New PDPW Board President is Looking For Ways to Improve the Dairy Business

By Crystal McNett, Assistant Editor
Thursday, April 17, 2008 12:25 PM CDT

Dean Strauss is taking a progressive outlook on dairying. He sees dairying on a global level and is looking out for what will make his farm profitable for many years to come.

This 36-year-old producer is fairly young in the farming world, yet he is constantly looking for ways to improve not only his farm, but also dairying throughout the state of Wisconsin.

As the new president of the Professional Dairy Producers of Wisconsin’s Board of Directors, Strauss is helping the organization take the issues head on. We are trying to “plant the seed to get people to think,” he says. “We have to question our businesses.”

And in a way, Strauss is taking a “lead by example” approach. He grew up on his family’s dairy farm near Sheboygan Falls where they milked 100 to 120 cows n a number reached as the herd consistently grew over the years. Dean’s father Edward ran the dairy and his mother Sandy made income off the farm as a hair stylist.

Strauss attended UW-Platteville and graduated with an animal science degree in 1993. During his time there, he was a member of UW-Platteville’s only team to win the national collegiate dairy judging contest at World Dairy Expo.

Upon graduation Strauss worked as a nutrition consultant for five years, covering northeastern Wisconsin.

In 1998, he made the decision to return home and farm with his father, Edward. But, the way the farm was running at the time was not sustainable, Dean explains. The 120-cow herd was being milked in a 50-stall barn. Dean was also looking for a higher quality of life than being tied to the farm seven days a week. His wife, Lynn, works off the farm as a regional sales manager for Carl Budding/Old Wisconsin.

The partners looked into flat barn parlors and building a parlor out of the old barn, but those options wouldn’t work out. If the old facility were to be modernized, it would soon be limited on land base. “Those options were for short-term gain, not long-term,” Dean says.

The decision was made to build a parlor and form Majestic Meadows Dairy. There are three partners in the operation: Dean, Edward, and Bob Radloff, a long-time employee of the Strausses. Bob’s wife, Linda, also works off the dairy for Bemis Manufacturing in Sheboygan Falls.

A parlor and freestall was built just across the road from Edward’s farm. In 1998, the facility was built for 450 cows in order to justify the parlor economically, Dean explains. The parlor was a double-12 WestphaliaSurge parallel parlor. Cows were housed in a six-row freestall barn with mattresses, sawdust bedding, alley scrapers and headlocks. The dairy employed seven people in addition to the partners.

Also part of the ’98 construction was a concrete pad used for corn silage bags. The upright silos on the old facility were used for haylage.

At this time all the capitol investment for the dairy was put into the facility. Thus, much of the feed had to be purchased. In ’98 the group was running 420 acres of forage and purchasing grain and additional forages.

The old dairy barn and facilities at Edward’s farm were used to house dry cows on sand. There are drive-in pits on that farm to handle the sand-laden manure.

Over the years, more bunkers have been added for feed storage.

In 2002, Majestic Meadows Dairy built a special needs barn. “That was the biggest mistake n that that wasn’t built originally,” Dean notes. “Now we know that today.”

The special needs barn is a sand barn. The manure can be daily hauled from there or it can be stored in the manure pits on the old facility. One side of the barn is sand freestalls and the other is calving pens. The barn was built 100 feet long and allowed the herd to grow to 550 cows.

This year, the partners made the decision to extend the special needs barn another 100 feet. There are 108 sand stalls on one side that are used for older, slower cows. The other half of the barn is the calving area as well as pens for prefresh and postfresh cows.

This expansion has allowed the herd to grow to its current size of 685 cows. The acreage has also grown over the years. Currently the group runs 1,500 acres.

Today there are eight employees in addition to the partners. Five Hispanics handle the milking. Another Hispanic is the “utility man” of the operation and helps with everything from cleaning pens to feeding to relief milking. Bob’s son is also employed on the farm.

Dean’s brother, Darin, is one of the employees and serves as the herdsman and human resources manager. “Anything living goes through him,” Dean laughs. Darin is currently in the process of becoming a partner.

Dean is the operations and financial manager and also handles the cropping end of the operation. Edward is the “jack of all trades”, Dean explains, adding “his experience keeps us in check.” Edward handles payroll and some of the finances, but also works around the farm in many aspects. Bob takes care of the equipment and maintenance. He also handles all of the feeding.

The herd is milked three times per day with two shifts of workers putting in 10 to 10.5 hours per shift. The cows average 79 pounds per day, which is on the high end of the dairy’s goal.

Of the 685 cows in the herd, 250 are crossbreds. The crosses began with Holstein to Jersey. The next generation is bred to Swedish Red and then to Montbeliarde, before returning to Holstein. The majority of the herd is Holstein, but now all Holsteins are being bred to Montbeliarde.

Originally the crossbreeding started to get better calving ease. The industry needs to work on DOAs (dead on arrivals), Dean says. The industry average now is “unacceptable.” On the Majestic Meadows Dairy, DOAs are at 6 percent.

With better calving ease, the heifers get off to a faster start and have less need for therapeutic treatments, Dean explains. He wants to get to the point where the cows take care of him and he doesn’t have to babysit the cows.

