Dairy apprenticeship helps farm transition

John Richmond’s journey as a dairy grazier started in junior high school watching grazing videos. His dream of owning a grazing dairy is now being realized with the purchase of 150 cows and a lease of 500 acres of mostly-permanent pasture. He recently showed it at a pasture walk sponsored by the River Country Resource Conservation and Development Council.

“In a time of high land prices with fickle milk prices, it’s hard for young farmers to jump into a million-dollar business,” said Mary Anderson, president of the council.

So after graduating from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, Richmond applied to the Dairy Grazing Apprenticeship program. He was linked with Charles Flodquist of Colfax.

Richmond said he spent a lot of time with accountants and lawyers creating a unique paper trail tailored to the needs of both farmers. Knowing where he wanted to go with a grass-based dairy was a big help. He keeps a notebook and sits down with a navigator once each month to discuss all aspects of the business in a structured and basic manner. He said it’s not been perfect; he and Flodquist don’t always agree. But they work out the problems.

He started with a seven-year lease on the land and equipment, and then began paying for the cows and buying equipment. That lease ends this year. He said it will take another three years to finish purchasing equipment before he looks at a land purchase, or continues with renting.

Flodquist’s land is a good fit for Richmond because most of it had not been sprayed or tilled, and was already a permanent pasture, Richmond said. Along with the Flodquist land he rents additional nearby land. Of those acres 350 to 400 are permanent pastures; they’re divided into 30 paddocks surrounded by high-tensile wire. Poly wire is used to divide those into daily paddocks; shale lanes are used between the barn and fields.

The animals are divided into two groups – milk cows and dry cows with the heifers. Placement depends on the fences. He said he finds the heifers are more prone to escape than the content cows. In winter the dairy cows have a freestall barn while the heifers are outwintered. He chooses a different spot from year to year and then uses that field for the next year’s corn crop.

Richmond said alfalfa works better for him as part of a pasture blend than as a mechanically harvested crop. The animals will pick off the leaves and then it recovers within a week – whereas cutting it results in a month for regrowth. Impressive rain through this past summer allowed him to cut hay on most of his pastures for winter feed.

This year he grew 63 acres of corn for silage that he mixes with the alfalfa baleage in his winter ration. He purchases a minimum amount of grain to supplement, he said. Lately he’s been experimenting with cereal rye followed by sorghum for a feed source.

A big change for Richmond was removing his calf hutches, instead using outdoor group pens for his calves. He had observed a couple of calves that were routinely escaping and stealing milk from the others. He realized they gained better than the other animals without side effects. So he started allowing all the calves to drink as much milk as they wanted – and noticed an immediate improvement in overall health. He ensures milk temperature is at 100 degrees, and they have access to water, grain and straw.