Holtzes Keep Stress Out of Operation

By Jane Fyksen, Crops Editor
Thursday, August 16, 2007 3:55 PM CDT

An open-air parlor here in Wisconsin? You bet, say Wood County dairy producers Les and Audrey Holtz. Although Les had to shovel some snow after one of those late winter/early spring storms before they could milk cows in their new parlor earlier this year, the Holtzes are definitely enjoying their open-sided parlor this time of year.

Not only is the new swing-15 parlor easier on them physically, but it’s also easier on the pocketbook than more costly alternatives typically installed by Wisconsin producers.

It’s a nice environment in which to milk n shaded, breezy yet with lots of sunlight to see the job at hand. The cows seem to like it, too, this Rudolph couple confirms.

Les is the first to admit he tends to do things differently than most at Holtz Ridge Organic Grass Farm. From a lawn chair in the shade of a backyard apple tree, this seasonal grazier’s posture speaks volumes about his approach to dairying, i.e. pretty “relaxed.”

He’s not one to chase a high herd average, or even manage grazing all that intensively. Les enjoys experimenting and doesn’t worry what the neighbors think. Nor does he beat himself up over past errors in management he’s made. While some might think this producer isn’t all that serious about dairying, they’d be mistaken. Les loves farming as much as the next guy, but a big reason he enjoys it as much as he does is because he can do things his way n grazing, seasonal milking, organically.

Les grew up on the farm he and Audrey operate in north central Wisconsin. He says his dad was an “excellent cow man” how “knew cattle and how to get milk out of them.” The herd average was around 21,000 when he bought his father’s cows 13 years ago. Today it’s more like 8,500 pounds.

Before readers scoff, the Holtz herd is seasonal. Their cows are long-lived, creating ample opportunity for heifer sales and extra income. The feed bill is minimal, the operation profitable. Les and Audrey are both full-time on the farm, with no outside income. And, in fact, Les was on a panel of producers earlier this year who addressed the Wisconsin Bankers Association agricultural bankers’ conference. The topic was: “What is Niche?”

Les, 41, admits he never wanted to farm. A 1985 graduate from Lincoln High School in Wisconsin Rapids, he bounced around a bit in college, trying to figure out what he wanted for a career. He started out in horticulture but switched to livestock and dairy farm management at Blackhawk Tech in Janesville. He worked for Purina for seven years in Marshfield, doing nutrition work and feed sales. He knew how to push cows for a lot of milk. He also says he knew how stressed some of his producer/clients were.

A customer wanted to graze, so Les did some research. He went to a few pasture walks and was “impressed with the attitude of the people.” “The farmers I met were real positive,” he shares. So when his dad retired in June 1994 and told Les to let him know if he wanted to farm or he’d sell the cows, Les thought he’d give grazing a try, “and here I am,” he states. They started renting from his dad and bought the farm six years ago.

Audrey grew up on a dairy farm near Auburndale. The Holtzes have two adult daughters and one grandchild. Les’s folks, Vic and Mary Holtz, also live on the Holtzes’ farm. Les’s brother, Lyle, farms two miles away. He is also grazing, organic and seasonal. The brothers go back and forth with machinery and field work, and Les also gets some help in the fields from his nephew Kyle Holtz. Les estimates his machinery investment to be $50,000. A high school student, Curt Fuller Jr., works for Holtzes part-time.

The Holtzes own 100 acres, 60 of which is open land, the rest woods and “waste land”. They rent another 150 from six landlords, to farm a total of 210. They have 80 acres of pastures for managed grazing (some adjacent to the farmstead, some a half-mile up the road, some across the road) and 15 acres of corn for silage. The rest is hay ground (unimproved and grass). He round bales dry hay and recently hired baleage made. In the past, they’d purchased baleage. Corn silage is stored in a bag; round bales are outside.

Les notes he didn’t plant corn until they went organic four years ago. Organic grain is prohibitively expensive, he confirms. (Last he heard it was around $9 a bushel.) Three years ago, he started renovating pastures, rotating corn through to get more legumes in. He’d been seeding red clover and timothy, but fearing bloat, he thinks he’ll give canary grass a try instead now.

Because he’s organic and low-cost, Les just uses cow manure for fertilizer. He rotary hoes the corn twice and cultivates twice. His corn is planted in 30-inch rows and he averages upwards of 14 tons of silage.

His fencing system is “poly.” He has no permanent paddocks; in fact, he took out permanent fence, for easier maintenance of fencerows. This system gives “more flexibility” to his pasture management. “It’s pretty cobbled up. It’s pretty ugly,” he grins of his fencing system.

Neither are there improved lanes. The cows come back to the barn for water if they’re able; otherwise they haul water to distant pastures, or use those as night paddocks and then let the cows back for water at morning milking. Les had initially put in waterlines (three-quarter inch) but they weren’t big enough for 60 cows. They couldn’t get enough pressure on top of their hills. He was forced to abandon them.

