Ripp's Dairy Valley Focuses on Future

By Crystal McNett - Assistant Editor
Friday, November 3, 2006 4:22 PM CST

Modern isn't quite the right word to describe Ripp's Dairy Valley.

Progressive seems to fit a little better.

Brothers Gary, Chuck and Troy Ripp own and operate Ripp's Dairy Valley near Dane. Currently milking 680 to 700 cows year-round, the total herd is 780 cows. The herd averages 28,400 pounds of milk with a 3.5 percent fat test and a 3.0 percent protein test on three-times per day milking. They are currently getting 85 to 90 pounds per cow in the bulk tank.

"We want to make sure that we leave an opportunity for the next generation, if they want to farm, to be able to continue to modernize the operation," Troy says.

The next generation consists of Gary and his wife Peggy's children Clint, 27; Samantha, 18; Jacob, 16; and Heather, 12. Chuck and his wife Jenny have three children, Kaliyn, 10; Riley, 7; and Morgan, 18 months. Troy and his wife Joann also have three children, Mason, 8; Courtney, 7; and Romi Jo, 18 months.

The brothers, along with their parents Roy and Eileen Ripp, made the first big expansion decision back in 1994 when they built their first sand bedded, four-row, 212-stall freestall. At that time they were milking 150 to 180 cows in their 66-stall stanchion barn.

By 1996 the herd had grown to 300 cows, still being milked in the stanchion barn. With a large family of nine kids spreading out the chores, the barn was maximized for cow flow as four or five people were milking at all times.

As Gary, Chuck and Troy continued planning to expand the dairy, they wanted to make sure everything was as ergonomic as possible as they saw how milking in a stanchion barn affected their father's physical health. Through the expansion, Roy contributed his ideas but stepped back from much of the physical labor in 1998.

"We'd have him for consulting and then he'd go to church and pray for us," Troy laughs.

They continued to buy springing heifers here and there to build up the herd for another expansion. In 1997-98 they planned to build another freestall barn and a parlor.

"We did a lot of touring of other dairies to see what was working and how farmers were liking their setups," Chuck explains.

In the summer and fall of 1999 they built another freestall barn and their parlor. The second freestall barn is a sand-bedded, 300-stall, five-row barn. The parlor is a double-16 Boumatic Expressway parallel parlor.

By January of 2000, when they began milking in the parlor, the herd was up to over 400 cows. By June of that year they were up to 550 cows. The Ripps purchased a large number of springing heifers to facilitate the rapid expansion.

Until this time, the Ripps were utilizing a number of high school kids to help with all of the work of milking in a 66-stall stanchion barn and moving to the parlor.

"Then football season came and we lost most of our crew," Chuck laughs. "It was right around then, that a couple Hispanics drove in the driveway looking for work and we needed the help."

In 2001 the Ripps decided it was time to focus on transition cows and built another freestall barn. This barn is a 300-stall, mattress, six-row barn, built to house dry cows, pre-fresh cows, post-fresh cows and the hospital cows. It also has maternity pens for calving.

"We're true believers that sand is the best thing for cows," said Chuck. But with the manure-handling set-up they had at the time, there wasn't a good way to accommodate sand in this barn so they chose to use mattresses and bed with rice hulls.

"Straw looks pretty, but it doesn't do much," says Gary. Thus, the maternity pens are bedded with chopped soybean stubble.

The manure storage is beneath the barn and has room for 30 days worth of manure and is then pumped into the lagoon or hauled.

The next major development on the farm occurred in March of 2004 when Roy unexpectedly passed away. The following month the three brothers, Gary, Chuck and Troy, formed an LLC to continue the dairy.

The brothers own the dairy facility and their mother, Eileen, owns the land that supports it. They currently farm 800 acres with 500 of those owned by Eileen and the remaining 300 rented. They also work with several farmers in the area that contribute around 500 additional acres for manure hauling. In addition, they work with several neighbors to buy some dry hay and high moisture corn off the field.

Ripp's Dairy Valley currently employs eight full-time Hispanic workers with seven of them milking and one working with the calves.

They are very good workers and very reliable, explained Chuck of the Hispanic employees. Chuck stressed the importance of taking time to work with them and communicate with them as much as possible.

The Ripps have a recruiter and translator that helps them find a new employee when needed and also facilitates meetings between the brothers and the Hispanic employees to translate important issues that may not be easily explained otherwise.

