Kormanns Combine Organic Dairy, Beef

By Jane Fyksen, Crops Editor
Wednesday, June 25, 2008 1:30 PM CDT

Fair-View Farm provides ample hands-on biology lessons for the home-schooled Kormann kids. For their parents, Steve and Ann, this ultra-low-input dairy affords them plenty of time to work and play together as a family. “Family” comes first on this Sawyer County family farm.

The Kormann clan consists of 18-year-old Nate, who’s done with high school and farming fulltime with Steve and Ann; Emily, 16; Grace, 10; Laura, 7; Matt, 5; and Silas, 4. As noted, Ann has been home-schooling their children for 13 years, “to be together as a family” and because, she adds, “we care about our kids more than anybody else.”

Not only is Nate involved in his parents’ organic, grass-based dairy, but he also runs his own beef cow herd, in addition to working for a “senior” farmer for a share of that neighbor’s beef-calf crop.

The Kormanns’ dairy management and chosen lifestyle probably puts them among Wisconsin’s lowest-cost producers. With today’s skyrocketing feed, fuel and steel prices, it’s no doubt a comfortable place to be.

Last month, they shared insights about sustainable farming by hosting a pasture walk, co-sponsored by Pri-Ru-Ta RC&D ad the Northwest Wisconsin Graziers Network.

Their farm west of the tiny northwoods community of Exeland was homesteaded by Ann’s great-grandparents in 1913, and had been part of her home farm, operated by her folks, Fran and the late Bud Zesiger. Ann graduated from UW-River Falls with a degree in general agriculture. She was interning at a hog operation in southern Minnesota when she met Steve.

Steve grew up on a small farm in New Richland in southern Minnesota. He was the herdsman on the swine operation where he met his future bride, to whom he’s been married almost 23 years. The couple started married life in southern Minnesota, and prior to starting a family, worked two years in what was at that time Zaire in the heart of Africa (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo).

Doing long-term missions with the Covenant Church, Steve did construction work at a hospital post, building housing for the nursing staff and an addition to the hospital, digging wells and working in a sawmill. Ann worked in the pharmacy and with women and girls in a country plagued with hunger and AIDS. Upon their return to the U.S., Steve worked construction and did some farming part-time.

In December 1993, they returned to Ann’s home to farm full-time. Her dad, who’d farmed with his brother, had passed away and the cows had been sold. The barn was empty and afforded an opportunity for the Kormanns to try farming full-time. They rented her dad’s barn and land a couple years before buying their present farm in 1996 and building a low-cost parlor that same year. It’s a swing-eight pit parlor in a shed that Steve added onto an existing shed which is used for a holding area. There are also some calving pens in that existing shed and temporary calf housing when the weather is still to inclement in the spring for wet calves to be turned outside.

Presently, they own 160 acres, of which roughly 50 are wooded; the woods get grazed some, too. They rent roughly 200 acres n smaller fields here and there n on which they make hay. They’ve relied on managed grazing from the get-go. They practice crossbreeding, and they’re cows are outwintered. (Her parents’ barn a quarter-mile away was sold;there wasn’t one where the Kormanns built their parlor, only a house and some outbuildings.)

They practice seasonal freshening with their 50-cow herd, though Steve notes the herd is never “totally dry at any point.” Their low point is in February, when they might get down to a dozen or so cows in the parlor. At present they’re milking 41.

Calves arrive at Fair-View Farm from mid-March through June. They started with Jerseys but have been crossbreeding several years with Milking Shorthorn and Dutch Belted. They use AI and a herd bull for clean-up. Most of their cows are 50/50 crosses, and Ann says they’re “pretty content with that.”

“I like both of them (Shorthorn and Belted) for different reasons,” says Steve. “The Milking Shorthorns are more docile in the parlor. The Dutch Belted might be more long-lived. Their production is similar but the Dutch Belted may persist longer.”

Ann says they’ve seen a “big improvement in udders” since they’ve been crossbreeding. Udders are “higher, tighter and more uniform,” she notes. The original reason for crossbreeding, though, was sturdier, hardier cows that could withstand outwintering better. That, too, has come to pass in the herd.

