Feed, cow care essential for Hauschildts

Figure 1  Hayden and Jim Hauschildt’s 135-cow herd of Holsteins and Brown Swiss had an average of 22,328 pounds of milk with 4.3 percent fat and 3.1 percent protein. The Hauschildts dairy near Ellsworth, Wis. PHOTO BY KRISTA KUZMA, DairyStar.com

Figure 2 The Hauschildts breed for sound, functional animals they can show. A portion of their herd is Brown Swiss while the rest is Holstein. PHOTO BY KRISTA KUZMA, DairyStar.com

The Hauschildt family
Jim, Diane and Hayden Hauschildt
Ellsworth, Wis.
Pierce County
135 cows

What is your current herd average, butterfat and protein? Our herd’s current rolling herd average is 22,328 pounds. We plan to make changes to get it back up to where it used to be – around 28,000 – a few years ago.

How many times a day do you milk? If you don’t milk 3X a day, have you tried it in the past? We milk two times a day. We tried three times a day in the mid 1980s for 2.5 year. It was beneficial, but we couldn’t keep going because of the labor.

Do you contract your milk? Has it been successful for you? No, we have never tried it. We have thought about it and wished we would have after the fact. We contract some of our inputs like protein, seed and fertilizer.

Describe your housing and milking facility. We have an 86-stall tie-stall barn with 50 switch cows in loose housing, which is a corn stalk bedded pack. Those cows have access to an exercise lot outside. We have started converting that to a freestall barn. The pack is great, but it takes a lot of labor, a lot of bedding and there are higher instances of mastitis.

What is your herd health program? We have reproduction exams twice a month. Two times every year we use a nine-way vaccine, along with a vaccine for clostridium and staph. Three times a year we use Endovac Bovi.

What does your dry cow and transition program consist of? Our dry cows receive a total mixed ration all 60 days of their dry period – right up until they calve. It includes medium quality hay, corn silage, 5 pounds of straw, a mineral mix and 1 pound of distillers. As soon as they give birth, they are switched to the milking cow ration. We have had a lot of luck without bringing them on the milk cow ration before they have a calf. We’ve seen good results with that. We used to put them in the switch cow group a couple weeks before they calved. We didn’t see the benefits and it was a hassle trying to sort them out from the milking switch cows. Our nutritionist from Ag Partners does a good job with our dry cows.

What is the composition of your ration? What has been one of your most recent changes that has been successful for you? We have a different nutritionist for our milking herd. His name is Dave Johnson. We have been with him since July 2017. The milking herd ration includes alfalfa/grass baleage, corn silage, snaplage, high moisture shelled corn, a protein mix, a mineral mix and a product called Megalac, which includes calcium, salts and other fats. We also top dress palm oils to the fresh and high producing cows. We just started the top dress two weeks ago, so we’ll see if it makes a difference. We added the Megalac just under one year ago. We felt we were short on energy. This is also our first year of snaplage. It has a lot of efficiency in the field. Our biggest change will be going back to haylage instead of all baleage. We like the baleage, but it’s hard to get an accurate measure into the TMR. It’s hard to take a partial bale and get the exact amount in the mix. To help this, we plan to fill one silo with haylage this summer. That way, we can add a bale of baleage and fulfill the rest of the balance with haylage from the silo. We hope this will help our consistency.  

Through the years you’ve been farming, what change has created the biggest jump in your herd average? Every time we invest in cow comfort it has made a difference. We have put in tunnel ventilation, mattresses in the stalls, fans in the bedded pack for the switch cows and larger stalls for our growing cows. Those additions resulted in a 5,000-pound jump in rolling herd average. It was significant.

What role does genetics play in your production level and what is your breeding program? We have never pushed hard for production through our genetics. We like sound, functional cows, and we like to show. We have always believed that 20 percent comes from genetics and 80 percent comes from the environment in which we care for our cows. If we give them the right nutrition and comfort, we believe they will milk. But it still is a balance when it comes to type and production in picking bulls. We have used negative milk bulls, but we definitely don’t use them on the whole herd. Sometimes, those daughters have milked really well despite being from a negative milk bull. Our herd is 22 percent Brown Swiss with the rest being Holstein.
 
What type of improvements would you like to make that would increase your rolling herd average even higher? We would like to cut down on our numbers. We are getting to the point where we might be overcrowding, but we’re also trying to get as much milk as we can because of the milk price. We would like to finish switching the bedded pack to free stalls and put sand in them. We also need to keep fine-tuning our ration.

List three management strategies that have kept you profitable. The first is being conservative; however, it’s not to the point of hurting our dairy. We put a strong thought process into where our dollars are spent. The second is keeping older cows. They are all profit because they have already paid for themselves; however, we have to know when to let them go. The higher age of our herd offsets the cost of raising heifers. Our average age in our herd is about 5 years old. The last strategy has been not to replace our equipment for fieldwork. The planter and harvesting equipment needed to be replaced. Instead of investing in it, we hire it out. The efficiency we get from getting our crops in on time and harvested in a timely manner makes up for the cost.

What would you say are the three most important factors for you that helped you attain your current herd average? The first is having a nutritionist you trust that has your best interest at heart. You need someone who is bringing new ideas to the table and helping you find the best solution for you farm and the goals you want to achieve. The second is feed quality. The third is a mix of cow comfort, cow care, cow handling and environment. Making the cows comfortable and not stressing them helps stimulate milk production.

Tell us about your farm. This is a fifth-generation farm that started in 1907. Jim’s great grandfather was a charter member of Ellsworth Cooperative Creamery and the farm has been selling milk there since it began. Jim is currently on the board of directors. Jim and Diane have been married 32 years and have been farming the whole time. Hayden joined the farm five years ago after graduating from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. We have 345 tillable acres. We enjoy showing cows from our herd. All the Brown Swiss are registered, while the Holsteins are mostly registered.