Dorshorsts to Share Diversity With Derby Youth

By Karen Lee, Managing Editor
Thursday, October 25, 2007 11:22 AM CDT

Up to 100 youth will gather in Marshfield Nov. 3-4 for the Professional Dairy Producers of Wisconsin (PDPW) Youth Leadership Derby. On Saturday afternoon they'll stop at Dorsland Farms in Junction City and see how the Dorshorst family has intertwined a dairy farm and veterinary practice.

As a young practicing veterinarian, Charles Dorshorst decided to return home to his family's farm in 1979. He and his wife Donna took ownership of the farm from his parents Elwin and Isla Dorshorst.

Charles continued to practice with a local veterinary practice while operating the farm with Donna and their five children. Seven years ago, he decided to start his own practice - The Practice Veterinary Service - and was joined in business by his oldest son, Matt, five years later. The veterinary services include herd health, production medicine, ambulatory practice as well as fetal ultrasounding and embryo transfer.

Most of the routine dairy herd practice is localized to about a 25-mile radius from their farm. They travel a much larger area (50 miles or more) for the embryo transfer and ultrasounding work.

In the 30 years Charles has been practicing he's watch the large number of smaller farms change to fewer farms and some larger farms with outside labor. That has certainly changed the communication angle, he says.

The Practice Veterinary Service works with both small and large producers. "The variety makes it interesting," Matt says. "I enjoy our small clients just as much as the large ones."

Another significant change has been computerized records. "It's a whole different ballgame," Charles says. "You have a lot more information at your fingertips in less time than before."

Even with more efficient technologies, Charles found his practice was growing and he needed some help to balance the workload. At the same time, Matt had just been declared a doctor of veterinary medicine by the UW vet school and was weighing his options. He had the opportunity to focus solely on ultrasound and embryo transfer work, but didn't want to limit himself.

Returning home, "gave me the chance to do both" general practice and embryo work, he says. "I wanted to be more well-rounded."

When Matt joined the practice, he implemented reproductive ultrasounding, fetal sexing, and embryo collection and transfer to the business. "It's an area I have a particular interest in," Matt says.

Charles keeps his main focus on the general practice and stays closer to home to tend to emergency calls and the farm while Matt is usually out on the longer trips.

The Dorshorsts are putting the finishing touches on a new multi-purpose building on the farm. It holds an office, a lab, a storage room and embryo collection bay for the practice, as well as storage, shop and machine shed for the farm. The vet facility portion meets European Union standards for the collection and manipulation of embryos for export and is USDA inspected.

Matt is hoping to work more in this area as time goes on and is considering putting up donor housing nearby.

"We are collecting more clients' donor cows all the time," he says. "It's rewarding to see the calves when they hit the ground."

Matt estimates that the majority of cows on their farm is a result of an embryo transfer or has offspring that are.

The farm now has 45 registered Holstein cows, up from the original herd Elwin started with in 1952 of eight grade Holsteins and Guernseys. The first registered Holstein cattle were purchased in 1968 from the Piper brothers as 4-H project calves for Charles. To date over 90 percent of this almost exclusively homebred herd can be traced to those two calves.

Currently the herd Breed Age Average (BAA) is 109.8 percent and places Dorsland farms in the top 200 herds in the nation based on herd classification scores. Herd production is 25,013 pounds of milk with 3.6 percent fat and 3.1 percent protein, utilizing component feeding and pasture access in the spring, summer and fall.

"It's not the world's best herd, but one we're proud of and really enjoy working with," Matt says, noting production is reasonable considering most cows are donor cows.

The Dorshorsts' breeding philosophy has been to correct one or two faults with each mating to create more conformationally correct offspring. They strive to breed functional and productive cattle.

Elwin, one of the first artificial insemination technicians in central Wisconsin, was progressive in the early years using exclusively A.I. for genetic advancement. Foundation sires at Dorsland farms have been Pineyhill Majority, Carlin-M Ivanhoe Bell, Glendell Arlinda Chief, Marshfield Elevation Tony, Paclamar Astronaut, and Walkway Chief Mark. Currently popular sires include Regancrest Elton Durham (15 mature daughters), Silky Gibson, REW Buckeye, EK-Oseeana Aspen and Braedale Goldwyn.

Dorsland Farms has been using embryo transfer as a means of genetic advancement since 1985. Matt manages the embryo donor and recipient aspects at the farm and uses fetal ultra sounding as a reproductive management tool for early fetal pregnancy and viability diagnosis as well as establishment of fetal sex.

They are starting to market some of their embryos and have merchandised cattle through local sales and the Badger Dairy Club sale in Madison.

Charles heads up cropping at the farm. They have 225 acres of corn, soybeans, alfalfa and grass mixed hay, and a little wheat.