They raise their own youngstock, and the herd has been closed 12 years or better, says Steve, 51. Calves are individually fed for only their first few days n a week at most. Then they’re grouped with five or six calves and “mob fed” until weaning at 10 weeks. Calves are either in group pens in their holding-area shed or outdoors (prior to weaning), depending on the weather. They have a designated grazing area set up for young calves next to the house. Ann says Emily is in charge of calf care, with help from Grace.

A newborn calf might stay with the cow 12 hours. Calves are then fed whole milk. The last couple years, they’ve fed whole oats for calf feed. Heifers get some grain with their grass-based diet for their first year. Heifers mostly graze pastures separate from those targeted with the milk cows. Nate’s beef herd dines on the roughest pastures on their farm.

Most of the Kormanns’ fencing is one strand of high-tensile, even on the perimeter. Pastures are subdivided into relatively permanent paddocks with polywire, which are, in turn, again subdivided as needed. The milking string is moved to fresh grass every 12 hours, and Steve says it’s pretty typical for their cows to give 40 pounds a day at peak.

Pastures are predominantly white clover and bluegrass. The only pasture improvement that’s been done has been “through grazing,” notes Steve, adding that he’s also done some frost seeding of red clover.

They have a mix of light soil and heavy soil in their rolling and somewhat rocky pastures. There’s no tillable cropland on their farm. Their own permanent pastures are hayed only as needed. Most of the hay-making is on rented land. These producers have suffered with droughts the past three years, and thus have been quite appreciative of this year’s wet spring, though they definitely feel for their fellow farmers with fields under water in southern Wisconsin.

Located in a fringe area of farming, with more wooded hunting land than tillable fields, even their rented land is mostly grass and unimproved. Last year, because of continued drought, they were only able to get one crop of hay, but typically, in other years, they’ll take two crops from a lot of the rented hayfields.

Contributing to their low cost-per-hundredweight is the fact they feed very little grain n just to the calves. The cows haven’t gotten a taste of grain in the past four years. They used to get about six pounds.

“That’s a decision we made when we decided to go organic,” says Steve of not wanting to have to source n and pay the premium - for organic grain. He’d rather put the premium in his own pocket (for organic milk). Steve says by pulling the grain on the milking string they probably only lost 10 percent of their production. Purchased grain, on the other hand, accounted for an estimated third of total operating costs.

Body condition hasn’t changed much. Reproduction and somatic cell count have improved. The Kormanns note, though, that it’s hard for them to sort out the exact contributors to the overall improvement they’re seen in their herd since they quit feeding grain, as they’ve also been crossbreeding and certified organic for the past four years. They ship to Organic Valley.

But, Steve adds, “We’ve been seeing those improvements without it (grain), and three of those were dry years when the grass was not ideal.” He notes they did feed some corn silage two winters after they went organic, but during the past two winters, the cows haven’t seen a kernel.

The herd hits the pastures as they’re first green up, when there’s “hardly any” grass out there, notes Steve, who rotates the cows through the pastures fast and supplements with other forage as long as it takes. However, once the pastures come on, it’s their sole diet until mid-to-late October, sometimes into mid-November if winter is slow in arriving. The Kormanns aren’t able to stockpile pasture for late-in-the-year grazing because they don’t have enough adjacent acres.

“We’ll probably start later next spring,” says Steve of calving. “The early fresheners are peaking before we get to grass. Our goal is to make as much of our milk on grass as possible.” Thus, they’ll be aiming for the start of calving in early April.

They’ve laid plastic pipe on the ground and use tanks to supply water to the cows on pasture, but even his watering system is low-cost with no quick couplers. Instead, he’ll take the line apart at a splice to plug in a water tank. And while there are fenced lands, they’re unimproved, though on sandier soil.

The Kormanns own hay-making equipment. “Old beat-up stuff,” says Steve, only half in jest.

“Three-and-a-half tractors,” adds Nate.

They make balage and round bales of dry hay. They share a round baler with a neighbor, making hay with him. Steve estimates they make between 300 to 400 balage bales, “preferably more,” and several hundred dry bales. While cattle fertilize the pastures for them with manure as they graze, these producers have maintained fertility on rented hay ground with turkey manure and high-calcium lime.

Being organic, they rely on Crystal Creek calf products to help with any cases of calf scours they might see. As for mastitis, they utilize a garlic tincture and herbal rub to help with any swelling, coupled with frequent stripping of quarters. “We can get by with less and less as time goes on,” says Ann of purchased organic remedies for mastitis.

