■■'.6—Lancaster Farming. Saturda Dairying— IS years old. He looks for dime If, and he thinks work •xperience is worth a lot nore than schooling. D’Avanzo said he puts in vote hours than any of his nen, and he hasn’t had a day iff in months. Sounds mspiciously like a small lairy farmer. The annual rolling herd iverage at Bryncoed is (4,680 pounds of milk from a 250<0w herd of Registered Holsteins. Milkings begin at j a.m. and 5 p.m., and it udces eight to nine hours to complete milking. An automated Surge milking parlor with automatic take .off and preparation for six cows at a time, makes milking a one-man chore, but the man in the parlor is replaced after he’s been there about four hours. D’Avanzo said they’ve got enough help to keep mostly to a 7 a jn. to 5 p.m. schedule, with one day off every week for each man. The early and late milking shifts are rotated so-that the burden falls equally to everyone. The Bryncoed cows are divided into four milking groups, and fed and milked as groups. Group one con sists of cows milking 70 pounds a day and over, group two consists of those in the .50 to 69 pound category, group three are milking 35 to 49 pounds and group four put June 1. 1974 out less than 35. All groups get 45 pounds of com silage, six pounds of- 14 percent pellets in the parlor, and six pounds of hay. Protein supplement and high moisture com rations are varied according to production. Group one, for example, gets 10 pounds of 38 percent pellets daily, and 15 pounds of high moisture com. Group three gets only five pounds of 38 percent pellets and eight pounds of high moisture com. Dry cows are fed three to five pounds of 38 percent pellets daily, plus free choice timothy hay and that’s all. “I don’t believe in feeding com silage to dry cows because they don’t need it, D’Avanzo said. “I have very little milk fever or congested udders, no displaced stomachs and hardly any acenemia with my dry cow feeding program.” All the Bryncoed cows are Registered Holsteins, and all are on DHIA test Both bulls and AI are used for breeding, but the bulls are used mostly for the young heifers. When they’re milking, the cows are always confined to the free stall bam. They’re never on pasture except when they’re dry. Alfalfa hay and haylage, high moisture com and com silage are all grown on the farm. All grain supplies are purchased, and D’Avanzo said the price of feed is making it more and more difficult to show a profit for his operation, and he feels it’s got to be worse for small dairymen. He feels it’s been that way for a long time, and it’s going to get worse. “Last year alone,” he said, “over 100 dairy farmers dropped out in Pennsylvania. They sold their cows for beef, u this trend continues, dairy cows will soon be as scarce as buffalo. USDA says we’ll have higher feed prices this year and throughout 1975, yet milk prices just don’t keep up. This is going to hurf an awful lot of small far* mers, and I think a lot more. will be giving up." The Bryncoed name was once familiar at area dairy shows, but that’s a thing of the past, D’Avanzo said. “There’s no profit ih the showring. You’ve got labor and trucking costs piled up just to earn a lot of ribbons. It doesn’t matter anymore what -a cow does in the showring. •We care about classification and produc tion. We want all the milk we can get, and we only care about a cow’s performance in the milking parlor,” Jacob Dienner - “I make a good living milking 30 cows.” The Bryncoed Farms interview took place in a glassed-in office looking out over the milking parlor and the 250-cow freestall bam. From there we went to the comfortable kitchen of Jacob Diermer, Gordonville RDI, who has been a dairy farmer since 1959. Dienner is milking 29 Registered Holsteins, and last year had a herd average of 17,100 pounds of milk, 604 pounds of fat for a 3.5 percent test. Dienner recalled that last year productionpeaked at an average of 60 pounds per day and stayed that way for a month. This year, production went up to 70 pounds and stayed there for two months. It’s fallen back a bit now, but is still up over 60 pounds daily. Can a farmer make a living with a small herd? “Yes, you 'cah,” Dienner said, “but you don’t want a lot of culls in your herd. You • MORE PROFIT MADISON SILOS Div. Chromalloy American Corp. 1070SteinmetzRd. Ephrata, Henna. 17522 Ph. 733*1206 LOCAL DEALERS Frank Snyder Akron Caleb Wenger Quarryville 548-2116 Landis Bros. Inc. Lancaster 393-3906 Carl L. Shirk 867-3741 Lebanon Sollenberger Farm Supply Centerport, Pa. Ph. 215-926-7671 This cow in the Jacob Dienner herd is milking over 100 pounds a day right now. Dienner is a small dairy farmer, with 29 head milking, and he need high producing cows, and you’ve got to treat them well.” Individual attention, Dienner feels, is the im portant ingredient a small Milk tastes good. No other food offers so much nutrition for everyone. Every glass of milk you drink is brimming with vitamins, minerals, protein and energy ... at a real bargain price. Make milk your healthy drink isureel surge is happy to Promote 1- 7 MILK AND lIS PRODUCTS 859-2688 dairyman adds to the care he gives his cows. Dienner’s cows are fed individually according to production, and they’re fed in small amounts six times a day. Hus is a v y > Groff Equipment 2 W. State St. Quarry ville, Pa. Ph. 717-786-7225 Lester B. 801 l RDI, Lititz, Fa. Ph. 717-626-6198 believes that the small farmer can make a good living if he's a good manager. luxury large operations can’t afford, Dienner feels. He also likes top quality alfalfa hay for his animals. His grain ration consists mostly [Continued on Page 21] , ‘T -> 'V , . *'»?■*«* '*». W S * A v./- « * INK ILK Brandt's Farm Supply, Inc. 601 E. High St. Elizabethtown, Pa Ph. 717-267-1221 Glenn E. Hurst RD2, East Earl, Pa Ph. 215-445-(!Bfis ✓ < ✓ i-
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers