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2 DAIRY ST 5R C E L E B R A T I N G
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Y E A R S
October 28, 2023
“All dairy, all the time”™
Volume 25, No. 17
Recycling the highest quality of sand Joneses’ separator reclaims 99% of bedding By Stacey Smart
stacey.s@dairystar.com
BERLIN, Wis. — Sand has been the bedding of choice at Trillium Hill Farm since 2014. Therefore, when the Jones family was looking to install a digester, sand was not something they were willing to give up. A separator new to the U.S. would provide the perfect means of sand separation for the Joneses — removing sand from manure while reclaiming nearly all of it for future use. Today, the dairy reclaims 98% to 99% of its sand used for bedding and has gone from buying 14 dump load trucks of sand per week to buying only six loads per year. “It’s a huge dollar sav-
PHOTO SUBMITTED
The Jones family — David (front, from leŌ), Penelope and William; (back, from leŌ) Julie, David, Chelsey, Mike holding Eddie, Ben holding Mikayla, and Samantha — milks 1,800 cows on their farm near Berlin, Wisconsin. The Joneses are recycling sand and manure with a separator and digester combinaƟon that is the rst of its kind in the U.S.
ings,” Ben Jones said. “It also saves on wear and tear on the roads. By not hauling so much sand, we’re helping to
save the road infrastructure for the community.” Ben and his brother, Mike, farm with their parents,
David and Julie, near Berlin. The Jones family milks 1,800 cows three times a day in a double-24 parallel parlor.
Cows average 102 pounds of milk per day with a 100,000 somatic cell count. Longevity is important to the Joneses. The family credits sand bedding as a major source of their success. A Stjernholm sand separator has given the Joneses the ability to reclaim the majority of sand used on their farm. “It’s amazing,” Mike said. “Achieving 99% sand separation is unreal.” Made in Denmark, Stjernholm guarantees 90% sand retention, but Mike and Ben have pushed the system to new levels. “It’s an extremely efcient system, and we make tweaks to increase efciency,” Ben said. Sand-laden manure is run through a high-efciency pump where sand is separated from the ber and liquid in the manure. The sand is then Turn to JONESES | Page 6
CreaƟng generaƟons of dairy consumers cerned with the palatability of Heimans provide milk served in schools. “We need to be able to get back to serving at least appealing milk to schools 2% milk in the schools,” Ken By Danielle Nauman danielle.n@dairystar.com
MARSHFIELD, Wis. — Being in the business of producing, processing and marketing dairy products, it is a good business practice for dairy farmers to create consumers of those products while those consumers are young. Ken and Joellen Heiman operate a trio of dairy-related businesses: Heiman’s Holsteins, where they milk 500 cows and focus on breeding for A2A2 milk; Nasonville Dairy, an award-winning
cheese plant; and Weber’s Farm Store, a retail store location where they also process uid milk and make a variety of other award-winning dairy products. All three entities are located in Wood County, in or near Marsheld. The Heimans each grew up in their respective family dairy businesses — Ken’s family has a long history with Nasonville Dairy, and Joellen’s family established Weber’s Farm Store when she was a child — so creating each generation of milk consumers is something near and dear to their hearts, they said. The Heimans are con-
said. “With the milk schoolchildren get, we have taken all the avor out. There really is no comparison in the taste of 2% milk versus the taste of 1%. … If you compare the difference between that and whole milk, which is just 3%, it is phenomenal.” The Heimans are concerned that the lack of avor, along with unappealing packaging in cartons, has deterred children from becoming not only consumers of milk, but lovers of milk. Setting out to solve what they see as a problem, the Heimans worked to provide appealing milk to local schools. Turn to HEIMANS | Page 9
DANIELLE NAUMAN/DAIRY STAR
Ken and Joellen Heiman display 8-ounce milk pouches Oct. 19 at Weber’s Farm Store in Marsheld, Wisconsin. The Heimans are focused on developing a new generaƟon of milk lovers by providing 16 central Wisconsin schools milk in appealing packaging.