For mineral they offer salt and kelp (dried seaweed), mixed 50/50. The latter is high in natural minerals “more available to animals,” notes Ann.

Because their farm lacked existing facilities, the Kormanns have been outwintering the cows since 1996 n making them among the very early adopters of the practice. They’ll pick a paddock to winter the cows on until the snow gets too deep, then they’ll move the cows closer to a lean-to shed where they can get more shelter if need be. This past winter, that wasn’t until mid-January. “They had access but they don’t use it unless it’s really nasty,” Steve points out. He admits they see one or two frozen teat ends a winter, but shrugs; it’s a relatively small price to pay compared to the cost of new facility they’d have to build.

Heifers n six months on up n also weather the winter outside, with protection from the woods.

The Kormanns, with Nate on board, have been trying to expand their dairy herd from within. Steve is cautious about stating a pre-determined goal, however. “We’ll see how far we can go and still have grass,” he states, admitting they don’t have a lot of wiggle room in terms of herd growth. Rotating Nate’s beef cows through wilder pastures allows this family to make optimum use of available acres.

As noted, Nate has been farming with his parents since finishing high school last year. He also rotates his 25 beef cows and heifers on pasture, moving them once a day this time of year. This young farmer launched his beef enterprise when he was about seven years old, starting with a lone cow. Today, his herd is predominantly Angus crosses with a little Hereford mixed in. The past couple years he’s used a Black Angus herd bull. This year, his bull is Red Angus.

He’s been calving both spring and fall. He’s been calving in March, which he says was “too early this year.” Like his dad, Nate would like to push calving back n into late April/early May. He’d also like to go to all springtime calving to “simplify management,” he says, adding he’s anticipating 14 calves this fall yet.

Nate also manages 30 beef cows for a neighbor; that herd is entirely fall-calving. He gets a share of the calves form that herd for taking care of things year round. He’s been involved in that arrangement for just over three years.

Like the dairy cattle, Nate’s beef cows graze as late in the fall as possible. Through the winter they get dry hay, though last winter, he was short and had to have corn silage delivered throughout the winter. The cows ate silage under a wire. He prefers to pick a different paddock for overwintering the cows (to improve fertility) and move the ring feeders across the paddock.

After outwintering the dairy herd, the Kormanns lightly disc the paddock to spread out leftover forage and manure and spread ryegrass and red clover seed at the same time. With the beef herd, however, they don’t touch overwintering paddocks. “There’s not much residual left. Nate makes them clean up pretty good,” says Steve.

Nate sold last year’s fall calves earlier this month averaging 600 pounds. He’s sold his spring calves in September last year averaging 500 pounds. If he can’t sell “really early,” he’ll sell “late,” he says, sending them in January.

“I want to farm,” says Nate of future plans. “But I’m not sure what way, shape or form yet.” He’d like to experiment with running some stocker cattle on pasture, too.

Besides farming, he’s following in his parents’ footsteps by doing mission work as well. He recently went to Alaska doing construction work and music ministry.

Ann thinks the working relationship Nate has with the elder beef producer is one that might benefit both other young aspiring farmers and those at retirement. The older producer maintains ownership of the calves, but with Nate overseeing calving, feeding and making hay for the herd, the owner can put in as little or as much labor as he likes. Nate is able to build his own herd by earning two-thirds of the calves born every year.

To other dairy producers who might be tempted to take a serious look at managed grazing to hold back rising feed costs, Ann advises not putting up real permanent fences at the start. “It’s nice to be flexible,” she says, until a beginner works through the kinks.

“Go with more temporary fencing to start with and see what works,” Steve agrees.

Ann, who serves as town treasurer, enjoys raising a lot of their own food in the garden. This family does butchering and a lot of canning. They’re also very involved in the Meteor Hills Bible Church.

As noted, the Kormanns believe in getting their children involved in the farm n and making it fun. They have laying hens and broilers, goats, sheep, horses, donkeys and a few pigs. “We let the farm be theirs, too,” says Ann.

“When we were first contemplating coming up here, Steve said he wanted to watch his kids grow up,” Ann concludes. “We’re busy, but we are together.”

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