There are a couple of the employees that speak good English, Chuck explains, but they don't want to put them in the middle of a poor situation between them and another employee, so they bring in the translator.

Ripp's Dairy Valley also employs two other people full-time.

Greg Slater has been with the farm since 2000. He is the morning manager and works with the milkers to assure everything is going well with the cows. Greg also began feeding cows earlier this year and can take over for Chuck when he isn't able to feed.

Tim Blankenship has been the herdsman since 2001 and does an excellent job handling the special needs cows. He handles many herd health issues involving the sick, treated and fresh cows, which are milked in the old stanchion barn. Every cow that has calved is temped every other day to be proactive in detecting problems before the cow gets too sick. This has helped to reduce displaced abomasum and ketosis cases on the dairy. They place a large focus on reducing the number of cows that need to be culled in the first 60 days of her lactation.

"We are learning to be managers instead of doers," explained Troy. "We won't ask any of our employees to do a job that we won't do ourselves. The problem is that we'll do a lot of crappy jobs."

The employees are the most important aspect of having a good profitable dairy, Chuck explained. They care as much about the cows and the dairy as the owners do, and we really appreciate it.

Eileen is still a major contributor to the dairy as she handles all of the financial bookwork, makes runs to town for parts and gets lunch for the brothers and employees working each day.

"She's our CEO and MVP," Troy remarks.

Chuck follows, "She's a very important aspect of our dairy."

The dairy supports four families and each brother has his own area of expertise on the dairy to balance the pressure of farming, while continuing to work together.

Gary manages the fieldwork, harvesting, crop rotations and machinery maintenance. He also works with the Land Conservation Department of Dane County to keep close tabs on the dairy's manure nutrient plan and determines when and where they can haul manure at a given time.

With about 850 head on the farm, this is a very important role. Manure from the sand-bedded freestalls is scraped three times per day and stored in a lagoon until it can be hauled onto the fields.

Gary also does some human resources for the dairy by tracking hours and getting the payroll information to Eileen so she may write out paychecks.

Chuck is the dairy records specialist as he enters all data and records into the farm's herd record-keeping program, DairyComp 305. He also works with ABS to mate each cow and the breeder from ABS, Travis Chapman, to assure all cows are reproductively efficient. In addition, Chuck orders commodities to accommodate the ration needs and will forward contract feed.

Troy manages the calves and transition cows at Ripp's Dairy Valley. During the dry period, all cows are walked through a footbath three times per week. Troy vaccinates all dry cows and springing heifers three weeks prior to calving and moves them to the close-up pen. When the cows are ready to calve, they are moved to one of the maternity pens. He instructs employees to let a cow calve on her own unless she needs assistance.

Troy's goal is to get the calf away from the cow and feed all calves colostrum within one hour of birth to prevent disease. They are also wiped down with a towel until dry and wear a calf coat. Each pen is cleaned between calves.

All calves are fed colostrum via an esophageal feeder the first two feedings, the first feeding is one gallon and the second is two quarts. They are then fed with a bottle until they will drink from a bucket. The calf care program is working well as they are currently seeing a death loss rate of less than 5 percent.

This past summer the Ripps built a new calf barn to house calves on milk and weaned calves to 4 months of age. This new facility is designed to house 108 calves on milk and 85 weaned calves. The Ripps cited their neighbors, Dale and Diane Helt, as major contributors to the design of the calf barn as they had recently built a calf barn with a similar design. This new facility has contributed a large amount of labor efficiency since the calves are no longer housed in huts.

Each calf is tracked on a dry-erase board grid that matches the pen layout in the calf barn. The board is color coded so that both Troy and the Hispanic employees know which calves are to receive milk or colostrum, and which day and time each calf was born.

The Professional Dairy Producers of Wisconsin (PDPW) will be hosting a Hispanic calf care seminar at the Ripps' new calf barn and will likely be utilizing several of their communication techniques to teach other producers easy communication tools such as the calf board.

As of last Monday, Ripps began feeding pasteurized waste milk to the calves. While it is still very early in this feeding program, it is going well. They are already seeing a reduction in the bulk tank cell count from feeding high cell count milk to the calves.

Calves are raised on the farm until they are 4 months old when they are vaccinated and moved to one of two custom raisers. The Ripp brothers' cousin Keith Ripp custom raises 300-350 heifers each year for Ripp's Dairy Valley. Gary, Chuck and Troy's sister and brother-in-law, Kim and Leo Acker also custom raise about 200 head per year for them.

