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Volume 21, No. 10
“All dairy, all the time”™
July 13, 2019
Daluge Farm aims to educate
Sisters diversify through farm tours, camps By Stacey Smart Contributing Writer
STACEY SMART/DAIRY STAR
Sisters Erin Grawe (le�) and Megan Daluge farm with their father, Peter Daluge, in Janesville, Wis. The sisters offer farm tours and camps to diversify their 140-cow dairy.
JANESVILLE, Wis. – Sisters and best friends, Erin Grawe and Megan Daluge, want to make sure their farm remains in the family and an operating dairy for years to come. These young farmers, whose greatest passion is dairying, farm side by side along with their father, Peter Daluge, on their family’s farm in Janesville, Wis. Daluge Farm has been in the Daluge family for 120 years. To help ensure the future of their farm for the next generation, the sisters began offering farm tours, eld trips and farm camps to provide additional income on the dairy while also serving as an avenue for educating the public about the dairy industry. “We need to diversify our market in order to keep this farm going,” said Erin, who mentioned that low milk prices served as motivation for branching into
tourism. “But, this is also a great way to educate consumers and spread positive messages about dairy farming. Teaching people about where their food comes from is more important than ever.” Erin and Megan are fth-generation dairy farmers who provide the bulk of the labor on the dairy, milking 140 registered Holsteins on the 170-acre farm. Erin and Megan, who have been milking cows since they were 8 years old, milk morning and night in a double-6 herringbone parlor and handle other farm chores while Peter takes care of feeding and bookkeeping; however, the sisters are learning these tasks from Peter so they can eventually take over all facets of the farm. In addition to running the dairy, the energetic pair is now hosting private tours for families and offering eld trips for school groups of all ages. The 1.5-hour tour taps into the ve senses, allowing guests to see, hear, smell, taste and feel the aspects of the farm. Focused on cow comfort, Erin and Turn to DALUGE | Page 7
A move towards full automation
Reins install feeding system in path towards one-person-run farm By Krista Kuzma
krista.k@dairystar.com
LANESBORO, Minn. – The Reins are on the path to their farm being fully automated. “I built this so I can run (the farm) myself, and if it doesn’t, we better x it,” Ben Rein said. Rein and his family – wife, Amber, and their children, Steven, 21, Jaime, 18, Nora, 16, Kim, 14, and Rachel, 10 – installed a Lely Vector automatic feeding system six months ago for their 150 cows on their farm near Lanesboro, Minn. The Reins use two robots to milk their herd and have plans to install an automatic calf feeder later this year. On June 23, a group from the Second International Precision Dairy Farming Conference toured the dairy. “Labor is the main part of it,” Rein KRISTA KUZMA/DAIRY STAR said about why they are moving toward The Reins – (from le� ) Kim, Amber and Ben – milk 150 cows with two robots on automation. To accommodate the new feeding their dairy near Lanesboro, Minn. The Reins recently hosted a tour June 23 for system, the Reins built two silos along a�endees at the Second Interna�onal Precision Dairy Farming Conference to show the milking and feeding automa�on on farm.
with two bulk bins. Each contains an ingredient of the milking cows’ ration: haylage and corn silage in each of the silos, and ne ground corn with fat in one bin with protein and mineral mix in the other bin. A long conveyer and portable mixing unit are housed in a building attached to the silos and bins, which is called the kitchen. Every hour, the mixing unit drives into the freestall barn to push up feed. Using a laser, it measures the height of the feed. Rein programmed the system to mix a ration if the feed is lower than 3 inches. The mixing unit will drive back to the kitchen, mix a batch of feed and return to the barn to unload the batch. The feeding system will feed 12 1,000-pound batches per day. With this newest use of automation, the Reins’ herd increased in components with butterfat up to 3.8% from 3.6% and protein jumping to 3.3% from 3.1%. Rein attributes the increase to consistent feeding. Refusals have also gone down nearly 25%. “It’s a big thing,” Rein said. “Now I scrape the bunk every two weeks and get one small skidloader bucket from each side. Before I was getting 1-2 Turn to REINS | Page 5