Celebrate June dairy month with a thanks to our common-sense dairy farmers who every day, 24/7/365, produce high quality milk for all of us to enhance our life — whether it be milk, yogurt, cheese, real butter or favorite flavor of ice cream.
Successful dairy farmers are common-sense, get er’ done, cow-loving, people-managing business owners. They have the insider ability to be cow and baby calf whisperers and speak cow as a second language.
They operate high-dollar budgets and analyze business investments on the back of an envelope. They are business savvy. They possess the ability to work and manage people whether family or hired workers.
The common sense of a farmer incorporates cow sense, business sense and people sense. Let’s discuss each of these skills and importance for a dairy farmer to make their farm profitable.
Cow sense
Living around cattle gives an appreciation for learning how to interpret cows’ behavior and learn “cow” as a language. Learning their language gives the ability to be a cow “whisperer” and know what the cows require. Farmers learn cow language by observing cows and their unique behaviors, attitudes and responses.
Growing up on a farm around a cow whisperer like a parent or uncle is good way to learn cow. A cow whisperer uses their senses of hear, see, smell and touch.
Tasting milk is okay, but tasting other things in the cow barn is not wise. I learned that as a youngster.
A cow whisperer can interpret the healthy from the unhealthy responses. The cow whisperer interprets the cow mooing, sleeping, nervous, ruminating, teeth grinding, empty, off-feed, tanky, silent heat, ketotic breath, limping or a multitude of other cow responses. CowSignals (www.cowsignals.com) is a good online or in-person program to learn cow language.
I have walked through hundreds of dairy barns over the past 40+ years of my career on herds from 20 to 10,000+ cows. I have observed that every high performance, healthy generational dairy farm has at least one person, whether the farmer or herd manager, that is a cow whisperer.
It is recommended to have a yearly herd review with a qualified nutrition consultant, veterinarian and welfare auditor that will provide insight into opportunity areas to improve cow health and performance, kind of like a yearly physical with your medical doctor.
The review will assess the freedoms of cows — air, bunk, comfort, light, water, space and people — and identify limits to achieving an ideal cow day. The ideal cow day includes 2 hours per day milking, 4 to 6 hours per day eating and drinking water, 1 hour socializing and grooming and 12 to 14 hours per day resting and ruminating.
Today we have parlors with technology and automated milking systems that records each cow’s production, percent fat, percent protein, SCC, MUN, along with milk health data of ketosis, body condition, pregnancy, lameness, body weight and multitude of other diagnostics.
This information is incorporated into artificial intelligence systems that can supposedly diagnose the condition and recommend cow treatments. This information provides the farmer or herd manager with valuable information. There is not a substitute, however, for the farm owner on a small farm or a herd manager on a larger farm, being able to be a cow whisperer and speak “cow” as a language.
Business sense
Farming requires a business sense on how to make logical, financially viable and legacy-based business decisions. Running a farm as a lifestyle is poor business, but running a farm as a sound business can be a great lifestyle.
Many multi-generational farms exist, but each generation must run the farm profitably or else it will not pass to the next generation. An MBA is not required to successfully operate a dairy farm; however, basic fundamental principles of production costs, cost control, risk management, investment return and price volatility are important to manage.
The basic principles of successful dairy business are taught at many land grant universities. Ohio State University offers classes in dairy farm profitability. The proper experience along with solid business financial skills is important.
The following story reminds me of the importance of the balance of education and experience.
A young seminary graduate arrived at the small country church to preach his first official sermon, the young man noticed that it had rained cats and dogs for several hours just prior to when the small country church service was scheduled to begin. Several roads were flooded and many church members would be unable to attend morning church.
An elderly bearded farmer was the only person to show for the service. The young minister looked at the farmer and asked, “what do you think we should do?”
The farmer scratched his beard thoughtfully. “Well, I don’t know much about preaching, but I do know about farming. If I went down to the pasture with a load of hay to feed my herd of cows and only one cow showed up, I’d feed that cow.”
The seminary graduate said, “That’s great! You sit right there and I’ll preach you a sermon.”
After 90 minutes of preaching a vibrant message from the Bible, the seminary graduate concluded his sermon. Feeling pretty proud of his accomplishment, the young preacher turned to the elderly farmer and asked, “Well, how was it?”
The farmer scratched his beard thoughtfully. “Like I said, I don’t know much about preaching, but I do know about farming. Like I told you, if I went down to the field with a load of hay and only one cow showed up, I’d feed that one cow. But, there’s just one thing.”
“What’s that?” the preacher asked.
The farmer replied, “I wouldn’t unload and feed the whole load of hay.” Experience and education must both in good balance.
People sense
Dairy farming is very labor intensive. A 2024 dairy producer survey indicated that one of the top three concerns for successful dairy farming is labor supply and labor management. Whether a farm is operated with family labor or many employees, farm owner must effectively manage family and employees.
As herd size has increased, the need for hired labor has increased. Some farmers enjoy working with cows more than people. A longtime farmer friend said to me, “The reason I have cows is they do not talk back like people do. I would rather manage cows than people.”
As a farm grows in herd size, a farmer cannot do all the work and hired labor becomes critical. Recruiting and retaining hired labor is difficult in today’s dairy environment.
Some farms employee a business human resource group that recruits and approves legal employee status and conducts payroll for the farm. Larger farms have a HR group for the farm. Employee management whether done by the farm or an HR group requires proper skills of recruitment, hiring, training, evaluation and motivation. These skills take development and education.
Automated milking systems have increased in the U.S. in the past two decades. AMS have benefits of which one is reduced need for paid labor.
AMS can be viewed as prepaid future labor. The initial AMS investment is high and does reduce, but not eliminate, future paid hourly milking parlor labor.
A University of Minnesota dairy farm economic summary showed that 25 AMS farms had a $1.71 per cwt lower labor cost than three times parlor herds.
The future of dairy technology will include additional labor saving that will be assessed in making effective business decisions.
Summary
Celebrate June dairy month with a daily ice cream cone and applause for our dairy farm families, laborers and workers who use their cow whisperer ability to speak cow, combining education and practical experience to run successful businesses and work recruit, train and employ quality people to produce a nutritious high quality dairy products we all can enjoy.
(Dwight Roseler is an adjunct professor in the Department of Animal Science at Ohio State University. He has 40 years of experience as a dairy consulting nutritionist in the Midwest and eastern U.S. with Purina based in Wooster, Ohio. Contact him dkroseler@gmail.com.)