"They are as particular as we are," explained Troy. It works out very well for the dairy and its manure management program as well. Heifers are bred at the custom raisers and brought back to the dairy about two months prior to calving when they join the pre-fresh group in the transition barn. Most heifers are calving at 23 months.

The Ripps have worked with Graham Webster, an independent nutritionist, for over 15 years to formulate the rations for the milking and dry cows. He has provided good advice to the family over the years as they progressed through their expansions.

The current one-group, TMR for the milking herd consists of haylage, corn silage, wet distillers, cottonseed, soybean meal, corn gluten, a protein mix and hammered high moisture corn. The cows are fed once per day and feed is pushed-up five times per day.

All of the forages and most of the corn are homegrown. Since they began hammering their high moisture corn, they've seen an increase of about two to three pounds per cow per day of milk. However, with the highly available starch, cows are at a higher risk for acidosis.

"That's why you need your nutritionist," Chuck says. Graham helps the Ripp brothers balance their ration to maintain an appropriate level of ingredients in the diet to avoid any conditions that will negatively affect herd production levels.

Dry cows are fed a similar ration without corn or buffers. This ration has a large amount of straw in it and contains anionic salts.

Ripp's Dairy Valley has been working with Dean Vogel of Mt. Horeb, a hoof trimmer, for the past 15 years. He is on the farm every two weeks to assure that every cow is trimmed an average of 1.5 times per lactation. The cows also walk through a footbath four times per week. Since implementing this program, Ripps have seen a huge difference in cow comfort and mobility.

In addition, they have installed rubber flooring in the holding area and parlor, which brought another major positive to cow comfort. The rubber flooring has significantly reduced slipping in the holding area and parlor, especially as the cows turn into the parallel stalls. An additional advantage of the rubber flooring is that it allows mastitis to be more easily detected when the cow is stripped.

"Comfortable cows are the most profitable," said Troy. "They are out of sight and out of mind."

The Ripp brothers also work closely with Ross Maurer at the Waunakee Veterinary Clinic to address any herd health issues. He has also been a good advisor through the expansions and helps with ideas relating to cow comfort and health.

It's very important to trust your vet and work closely with him, Chuck explains. He needs to care about your cows as much as you do in order to help the herd improve.

The Ripp brothers have also been working with Dr. Mike Collins, with the UW School of Veterinary Medicine and Dr. Vick Eggleston since April of 2001, to manage Johnes disease within the herd. Each cow is tested at six months pregnant and strong-positives are culled from the herd. While the dairy looses the calf each cow is carrying, this protocol has greatly reduced Johnes cases in the herd. This program has had a major impact on overall cow health and has allowed Ripp's Dairy Valley to build their herd more efficiently.

All cows in the herd are on a pre-synch protocol, receiving lutalyse shots at 40-47 and 54-61 days in milk. The voluntary waiting period is 60 days in milk and all cows that have not received semen by 68-74 days will begin ovsynch. The cows are averaging 3.3 services per conception and a 19-22 percent pregnancy rate.

"Its kinda like Mr. President's no child left behind," Chuck laughs. "We leave no cows behind."

Being located near Madison, the Ripp brothers have had the chance to work with Dr. Nigel Cook with the UW College of Veterinary Medicine on several research projects.

"I don't think we've ever done a trial that hasn't helped our herd," Chuck says. We're very lucky to have that opportunity and our herd size is appealing to the researchers, he continues.

Ripp's Dairy Valley is a member of PDPW and the Ripp brothers attend many of the seminars provided by the organization.

They are also members of the Wisconsin Dairy Business Association which helps them team with other farmers to communicate with legislators about the needs of farmers.

"PDPW is more for learning about new things to improve your dairy, while DBA is more for the business side of the dairy," Chuck explains. "They are both very good organizations that compliment each other very well."

The Ripp brothers are also active in their local community by contributing to various fundraisers and dairy promotion activities.

Ripp's Dairy Valley also plays host to many tour groups each year. Each spring the Ripp brothers take time from planting to give a farm tour to the kindergarteners from Waunakee. Many parents also attend the tour and oftentimes get as much or more from the tour as their children do.

The Ripps enjoy taking the opportunity to teach those who haven't been properly exposed to the dairy industry. They also welcome dairymen and students who are learning more in-depth aspects of dairying.

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