall barn. Milking was especially demanding because there were more cows than stalls, so cows had to be moved in and out of the tie-stalls. Vacations were out of the question.

If they had to go back to that situation, says Jon, they wouldn't be dairying anymore.

"I can remember going to their place and Jon would be physically and mentally exhausted," recalls Carver County Extension educator Vern Oraskovich. "Now when you go there you see a totally different person."

Realizing that they were working too long and too hard to have a satisfying quality of life, the Zieroths made some changes in the late 1990s. They didn't go through a big expansion, though they did add a few cows (they're currently milking 90 head). They didn't hire outside labor. But they did find a way to have more family time, reduce the physical demands of farming, and even get away for vacations from time to time. A key step for the couple was building a 94' x 108' freestall barn. Another was converting the tie-stall barn to a double-four flat-barn milking parlor with a 16-inch step-up. They also stopped growing their own replacement heifers.

Need for Change

The Zieroth farm, north of Waconia, has been in the family since Jon's great-great-grandfather started farming there in 1877. Jon grew up working on the farm and went into partnership with his father, Loren, in 1983, three years after graduating from high school. Jill grew up in town in nearby Mayer. Jon and Jill are the parents of Geremy, 20; Nicole, 17; and Timmy, 7.

The Zieroths were milking about 60 cows in 1983 and 75 in 1994 when Loren retired and Jon and Jill bought full ownership of the 500-acre farm. They had added another 10 cows by 1996, though there were only 60 stalls in the barn. Jon and Geremy were doing the milking, while Loren helped with stall bedding and cleaning, barn cleaning, and moving cows in and out.

On a typical day they started milking at 6 a.m. and finished at 9:30. Feeding, bedding, and cleaning the barn took another three hours. Evening chores began at 4:30, and the work in the barn ended at 8 to 8:30 p.m.

The need for changes was obvious, especially with Geremy making plans to leave for college.

Analyzing Feasibility

The Zieroths worked closely with their lender to analyze the financial feasibility of changes and went through an analysis of their operation by a dairy diagnostics team.

"We started to do cash flows for a freestall barn and parlor," says Jon. "We took the actual take-home milk price for the three previous years, subtracted a dollar per hundredweight, and used that for the projected milk price. We subtracted a thousand pounds from our rolling herd milk production average and used that for projected production. We took actual per-cow expenses for breeding, veterinary care, and utilities. These were the figures we used for the financial projections."

The loan was approved, but not due to having plenty of up-front money. "We borrowed 100 percent of the money for the freestall barn and parlor," Jon says.

The Zieroths moved their cows into the new 100-stall freestall barn in July 1999, then began remodeling the tie-stall barn into a flat-barn parlor. The first day of milking in the new parlor was August 23, 1999.

Shortly before construction began on the new freestall barn, the Zieroths sent their replacement heifers to a custom grower about 15 miles away. They had to either do this or build new heifer housing, since the new freestall barn was built where the heifers had been housed.

Looking Up

Today, things are definitely looking up on the Zieroth farm.

Jon had his doubts about not raising his own heifers, although "it was proven on paper they could be raised as cheap or cheaper" by a custom grower. Now, he says he's satisfied with the arrangement. "They're coming back at a good weight, to calve at the right age," he says. "I'm not looking to get back in the heifer business."

With the freestall barn came a change to feeding a total mixed ration using a tractor and TMR mixer wagon. Feeding in the tie-stall barn had involved using a feed cart and separate feedings of hayage, corn silage, protein, minerals, and grain.

The new barn also eliminated cleaning tie-stalls by hand. The Zieroths use a skid-steer loader to clean the freestall barn.

After the cows were moved into the freestall barn, the herd milk production average climbed by 4,000 pounds to 21,700 pounds. Jon attributes the increase to greater cow comfort.

Jon says the new system cuts almost an hour off the milking time. One person scrapes the freestall barn while the other is milking. The only chores after milking are scraping the holding area and feeding. Instead of finishing the morning work at 12:30 to 1 p.m., the Zieroths are now done at 9:30 to 10 a.m., with one less person working. Initially, the Zieroths had talked about hiring a full-time worker to help out. But the new system is efficient enough that they have only had to hire occasional part-time help.

"A Lot Nicer"

What do the changes mean for the family?

"It makes it a lot nicer-you don't feel quite as tied down," says Jon. "With the old barn and switching cows in and out of the tie-stalls, we had to have three people there at milking time. And we couldn't bring in outside people to milk because it was impossible for them to know what to do.

"Now if we want to hire people to milk, they only have to come for one milking to see how it's done. If we want to take off we can get someone to do the chores now."

"There's more time for field work in the spring and fall now," says Jill. "And it's easier to go on vacation. We've been able to go to Hawaii for vacations twice in the past three years. Before, we wouldn't have considered that."

Jon says getting out of the barn earlier makes it easier to attend the kids' school events. "If we want to leave the barn a half hour before milking is done, one person can finish up," he says. "Before, it took two at a minimum.

"Now it's possible for one person to handle everything, if necessary. I've done everything by myself a couple of times."

Jill says she has noticed that Jon is now a lot more relaxed. "He even gets to take a nap once in a great while," she says.

"It's just a lot less stressful all the way around," says Jon. "Everyone knows what needs to be done; we get it done; then we can go play."

Diagnostic Team

Charley Streiff, ag loan officer at the First National Bank of Waconia, has been working with the Zieroths for more than eight years. "They have been wonderful to work with and have kept excellent records," he says.

Streiff was a member of the diagnostic team that analyzed the Zieroth operation. Oraskovich was also on the team, along with a veterinarian, a nutritionist, a milk plant field person, and another dairy producer.

"The fact that a dairy family goes through that process with the diagnostic team says a lot about their attitude about management," says Streiff.

He notes that the Zieroths are a relatively young farm family who either had to get more labor efficient or get out of dairying. There are a number of similar situations in Carver County and elsewhere in Minnesota, he adds.

"From a personal perspective, these types of projects are the ones I feel proudest of, where we've helped a younger dairy farmer stay on the farm and become more efficient," he says.

Oraskovich says families such as the Zieroths show it's not necessary to add several hundred cows to an operation and hire lots of labor to meet lifestyle goals and be successful.

"There are many people who want to make mid-size or smaller-scale expansions," he says. "Many of them want to have a less labor-intensive way to continue their operation. To accomplish this, it's not necessary to build a $250,000 milking parlor. Changes such as the Zieroths have made, such as putting in a freestall barn and a flat-barn parlor, can help many families meet their goals."

To learn more about how changes like those the Zieroths made might benefit your farm, contact Extension educator Kevin Janni at 612/625-3108.

D A I R Y I n i t i a t i v e s N E W S L E T T E R
Volume 10 Issue 2 Summer 2001