Posted: 7/20/04
Brown Swiss producers visit local farm
By David Heiller
Argus News Editor
Brown Swiss dairy farmers from around the United States got a close- hand look at a Caledonia farm on July 15.
About 160 people came in three tour buses from Rochester for tours of the Hendel Family Farm on Gap Road, five miles southwest of Caledonia.
The farmers were attending the National Brown Swiss Associationís annual meeting and sale in Rochester that day.
Family members and employees gave tours and answered questions. People also got a good meal in one of the outbuildings, and a chance to look at displays about the rich history of the farm established by Nicholas Hendel in 1869.
The farm, now operated by Carl Hendel and Matt and Pam Hendel, milks 35-40 Brown Swiss and about 350 holsteins. It has received numerous excellence awards over the years for both breeds. The Hendels have 13 full- and part-time employees.
Visitors to the Hendel farm represented the states of Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, New York, and South Carolina, to name a few. They swapped information and asked questions, and learned a few things too.
Ginny Franks of Waynesboro, Georgia, for example, was surprised to hear that somatic cell count goes down in the summer and milk production rises. Thatís because they can get more help in the summer and go to three milkings per day, Matt Hendel told the group.
Franks and her husband run 180-cow operation, which is called Crowís Nest Farm, about three-fourths of which are Brown Swiss or Swiss crosses.
Their milk production increases in the winter because it is cooler, Franks said as the tour moved to the milking parlor. The heat index at her home on the day of the tour was 115, she said, and it doesnít cool off at night. Cows get exhausted and their production goes down. They donít calve in July and August, she added.
Prices are good right now in Georgia, she said, and farming is looking positive. But like many local farmers, she hastened to add, ìItís been so long coming that itís going to (take a while) get back equal to where it was.î
Her parents, Ted and Betty Lou Crowder of Hodges, South Carolina, said there were 10 dairy farms in Greenwood County, South Carolina, in 1972, but there are none now.
Later on the tour, Pam Hendel took a break from her visitors to say that it was a ìhuge honorî to be chosen for the event.
ìItís kind of nice that we can showcase our Brown Swiss cows and our farm,î she said while trying to keep track of her 15-month-old daughter, Sydney.
Sydney was toddling up and down the isles of a gigantic four-row, free-stall barn She had plenty of room to practice her new-found skill of walking ñ the barn is 430 feet long and 100 feet wide.
Pam works full-time as area director of marketing for Accelerated Genetics.
Karl Stokman, the farmís young stock manager, has worked at the farm for seven years. Like other tour guides, he was wearing a red T-shirt with Hendel Farms stitched on the front. He took a break from answering questions about the calves to say that the tour was fun.
It was the biggest one they had done for a long time, he added; the farm cut back on them due to the threat of diseases. Everybody on last weekís tour wore plastic boots over their shoes to protect their footwear, and to prevent the spread of pathogens from farm to farm.
ìDiseases are out there, especially for calves,î Stokman said.
The group also toured the Steve Klug and Gerald Bratland farms in Spring Grove.
Caledonia Argus
314 West Lincoln St.
P.O. Box 227
Caledonia, MN 55921-0227
507/724-3475
E-Mail: editor.argus@ecm-inc.com