With the drier weather this year in the northern part of the state, Charles was pleased to see corn yields of 200 bushels per acre. He was also happy with 40-bushel-per-acre yields in soybeans, which was fairly high for that portion of the state this year.

His key to good crop farming is to simply buy good seed and rely on insight from his clients and friends.

To help with harvest, Charles hires out the combining and custom chopping to a neighbor. They still do a lot of small bales on their own because they are "handy to feed," he says.

Charles does most of the twice-a-day milking with help from Matt when he's gone.

"Emergency work is a lot less now than 30 years ago," he says, adding that client education has become a big plus for them. Most producers are trained to do more of their own work. They are capable of IV work and can handle most calvings with coaching.

"The biggest part of our job," Matt says, "is just being a resource."

They find that in many situations now they are called for information while the producer physically solves the problem on their own.

The Dorshorsts are looking forward to being a resource and sharing their story with participants of PDPW's Youth Leadership Derby next month. Hosting a tour "seemed very worthwhile," Matt says. "We are a highly youth-oriented family, farm and veterinary practice."

"By catering to youth it gives them the opportunity to gain experience and experience is a critical factor in how people decide to route their life," he says.

Charles and Donna have spent years catering to youth through their involvement in Junior Holsteins.

Donna, who now works as a genetic technician for the Marshfield Clinic and diagnostic laboratories, has served for over a decade as an advisor to the Wood County Junior Holsteins.

The five Dorshorst children were all very involved, too, as members and leaders of the quiz bowl teams and other activities. They were also very active in 4-H with dairy judging and showing.

"It opened doors for us," Matt says. "The people we met early in life, we've come across later and have had experiences to share."

The Dorshorsts also serve in various capacities for their church and Matt helps with committee projects for the local school board.

As mentioned, Matt is the oldest in the family. He is married to Molly, who is a nursing instructor at a local community college. They have three children ages 4, 2 and 4 months.

Nathan graduated from veterinary school at UW-Madison in 2006 and currently practices bovine medicine at the Lodi Veterinary Clinic. He and his wife Melissa have one child.

John is back at Dorsland Farms joining the operation part-time upon completing his bachelor's and master's degrees in dairy science and entomology at UW-Madison in 2007.

Ben is pursuing a doctorate in functional genomics with an interest in poultry at North Carolina State University. He, too, received his undergrad from UW-Madison.

Anne is a junior at UW-Madison majoring in dairy science and bacteriology.

Combining the family, farm and practice has been good for the Dorshorsts.

Matt fondly recalls going on ride-a-longs with his father when he was younger and it's a tradition he shares with his 4-year-old today.

"It allows me to integrate my professional life with my family life and gives me more time with her," he says.

In a professional aspect, Matt would like to move in the direction of working with more embryo donors and encouraging more producers to utilize ultrasounding on their operations.

"Ultrasounding can be done very efficiently to keep the costs down," he says.

From it, you can gain potentially powerful information on twinning, high-risk twins, fetal viability, etc. Knowing in advance that a cow could abort allows a producer to terminate the pregnancy early and shave off the number of days open.

Through fetal sexing, pregnancies can be better managed. If a problem develops later it allows the producer to make a more informed decision on how to proceed. As a practitioner, Matt says, knowing if it's a heifer, a bull or twins can change the perspective on how calving is managed.

Ultrasounding can also be a diagnostic tool for cows that are hard to get bred. By using it, you can notice early embryonic death and sort out twinning losses.

"In the right situation, it's a huge tool for dairy producers," Matt says.

This practitioner is fascinated by embryo transfer. To see a live calf standing in a pen while knowing it was looked at a couple times via ultrasound, frozen for 3-4 months, and studied under a microscope after it was harvested is just amazing, he says.

Embryo transfer is a tool for a herd to propagate better offspring in less time, with huge advantages in biosecurity.

Matt notes that their herd is a Johne's negative herd level 3 nationally and class A for the state. "Embryo transfer allowed us to do some of that," he says. With it, they've maintained a fairly closed herd, while advancing their genetics. To date 75 percent of lactating cows at Dorsland Farms either are the result of embryo transfer or their dams were the result of embryo transfer.

"As a farmer and a veterinarian, I find it to be an admirable pursuit to address Johne's," he says. The disease is clearly an economic loss to producers and there are possible, yet unproven, human health risks from it.

Even with his future focused on the practice, Matt knows he doesn't want to give up farming.

"I really like the farm," he says. "I became a vet simply because I like cows."

Matt finds, too, that there are moments as a vet he can comprehend things differently because he's also a farmer. "I have perspective from both sides of the fence," he says.

Comments »

Comment on this story

Comments will be approved within 48 hours

Name:

Email: (optional)

Comments:

Image Verification: (Case sensitive)