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What’s Inside:Top Individual Cow Records .......................................Page 4Lifetime Milk Production ........................ Pages 8-10, 12, 132014 Huron County Honored Members ...................Page 132014 Herd Averages ...................................... Pages 14 & 15
JANUARY 13, 2015
A SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT TO
THE
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2 • Tuesday, January 13, 2015 • THUMB FARMER HURON DAILY TRIBUNE • www.michigansthumb.com
BY RICH HARPFor the Tribune
Paul Schulte, a Harbor Beach area farmer, is an up and coming young entrepreneur. He knows the importance of living in the 21st Century. He knows getting things done in a group is often more advantageous than going it alone.
Schulte is the president of the Huron County Dairy Herd Improvement Association, and has been for the past three years. The group boasts several dozen members in Huron County, and they will meet on Thursday, Jan. 15 for their annual banquet and awards presentation.
Although Schulte is an up and com-ing farmer, there was a time when he thought he would never return to the farm. But things change, and so did his feelings about farm life.
Schulte was born in the mid-1980s, son to Steve and Marlene Schulte. He lived in the Harbor Beach area his entire life, attending the local school district and graduating from Harbor Beach High School. He admits he was born into farming, but he didn’t put a lot of time into his parents’ dairy farm while growing up. In fact, he spent much more time working at his brother’s crop farm when he was a kid.
Schulte graduated from high school and headed to college.
“I went to Ferris State and got a bachelor’s degree in human resource management,” he said. “I said I’d never come back to farming once I went to college. But there was an opportunity to come back and manage right away.”
With little training, his father set him up as manager of the operation. Schulte shook his head and smiled when he said, “Dad let me make mistakes right off the bat.”
“S & M Dairy is a corporation,” he explained. “Mom and dad own the corpo-ration, but I’m a separate entity right now. We’re working on me moving to president of the corporation.”
He is married to Nichole, and the couple has two young children, 3-year-old Aubrey and 1-year-old Chase. As Schulte looks back, he realizes his life is nothing like he envisioned when he was younger.
Schulte soon began discussing the intri-cacies of running a 21st Century farm.
“We farm about 900 acres. The dairy sits on 40 acres,” he said.
The corporation actually owns 280 acres, and the additional land is rented by their dairy operation.
“I used to get up at 4 a.m.,” he said. “Now, I don’t need to be here until about 7 a.m.”
The major reason for this is his employ-ees.
“We have 16 full-time employees and they are real good,” Schulte said.
He also has one part-time farm hand.“I put my trust in my employee s,” he
said. This allows him to be more manager than farm hand.
Schulte explained his agenda as manager.“For the past year and a half, I’ve put
most of my time on focusing on people management,” he said. “I try to put out forest fires before they happen. I try to streamline employees’ duties so they run in straight lines and not in circles. The biggest head-ache I have is my two kids in the morning. (Compared to them), the farm is easy.”
He continued talking about the operation.“Ninety-seven percent of our income is
from milk,” Schulte explained. “We have 1,050 total cows. We have 1,100 replace-ment heifers.”
These replacement animals range in age from 1 day old to 22 months.
Schulte went on to explain S & M takes care of the cattle from the day they are born until the day they start producing milk, until the day they are sold.
Farming is a business, and a business is about making money. Along with being the day-to-day manager, he also is the numbers cruncher. It is not cheap to raise a cow to a point when it is ready to become profitable.
“It costs about $2,000 to raise an animal before she’s putting money into the tank,” he said.
“ ... One time per month we get our cows tested,” he said. These tests include the cow’s milk weights, bacterial count, pregnancy tests and other things to track the animals’ productivity and health.
Schulte discussed some of his theories about raising cows, using them as milk cows, and then selling them as beef cattle.
“We’ve done real good with cow repro-duction,” he said. “We have a surplus of young stock. We turn over the herd rapidly, and that helps eliminate health problems.
We don’t have to use as many antibiotics on young cows. It’s a management choice to turn the herd over as much as we do.”
Schulte has a number of theories which are not shared by all of his local peers. One of these theories is to cross breed the herd to create specific genetic traits he feels is best for the business.
“We now have 25 percent full bred Holsteins,” he said.
The rest of the herd is a mixture of German Fleckvieh, French Montbeliarde, Swedish Red and a small amount of Jersey cows.
