— Lancaster Farming. Saturday. July 13. 1974
16
For ten months out of the year, this water-filled
trough in the foreground is brimming with brewers
grains. The feed material is piped directly to the
feedlot from the Pennco Distillery, which is next door
to the Lebanon Valley Cattle Company. The distillery
closes down for two months every summer for
vacation, repairs, etc.
Tucked away behind a hill in back of the Pennco
Distillery is the Lebanon Valley Cattle Company,
reportedly Pennsylvania’s biggest feedlot
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A front-end loader is used to fill feed wagons at the
Lebanon Valley Cattle Company. The wagons deliver
the horticultural byproduct feed to the company’s - -
1200 head. The number of cattle on feed now is down
somewhat because of marketing conditions, but Jerry
Hatcher, president, says they expect soon to be
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near Newmanstowh. Then*
as now, one of the principal
feed ingredients for animals
in the lot were the brewers
grains which are - -■.
byproduct of the distillery
operation. Over the years,
Foulke built up the operation
until he had a 3000-head
capacity. Two years ago,
after half-a-century in the
cattle business, Foulke
retired, selling his business
to Dr. Barry Hershone.
Hershone is a psychologist
and wealthy businessman
who owns the Mitchell School
and the Main Line Day
School in
Hershone has been in the
cattle business since he
started a cow-calf operation
on his “gentleman’s farm”
outside Brickerville in
Lancaster County. He’s the
majority stockholder in the
Lebanon Valley Cattle
Company.
With Hatcher’s - help,
Hershone hopes to build the
feedlot’s rapacity to 5000
head at a time. Of the 5000
head he’d like to have in the
feedlot, Hershone wants to
own 1000 himself, through his
Mitchell Farms subsidiary,
and feed* 4000 head for
customers. In a brochure
describing the Lebanon
Valley Cattle operation,
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Mel Dozer oversees yard Pennsylvania’s biggest feediot. Dozer
operations' for the Lebanon Valley has been with the operation since its
Cattle Company, which is reportedly inception during World War 11.
potential customers are there are other Penn
shown how they can become sylvania feeders mfing
cattle feeders without ever byproducts. Centre County’s
setting foot on a feedlot. Rockview Correctional.
Lebanon Valley will buy the Institute, for has a
cattle, fatten them at the 220-cow dairy-beef herd that
rate of two-and-a-half to gets about three-fourths of
three pounds a day, sell them- its winter diet from cannery
after 175 to 200 days, and wastes.
turn the profit over to the A healthy chunk of Penn
customer. sylvania’s apple pomace -
The brochure also says, the matterial that’s left after
“When the cattle are apples are made into sauce
received at the feed yard, or juice -is fed to Cattle,
they will be weighed, vac- Wilson said. In his study, he
cinated, inspected and. also had good results feeding
branded with a brand processing wastes of
number assigned to the tomatoes, potatoes, peas and,
customer, and then placed in sweet corn. Mushroom
pens where they will be kept processing, wastes - are
, separate from other another possibilky, although
J customer’s cattle until they Wilson said he never fed any
are marketed.” of that material.
How, we asked Hatcher, We asked Wilson bow
, could an operation like this much these byproducts cost
work in a period of gyrating the cattlemen who are using
prices for feeders, finished them for feed. “Nothing,
cattle and, especially, feed? usually,” he said.“ Some
“We don’t really worry companies might charge a
about the feed cost,” Hat- little, but usually, the feeder
cher replied, smiling again, can pick it up just for the cost
“Because we use hor- of transporting it.”
ticultural byproducts, we
can tell a customer what it’ll
cost him to feed his cattle for
the next six months."
Horticultural byproducts?
“Like brewers grains,”
Hatcher explained. “These
are the residues left over
when canneries, breweries -
even bakeries - produce food
for human consumption.. Our
byproducts feeding program
is based on a 1969 study by
Dr. Lowell Wilson at Penn
State. I feel that the
byproducts are actually
more digestible than
uprocessed com. We get
about an eight-to-one feed to
gain ratio, we have healthy
cattle, and our feed is a lot
cheaper than $3 or $4 com.”
“How much cheaper?” we
asked.
“A lot cheaper." Smile.
Contacted at his Penn
State office, Dr. Lowell
Wilson said he was familiar
with the Lebanon Valley
Cattle Company. “They’re
operating under an excellent
concept,” Wilson said.-
“They’re using good feeds
and they’re making money.
Actually, they’re recycling
wastes, and I think this is a
technique we’re going to be
hearing more about in the
years ahead ”
y
Wilson said he didn’t,
necessarily agree that the
.byproducts - - were. - more
digestible than corn, but he
did say they were at least
equivalent to a high quality
forage. Wilson noted that
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. .'Agiant hammermilj is theJirst „
in treating horticultural byproducts
before they’re fed to cattle. Fifty
pound hammers crush the material
into a. more digestible form.
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Sounds like free feed, but
it’s really not. Lebanon
Valley has a fleet of dump
trailers on the road 24 hours
a day, picking up byproducts
from processing plants as
far away as 100 miles.
“When they’re in the middle
of canning season, .the
canneries often want the.
material picked up atthree
or four in the morning. And
that’s when we pick it up,”
Hatcher said.
Besides the trucks and
drivers, the company has
half-a-million dollars in
. vested in equipment"'’to'
process the byproducts once
they arrive at the feedlots.
There's 4 huge hammermill
and a spearator in one
building to grind up waste
and to separate paper, metal
and other trash
byproducts. Dryer parts are
standing iaa field, waiting to
be assembled. The dryers
’will be needed, Hatcher said,
' because some of the
byproducts aratoo wet when
I Continued on Page 17]
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