B6—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, July 12,1980
Little extras take time, but they build the herd *
BY CURT HAULER
MILLERSTOWN - It’s
lots of little things like home
grinding feed and doing all
the AI work on a farm that
can spell the difference
between an average herd
and a good one.
At Santee Acres Jane and
Kenneth Benner have taken
a 25 cow herd with a 3.2
percent test and 500 pounds
fat to today’s rolling herd
average featuring 804
pounds butterfat with a test
of 4.0 percent on 23,044
pounds milk.
It took just over 10 years to
make the improvement. At
the same time the herd size
more than doubled.
The impressive changes m
the Santee Acres herd won
the Benners the 1980
Maryland and Virginia
Young Cooperator Award.
They were honored last
Thursday at the Pennmarva
Cooperative meeting at Hunt
Valley, Maryland.
The trip from a stnigghng
farm in Perry County’s
Pfoutz Valley, just over the
Juniata County line in
Pennsylvania, to receiving
honors at Hunt Valley,
Maryland, was a long one. It
had its start in a third state,
Virginia. *
Back then Jane was a
senior studying dairy
science at Virginia
Polytechnic Institute.
She had been the 1962
Virginia Holstein Girl, now
called the distinguished
junior member. She also
earned the state 4-H dairy
achievement award.
Kenneth, who had been
graduated from Penn State
in ag education, was working
as herdsman for VPl’s dairy
operation.
They married their for
tunes and spent a short time
for Woodacres
Both cows in the foreground are Monitor daughters in Jane and Ken Benner's
herd. Katie, closer to the camera, is projected at 27,0CX) pounds milk this year.
Heifers share the right of this pole barn which shelters machinery on the left
Here Jane and Ken Benner take a moment to discuss afternoon chores.
Guernseys in Princeton, N. J.
before returning to buy a
Perry County farm near
Ken’s homeplace.
They’d had their eyes on
the farm for several years
but needed to save up enough
money to buy it.
Shortly after they moved
in they put up a 60-stall bam
and a concrete stave silo.
That was m October 1970.
The operation today
consists of about 400 acres,
200 in cropland, the rest in
woodland or permanent
pasture.
The Benners had pur
chased Ken’s father’s cows
to get started.
For a long tune, they
recall, there were a lot of
empty stalls in the bam.
Today only one of the 60 is
vacant.
At a Virginia Holstein sale,
they managed to buy the cow
who had been Jane’s 4-H
calf. They also kept
daughters of Ken’s t first
project calf m the growing
herd.
From there they built on
what they had. They qhose
the Santee Acres prefix,
naming the operation after
Jane’s parents’ farm.
Santee, they were told,
means “healthy moun
tains.”
Ken took an artificial
insemination course, pur
chased a semen tank, and
started doing his own
breeding.
Today their favorite bulls
include Conductor,
Milestone, and Liftoff, a
Perry County syndicate bull.
One Liftoff daughter from
the Benner herd, Santee
Acres Liftoff Secret will go
to the ABS sale in Madison
this fall.
Jane keeps an eye on the
heifers looking for heats
since the heifer bam is right
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At Santee Acres dairy
Kenneth, Jane, and Irene Benner post in front of
their farm sign. Santee Acres includes 200
out the back door. Timely
breeding has helped im
proved their conception
percentage.
They’ve gotten some fine
calves on the ground. While
the calf facihties certainly
are not modem, the in
dividual stalls in the old
bank bam seem to do the job
well.
Benners have lost just one
calf in the past seven years.
“I'm always there,” Jane
explains. It takes tune, but it
pays.
Still, they are planning to
put up a better calf facility in
the near future. That project
waited untU after the inside
of the home was remodeled,
a project paid for by sale of
breeding cattle.
Calves get good care from
birth. The first few days they
are fed fresh colostrum.
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Gradually the colostrum is
dUuted with Vigortone milk
replacer untU the calves are
on a full milk replacer diet.
The dairy herd gets fed
well, too. Cows see feed
three times a day. Agam, it
takes tune, but the payoff is
in the bulk tank.
Benners raise all their own
gram, ear com, and haylage.
Daily ration mlcudes 30
pounds haylage, 40 pounds
com sUage, and about 5
pounds hay per day to keep
the rumens going.
Two years ago the Benners
started grinding their own
feed. That fact, they say,
accounts for a large part of
their increased herd
average.
Gram is mixed on the
farm. A 15 percent protein
supplement is added to the
basic homegrown com and
oats.
Milkers are fed in
dividually. High producers
are offered as much as 32
pounds gram per day.
That’s one factor helping
butterfat test. Another is
keepmg the cows in good
condition.
During the summer
months Benners greenchop
for the cows—usually giving
them some sorghum
sudangrass over the top of
the ration
(Turn to Pageß?)
Santee Acres Bootmaker Nice, rated Very Good 85 as a two year old, is the
seventh generation of Ken Benner's 4-H calf, Nice is daughter Irene’s 4-H
animal. Shown with Jane Benner at the halter, Nice’s current record is 17,248
pounds milk, 779 fat, with a 4.5 percent test.
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cropland acre in addition to one of Perry County's
better milking herds.
Due to Astronaut, Santee Acres Liftoff Secret
will go to the ABS Americana sale this fall but will
sell dry. With DHIA records of 20,114 milk and 966
pounds fat at 4.8 percent test, that should make
little difference. Kenneth Benner has three of her
daughters in the herd.
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