Schulte started cross breeding when he noticed unwanted traits in full breed cows. They had a tendency to become tall and frail, and they lost their longevity.
“I did it to eliminate these things and to make them more fertile,” he said. “I started cross breeding in 2009. I’m seeing very good results in it. Five years later, I’m reaping the benefits of cross breeding.”
Association president returns to area to run his family farm
Rich Harp/For the TribuneFarmer Paul Schulte looks at a group of pregnant dairy cows at his farm near Harbor Beach. These cows are separated from the herd and watched closely before they give birth.
See FARMER • 3
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HURON DAILY TRIBUNE • www.michigansthumb.com THUMB FARMER • Tuesday, January 13, 2015 • 3
Of late, S & M Dairy has begun a new venture.“We’re going to start fattening out bulls and heifer calves,” Schulte said. “We
do about 10 feeder calves per month.”It takes about 23 months before they are large enough to sell as beef cattle.“Raising beef started out as a side job for my dad,” he said. “Jokingly, we called
it his retirement fund, but it will probably turn out to be something bigger.”Schulte’s attention turned to the future of his farm and to the industry as a whole.“We have a lot of gadgets and technology at our disposal,” Schulte said. “I can
pull the history of any cow up on the computer.”He sees robots in the future of the nation’s farms, but not at his. He feels his
employees are more effective and faster than robots, and he does not see them at S & M any time in the near future.
There are things he would like to see change.“I would like to have a totally enclosed feeding system,” Schulte said. “It’s a
huge expense, but it can be a huge profit (in savings) in the future.”He also plans to upgrade the milking parlor. The parlor is not new, but it is still
very usable.“Our parlor is 20 years old,” Schulte said. “The concrete is still there. We plan
to keep upgrading in the future.”Schulte noted his farm’s future is “to keep doing what we’re doing.”“(But) if a new opportunity arises, we’ll research it and see if it works out,”
he added.
FARMER■■ From 2
Rich Harp/For the Tribune
Above, while giving a tour of the family dairy operation, Schulte points to the old barn that was used by his father years before. His father milked about 110 cows in the old barn before building the newest facility 20 years ago.
Left, S & M Dairy has been in the same family for more than 100 years. They have 1,050 milk cows and 1,100 replacement heifers at their facility. The farm raises the calves from the day they are born until the day they are retired from the herd.
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4 • Tuesday, January 13, 2015 • THUMB FARMER HURON DAILY TRIBUNE • www.michigansthumb.com
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HURON DAILY TRIBUNE • www.michigansthumb.com THUMB FARMER • Tuesday, January 13, 2015 • 5
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6 • Tuesday, January 13, 2015 • THUMB FARMER HURON DAILY TRIBUNE • www.michigansthumb.com
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10 • Tuesday, January 13, 2015 • THUMB FARMER HURON DAILY TRIBUNE • www.michigansthumb.com
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12 • Tuesday, January 13, 2015 • THUMB FARMER HURON DAILY TRIBUNE • www.michigansthumb.com
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HURON DAILY TRIBUNE • www.michigansthumb.com THUMB FARMER • Tuesday, January 13, 2015 • 13
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14 • Tuesday, January 13, 2015 • THUMB FARMER HURON DAILY TRIBUNE • www.michigansthumb.com
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HURON DAILY TRIBUNE • www.michigansthumb.com THUMB FARMER • Tuesday, January 13, 2015 • 15
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• Michigan’s dairy industry is a leading segment of Michigan agriculture, contributing $14.7 billion to the state’s economy annually.
• These dollars employ local veterinarians, equipment deal-ers, and dairy employees — all providing jobs for Michigan. A dollar spent locally generates twice as much income for the local economy.
• Dairy represented 20 percent of cash receipts statewide in 2013, including dairy farming, dairy processing and the dairy wholesale/retail sector.
• Michigan has 380,000 dairy cows, representing approxi-mately 1,900 dairy herds.
• 98 percent of Michigan dairy farms are family owned, many by multiple generations of the same family.
• The average dairy herd in Michigan has 176 cows. Just like businesses grow to support more families, herd sizes increase to allow the next generation to continue farming.
• Michigan ranks 7th in milk production in the U.S. In 2013, dairy cows in Michigan produced about 9.2 billion pounds of milk.