Les moves the herd every 12 hours and also feeds corn silage 100 days of the year n July through September. It keeps them eating during dry weather (like they’ve been suffering with this year) and helps put condition on them before winter. That’s important, because the Holtzes out-winter the herd.

At present the Holtzes are milking 44 cows, after selling 24 head this spring. They have Shorthorns crossed with Holstein, Swiss, Jersey, Guernsey, Ayrshire and Dutch Belted. They use Shorthorn bulls, appreciating cows that’ll hold condition better over winter easier” and “like to graze.” “They’re nice, tough, old cows,” says Les, who likes the Swiss/Shorthorn cross the best, because they milk the best.

Crossbreds are hardier, says Les. They’re “neat looking” and “keep the neighbors talking,” he chuckles. “It’s like Christmas when we get calves. We never know what they’ll look like.” They’ve milked seasonally since they started farming; calves arrive from mid-March to mid-May. Being seasonal is, of course, what’s allowed Holtzes to go to the open-air parlor. They go to once-a-day milking at Christmastime and just quit near the end of January, for a generous respite from milking in the dead of winter, when Les says they like to “bum around” and take day trips around the state.

Their out-wintered herd is sheltered from winter winds by woods on the north and west sides. He’ll use an out-wintering pasture two years in a row and then switches locations, for pasture fertility reasons. He beds the cows maybe 4 or 5 days of the winter, “if it’s really nasty,” he notes. Les sets out rows of round bales and moves electric fence and bale feeders as need be.

As cows freshen, they get better first-crop hay or baleage. At green-up, they basically transition themselves to grass. Les offers hay until the cows don’t want it. He says they haven’t fed cows any grain since last October, when “grain got expensive.” They were going to put a grain feeding system in the new parlor, but didn’t get it done and “won’t put it in now,” he remarks, adding that they haven’t lost production (of course, even Les admits, they never got much in the first place) since they pulled the grain and there’s “no fighting in the parlor.” The cows come through only to get milked. Corn silage is fed in a bunk wagon out on pasture.

The Holtzes raise their own replacements and because their cows are so healthy and long-lived, thanks to grazing, they’ve been selling a lot of springers. They’ll breed between 65 and 75 cows and heifers and retain 20 to 30 calves a year for their own replacements. The cows calve outside. “Shorthorn calves are so hardy. They get up and know what to do,” says Les, who also checks frequently.

Calves stay on the cows one day and then are reared in individual pens in their old milking barn. The Holtzes have been trying something new; calves are now solely fed milk 70 days. After the first three weeks, they double the amount of milk calves are traditionally fed, to two gallons per head per day.

What’s unique is they’ve been feeding no starter to the present group of calves. After seeing fawns alongside does when he was moving fences one day, it dawned on Les to question, “Where do fawns get their starter?” Because they do okay without it, and because organic starter was “ungodly priced,” Les decided to experiment and rear some calves without it.

So far so good, confirm the Holtzes, who provide “really nice” purchased hay to the calves at about 30 days. When the calves get to be about 50 days old, they dilute the milk with water (half and half). “They go to it right away,” says Les, noting that the calves “look awesome” and are, in fact, “the nicest calves we’ve ever raised.”

Because this is the first time they’ve tried this, the Holtzes are reserving judgment until those replacements come into the parlor. However, he adds, “Calves are a snap since we went to all milk.”

They offer no free-choice water to calves. It creates a mess and attracts flies, he notes. They’ll feed some electrolytes, too, if a calf is looking “a little dopey.”

At weaning, they start feeding grain n two pounds a day of cracked corn and a half-pound of roasted beans. They also add two ounces of aloe pellets, which bolsters immunity for calves going through the stress of weaning. By July, calves are typically all on pasture, though the Holtzes continue feeding a little grain “so they’re used to us.” Calves are overwintered in lean-tos and fed two to three pounds of corn per head, with hay. However, a new heifer barn is imminent.

“Everything has to freshen at 24 months,” Les remarks. Heifers are reared on pasture and once bred, out-wintered with the cows.

These organic producers have always relied on aloe. They drench that individual cow that doesn’t seem to be feeling good with liquid aloe. Audrey also puts aloe vera gel in their iodine-based teat dip to safeguard udders.

Garlic is another organic remedy, used for mastitis or a cow off her feed. It’s a natural antibiotic, these producers say. Garlic tincture is given in a cow’s mouth or vulva. Audrey also uses a natural udder ointment on hard quarters. Some of the ingredients are eucalyptus and peppermint oil; it brings circulation into the udder. Les reminds that their cows “are not under a lot of stress” either, which helps.

The biggest drawback to being organic is “the infrastructure,” which is still developing. Explains Les, “Finding feed” and knowledgeable experts on issues like treating cows” with organic methods can be challenging. Les is enrolled in an organic farm training class through Lakeshore Tech. According to financial records, their average milk price last year was $24.68. Their last milk check was $26.75 a hundred.

