D & D Dairy Milks 1,000 Cows

When people drive by the D & D Dairy on Hwy. 43 outside of Rushford, they are sure to notice the huge silage pile on the farm. The pile measures 80 yards wide by 100 yards long and rises to a height of about 20 feet. When the pile is under construction, you might see four or five tractors on top of the pile packing the silage down.

Once that pile is completed, it takes a crew of 12 to 14 men working seven or eight hours to cover the enormous pile with plastic and tires to hold the plastic down. Gavin Smith, the 24-year-old son of owner Dean Smith, leads the packing crew. Dean noted that because they pack the pile so well, the face of the pile never falls like some of the piles he’s seen.

Why does D & D need such a huge pile of silage? Well, when you milk 1,000 cows three times a day, you need to feed them! The cows are milked both at this farm and another nearby. A total of around 100,000 pounds of milk is produced daily between the two farms. Huge semis from Boynton Transport haul the milk for processing.

Dean and his wife Elisabeth are the co-owners of D & D. Dean started on the current farm in 2007 with a partner who has since left the partnership. Dean began farming with his father on the home farm in 1995 right after he completed college. D & D still milks in the original parlor built on the home farm.

The milking parlor at the D & D main farm is a double 12, milking 24 cows at a time. The cows are housed in a freestall barn nearby. Dean hires 24 employees to help. With 1,000 cows being milked three times a day, they are almost always milking at the D & D parlors on the two farms!

Smith purchases his forage from his brothers Greg and Randy. Dean doesn’t raise any crops at D & D. His brothers also haul the manure away. Dean is in the process of building a manure pit at D & D.

In addition to purchasing forage from his brothers, Dean buys supplemental feed and minerals to balance rations from Form-A-Feed. Dean uses Lewiston Veterinary Clinic for veterinary services for his animals.

Heifer calves born on the farm are sent off weekly to be raised on other farms. When the heifers are almost ready to calve, they are returned to D & D. This is done to stay in the county limits on the number of animals on the farm.

D & D does all of their insemination in house. While it does take some training to do artificial insemination, D & D saves money doing the insemination themselves rather than contracting for it.

While today’s push is for beef-on-dairy, D & D started it in 2009. Using sexed Holstein semen, 90% of the Holstein cows give birth to a female with only one out of 10 a bull calf. If all cows were bred with sexed semen, there would be too many heifers.

D & D breeds only 25% of their cows with the sexed semen; the top producing cows are used so the resulting heifers have a better potential of also becoming top milk producers. The other 75% of cows are artificially inseminated with semen from bulls proven to produce good meat. The bull calves are sent to market weekly to the Lanesboro Sales Commission; D & D’s calves are known by buyers to be great beef cattle.

Dean acknowledges that dairy farming is a 24/7 job, but he enjoys the fact that you can feed a cow assorted feeds and the cows will produce an almost perfect food for humans. Protein is popularly emphasized by dieticians today. In order to really get enough protein each day easily, people find its best to include dairy products.

The current war is “interesting” according to Dean. The high oil prices affect D & D three times at the farm. There are additional fuel charges to have items delivered to the farm, the tractors and equipment use a lot of fuel at a higher price and there is another fuel charge to haul product off the farm.

The current high cattle prices work to D & D’s advantage; they buy very few animals and sell calves and cull cows at a higher price.

D & D doesn’t buy a lot of new machinery. Dean’s son Gavin takes care of equipment, oiling and greasing it. The price of repairs and parts are double what they used to be however. Dean shared that tractor tires can run between $2,000 and $4,000 each.

Dean is a board member of Minnesota Milk Producers Association (MMPA). This is a grassroots organization for the Minnesota dairy community that has been in existence since 1977. Dean has traveled to St. Paul to represent dairy farmers at the capitol.

Dean and Elisabeth have three younger children – Daughter Tearnee, age 12; daughter Brinley, age 10; and son Bentley, age 8. Dean and Elisabeth met when Elisabeth was team captain of the rodeo at UWRF. The whole family now enjoys rodeo as a hobby. The girls compete in barrel racing, pole bending and goat tying. Tearnee also does roping, and Bentley is a bull rider.

The family owns a trailer with living quarters and travels to Little Britches rodeo events in Decorah, Amherst and Gays Mills, Wis. Bentley participates in three different rodeos – one in Waukon, Iowa, in the winter and Honey Creek, Iowa, and the Little Britches as well. As a result, the kids all have some huge belt buckles (prizes from their wins)!

Dean’s advice for any young farmers wanting to get into dairy farming is to find someone who is planning on retiring. He encourages young farmers to find a mentor who can share their wisdom! “You gotta become a business person,” Dean concluded.