• The average Michigan cow produces approximately 23,700 pounds of milk each year. That’s 2,775 gallons of milk!
• Michigan milk is local! Michigan’s 1,700 Grade A Dairy farms produce more than enough milk to supply the entire state. Surplus milk is exported to help meet demand in other states.
• In supermarkets and local farmers markets, you can find milk, cheese and yogurt produced by Michigan dairy farmers. When you buy Michigan dairy products, you not only “buy local” and support area farmers — you buy quality.
• To check where your milk is bottled look for the code. Every container of milk is identified by a 5-digit code. The code includes a 2-digit state code followed by a 3-digit processing plant code. Michigan’s code is 26.
• Only 1.7 percent of the U.S. population produces food for the other 98 percent plus millions worldwide.
Source: The United Dairy Industry of Michigan
Michigan dairyindustry facts
Have you ever looked at a dairy cow and won-dered about the history of the breed? A new series from Michigan State University Extension will explore the history of the seven major breeds of dairy cattle in the U.S. First in the series is the Holstein.
Holstein cows are perhaps the most recognized breed of dairy cattle and are the most common dairy breed in the U.S. The have distinctive black and white or red and white markings. The red and white coloring is a recessive gene that appears when both the dam (mother) and sire (father) are carri-ers or exhibit the trait themselves. The Holstein breed is known for high milk production but has less butterfat and protein based on per-centage in the milk, compared other breeds.
Holstein cows originated in the Netherlands approximately 2,000 years ago. Two breeds of cattle, black animals from the Batavians (present day Germany) and white animals from the Friesians (pres-ent day Holland), were crossed to create a new breed of cattle. This crossbreeding led to a high milk-producing animal that was able to do so on limited feed resources. Originally, this breed was known as Holstein-Friesians but is now known more simply as Holsteins. Friesian cattle still exist today but are separate from the Holstein breed. There are Friesian breeds from
the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Holland and these animals tend to be smaller bodied than Holstein cattle.
Holstein cattle were initially brought to the U.S. in 1852 by a Massachusetts man named Winthrop Chenery. There was a growing market for milk and a need for cattle, so dairy breeders looked to Holland for animals. Chenery purchased the cow from a Dutch sailing master who had a Holstein on board to provide fresh milk to his crew during the voy-
age. Impressed with the cow’s milk production, Chenery imported more cows in 1857, 1859 and 1861, and soon many other breeders followed suit to establish lines of Holstein cattle in the U.S.
Near the end of the 1800s, there were enough cattle and dairy farm-ers interested in the breed that the Holstein-Friesian Association of America was formed in 1885 to maintain herdbooks and record pedi-grees of cattle in the U.S. In 1994, the association changed its name to Holstein Association USA, Inc.
Here are a few more fun facts about the Holstein breed:
A mature cow weighs about 1,500 pounds and stands 58 inches tall at her shoulder.
There are more than nine million dairy cows in this country and about 90 percent of them are Holsteins.
Holstein calves weigh 80 to 100 pounds when born.
Holstein cows take the top awards in milk production. The average cow produces about 25,000 pounds, or
around 2,900 gallons, of milk each lactation or milk-ing, cycle. Each lactation cycle lasts about a year.
Source: MSU Extension
History of dairy cow breeds — HolsteinLearn more about the seven majorbreeds of dairy cattle in the U.S.
• A mature cow weighs about 1,500 pounds and stands 58 inches tall at her shoulder.
• There are more than nine million dairy cows in this country and about 90 percent of them are Holsteins.
• Holstein calves weigh 80 to 100 pounds when born.
• Holstein cows take the top awards in milk pro-duction. The average cow produces about 25,000 pounds, or around 2,900 gallons, of milk each lacta-tion or milking, cycle. Each lactation cycle lasts about a year.
Fun Facts ...
Mission Statement
“To serve National DHIA members and the dairy industry in advancing dairy information services.”
Vision Statement
National DHIA will lead the dairy information industry to create, utilize and advance world class information resources that are accurate, credible and uniform.
We will accomplish this by: • Ensuringinformationaccuracy • Representingandsupportingourmembers’interests • Beingthedirectvoiceforthedairyinformationindustry • Workingwithindustrypartners
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