Reproductive efficiency has increased with the crossbreds and labor costs have gone down. The crossbreds have proven to be more efficient with a 12.5 month calving interval and a 27 percent pregnancy rate n 7 percent higher than the rest of the herd.

Cows go through a presynch and an ovsynch protocol. The dairy’s voluntary waiting period is 67 days. ABS does all of the tail chalking and insemination on both heifers and cows.

Wet calves are custom raised off the farm. Heifers return for breeding and, once confirmed pregnant, are sent to another grower until one month from calving.

The cows are fed a one-group TMR that’s a 58 percent forage diet. The feed is 65 percent corn silage and 35 percent haylage. Concentrates in the ration are corn, minerals, protein and wet distillers.

Majestic Meadows Dairy is going into its sixth season with a neighboring dairy in cropping operations. The partnership is a separate entity from the dairy n Majestic Crossing Harvesters, LLC. Together they own a self-propelled chopper, a pack tractor and blade, a merger and some tillage equipment. Another area grain farmer does all of the hay cutting custom for them.

The pack tractor is used 800-plus hours per year to justify the cost. It will also be used for spring tillage on both farms.

Another entity of Strauss’s business is HLM Ag Services, LLC. This LLC is with the same partners as the Harvesters operation, but also includes the grain farmer who custom cuts their hay. This partnership owns a self-propelled sprayer and plans to spray 5,000 acres this year.

The dairy’s acreage consists of 160 acres of new seeding alfalfa, 80 acres of winter wheat, 720 acres of corn, 70 acres of beans and 470 acres of established alfalfa.

Corn and beans are sold as cash crops. That way Dean can take advantage of other opportunities to buy cheaper feed, specifically, alternative starch sources. And feed costs can be accounted for on a more accurate basis.

This strategy also brings available cash in the fall when Dean has a manure hauling bill to pay. A cash payment will get him a discount of about 3 percent. The cash also gives him a chance to take advantage of cash discounts when purchasing seed for the next cropping season. “Cash is king,” he says.

To better his business, Dean takes a trip out to World Ag Expo in Tulare, Calif., each year. He has the opportunity to get new ideas and look for ways to improve.

Referring to Wisconsin dairy farmers, Dean says, “We have cow sense but we need to improve our business sense.” His trips to California have helped him improve his business sense and connected him with his current accountant there. He now is able to compare his dairy directly with California dairies. “That’s my competition,” he says. “Dairying is global and we need to compete.”

Dean warns fellow producers not to limit opportunities. The industry won’t stay the same, he says.

Competition overseas is providing great opportunities for the dairy industry to grow. Milk products like whey and whey protein concentrate are in growing demand and directly impact producer’s milk checks. Today, dairy producers are not just farmers, Dean says, “Today I am a food producer.”

Dairymen need to ask cheese plants what they want. He did so with his milk buyer, Sartori Foods in Plymouth. He found that they wanted high quality and high protein milk n also part of why the dairy started crossbreeding. Dean encourages dairy farmers to have a relationship with the cheese industry to get trends in demand and find out what consumers want.

“No matter what it is, you have to be growing your business,” he says. It can be through size, diversification or niche marketing. “There’s more than one way to skin a cat.”

And as the new PDPW Board President, Dean is looking to help fellow Wisconsin dairymen better their operations. This grassroots organization has worked to stay true to its mission of helping dairy farmers find the information they need. Ideas for seminars and training come directly from the dairy producers who are members. “We’re just molding and shaping what they want molded and shaped,” he says.

The group is looking to have continued growth by pushing the boundaries of the industry. Producers want to attend seminars like herdsman training and calf care. Newer offerings from the organization are accounting, globalization and business management.

The PDPW Manager’s Academy went nationwide two years ago, Dean says. “The dairy business is business.” People around the country are looking for that information, he adds.

PDPW is also working to keep farmers informed on animal welfare issues. Just three years ago, ideas began forming about the issue, Dean says, and last fall the National Dairy Animal Well-Being Initiative (NDAWI) was launched.

Dean can speak first hand to the proposed policies of this program. Wanting the information for their own behalf, Majestic Meadows Dairy went through an animal welfare assessment by Validus in March of last year.

“I was really nervous when I did it,” he admits. But the assessor did comment that Majestic Meadows Dairy would have passed a full audit.

Many of the guidelines drafted for the NDAWI program are what dairymen are doing already, Dean says. With the program they simply need to be documented and protocols need to be written. One example is how often pens are cleaned. Dairy producers have that in their heads, but under the assessment it must be written down, he explains.

Dean did receive a few areas to work on. Overcrowding was something the assessor marked as an issue. The assessment also asked for deeper protocols.

People want to know where their food comes from and now we need to prove we’re doing a good job, Dean says. These types of programs may open up markets or allow us to sell the products we already sell. It may cost some extra money, but some of it is part of doing business today, he adds. “We can’t justify our reasons to the consumer based on economics anymore.”

Dean and his partners are willing to spend a little extra money to support programs like this and to support companies who support those programs. He is now spending a few cents more for prostaglandin to buy it from a company that supports NDAWI.

“Dairy producers need to step up and take responsibility for doing what’s right,” he says.

Editor’s note: For more on the National Dairy Animal Well-Being Initiative (NDAWI), see the PDPW Dairy’s Bottom Line inserted in this week’s paper.

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