Brothers Mike and Tom Gerrits were worried that Country Aire Farms, their family’s 101-year-old dairy farm near Greenleaf, wouldn’t be passed down to a fourth generation. Their two eldest sons had walked away from the farm to enroll in college. Matt Gerrits pursued a career as a pharmacist; Nick Gerrits pursued a career as a certified public accountant. But that changed for each of them after they experienced life outside the dairy.
“They asked us if we had a spot for them on the farm,” Mike Gerrits said. “We really didn’t have a job for them but obviously we said yes because they’re good, smart kids.”
At the same time two younger sons – Jon and Craig Gerrits – were attending an agricultural short course at Fox Valley Technical College in Appleton, Wisconsin; they now work on the farm full-time. To create an opportunity for four boys, the family embarked on a multi-year, multi-phase project to expand the farm’s operating capacity and increase its overall efficiency.
Following years of planning, crews broke ground in spring 2023. An 80-stall DeLaval rotary parlor with a tunnel-ventilated holding area was added as well as two tunnel-ventilated freestall barns totaling about 230,000 square feet. The nearby 26-year-old rotary parlor is being replaced.
“Maybe it’ll give them a little bit of an edge in the dairy industry if things get tighter and tighter – because our prices haven’t been good for the past few years,” Mike Gerrits said.
The project should be completed this fall. The family’s goal is to milk 7,200 cows from an 8,000-cow herd spread across two sites.
“It puts us close to being one of the largest herds in the state,” he said.
Currently the rolling herd average is 29,980 pounds. The average-yearly butterfat is 4.15 percent and the yearly average for protein is 3.2 percent. The average somatic-cell count is 128 per milliliter.
When Mike and Tom Gerrits took over the farm in 1995 from their father, Budd Gerrits, the family was milking 378 cows. That was an increase from the 65 cows the family milked in the late 1960s.
Jim Barmore, a founding partner of GPS Dairy Consulting, has worked as a dairy consultant for Country Aire Farms for more than 24 years. He said the Gerrits are good cow people who care about their herd. They’re a role-model family farm at a time when multi-generational operations are overlooked as they grow bigger. Part of the family’s success is due to how proactive and professional the family has been in bringing the younger generation into the business.
“They’ve worked very hard at these generational transitions,” he said. “They didn’t just assume it was all going to happen by itself.”
Forage quality is another piece of their success, he said. They grow alfalfa, wheat and corn on 7,400 acres, feeding it back to the herd in a heavy-forage ration.
“That really lends itself well to better management of their feed costs,” Barmore said.
The Gerrits have thrived due to their management team, he said; the team includes numerous trusted advisers. When Mike and Tom Gerrits first envisioned implementing the buildout they turned to a general contractor specializing in agriculture – Keller in Kaukauna, Wisconsin. The company arranged for the Country Aire team to tour large dairy farms in California, New York and Arizona to understand available features and technology.
Joe Novy, agricultural-project manager at Keller, said it’s typical for dairy farmers to visit sites throughout Wisconsin and the United States to understand what more-extensive operations are doing.
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