They used to use oxytocin on fresh cows, which they can’t anymore. “It was more our mindset than anything else,” Les admits. What’s more, in the old milking barn, heifers would be “so wound up by the time they go in a stall, they wouldn’t let milk down.” In the new parlor, both man and beast are calmer.

Les doesn’t claim to have all the answers. “We’ve done so many things wrong on this farm it’s unbelievable,” he smiles.

Prior to the new open-air parlor, Les says they milked in a “hell hole” (i.e. with a pipeline in their 34-stanchion barn), typically milking 50 or 60 and switching cows. One year in the fall, they switched as many as 100.

Originally they’d intended to retrofit a parlor into that milking barn. In the summer of 2005, they literally had a skidsteer in the barn, ready to break concrete when his brother asked why Les didn’t build the parlor outside, and use the south wall of the barn, where they’d knocked down four silos. They put the project off then until June 2006, and finally got it done in March this year.

The parlor itself is 20 by 26 feet under a 30 by 66-foot, new, lean-to structure (wood-post construction and 18-feet at the peak) off that south wall of the barn. The roof is metal with no insulation, with skylight material on the north and east sides. It’s supposed to be a swing-12 but it actually holds 15. At present, the parlor is open on three sides, but Les plants to put roll-up doors on the west side for better protection from snow and cold winds (and curtains on the other two open sides if they have to). They have a three-inch line and equipment was purchased used.

The parlor cost $24,000, which included excavating, tearing down the silos, hiring somebody to build the structure and the cost of the equipment. They use their old milk house yet. There’s so much labor that goes into a retrofit parlor; all the concrete was done in one-day for their outdoor one.

Audrey, who is the main milker on this farm, can do the job in 40 minutes, while Les changes fence and paddocks. The Holtzes are really glad they built it. It’s faster to milk now and “easier on us,” Audrey confirms. They don’t worry about getting kicked now, and they’ll be able to milk another 20 or 30 years. It’s also easier to find a willing fill-in milker when they have to be gone

They don’t wash the units in there. In other words, their three-season parlor is a “dry parlor” that’s scraped and limed. It has a sump pump, but Les wishes he’d put a drain it there instead. The lights aren’t in yet; they’ve been milking with sunlight. There’s great air movement. It would have been “hot and sticky” milking in a retrofitted parlor, Les fears.

Les “wouldn’t recommend it (a three-season parlor) to everybody.” There are days when it’s been “ugly in there,” he admits, confirming that it is indeed cold milking in the open-air facilities in March. Worse than the cold, though, is snow blowing in. The west doors he intends to add will prevent that, he notes.

“We had no problem breaking cows to it at all. All these horror stories you hear (about new parlors) you know,” says Les. Their cows were so used to being handled and never had assigned stalls in the old milking barn.

Les invites fellow producers to “come and have a look” at the new parlor. Sharing information is something he feels is being lost in the farming community. “Everything has to be top secret,” he remarks. “Not here.”

Thus, he freely shares financial information, such as his breakeven herd average of 6,200 pounds, his breakeven milk price of $18.11 (which include family living but not debt service). The Holtzes are carrying $3,850 of debt per cow. Net worth is 52 percent, based on his “own number” for the value of cows at $1,200 apiece. He’s been selling them for around $2,000, however. They have about $440,000 invested in their operation, which runs about $10,000 of investment per cow in milk. Return on assets (ROA) is 5.7 percent. Return on equity is 4.7 percent.

Les understands that his mode of operation wouldn’t suit many producers. “It’s not fast-paced. I’m not wound up tight,” he says, noting there’s “never been one whole day when I didn’t want to farm.” “There’ve been moments,” he grins.

He and Audrey can enjoy a cup of coffee together. They can milk earlier than usual n or later n if they want to be away from the farm. They try to keep things “basic” and “simple,” he notes, reporting that his herd hits peak milk “the day the dandelions bloom” every year. This year cows peaked at 46 pounds. “Everybody thinks I forgot to put a 1 in front of it,” he chuckles, noting, though, that there’s “no doubt in my mind” that his crossbred cows would be producing 18,000 to 19,000 if he pushed them harder. The genetics and cow health are in place.

However, Les recalls the “built-in stress” he saw in farmers back when he was in the feed business. “Everything had to be perfect,” he says of no room for error. “I couldn’t live on the edge like that.”

In addition to his organic class in Cleveland, Les is in Mid-State Tech’s farmers’ club, on the advisory committee for Wood County UW-Extension, a member of the Rudolph old tractors club. He attends pasture walks and hosts them, as he did in June for the Wood/Portage/Waupaca Graziers Network.

By the time he’s 50, he intends to be out of debt. However, he intends to dairy farm at least another 30 years. He has no hobbies. “This is it,” Les smiles. “I want to just keep milking cows and enjoying life.”

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