A26—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, October 25,1980
The last dairy farmer in Chateau County
CENTERVILLE, Del. -
Here in the rolling hills of
“Chateau Country,” is a
lovely place to live, but a
hard place to be a dairy
fanner. But that’s where
Levis Phipps, Jr. is raising
an award-winning herd—on
160 hilly acres, totally
surrounded by million—
dollar estates, chic
boutiques, and an exclusive
country dub.
Only the best beer and
liquor bottles come sailing
over the fence to booby trap
the cows’pasture.
Phipps’ herd is just the
third in Delaware history to
win the Progressive
Breeders Award of the
National Holstem-Friesian
Association. The old Win
terthur herd of the late
Colonel Henry B. duPont—
one of the top breeding herds
in the United States during
the 1920’s and ‘3o’s—won the
prestigious award eight
times. The University of
Delaware herd was honored
twice, in 1964 and 1965.
How does a hard-working
family farmer join this elite
company?
Why is he doing his dairy
farming in Chateau Coun
try?
Let’s start with the second
question first; he whs there
before his neighbors were.
Phipps’ Quaker ancestors
settled that land and put up
the house and barn before
the Civil War. (Actually, the
barn went up first, in
acordance with Quaker
custom.) The last three
generations of Phipps men
died in that very bam.
Levis’ father and grand
father went peacefully,
working with the cows they
loved. But uncle Horace
Dillworth (a kinsman of
former Philadelphia mayor
Richardson Dillworth)
wasn’t so lucky. He met his
end there in an encounter
with an enraged bull.
There’s only one young
bull at Centerdel Farm
today, along with 67 milking
cows, assorted young stock,
a gaggle of geese and a pair
of donkeys.
Phyllis Phipps, Levis’
wife, wants to get nd of the
bull before he gets old
enough to be really
dangerous. Her own uncle, a
herdsman from whom she
learned her love of farm
animals, spent two years m
the hospital after a run-in
with a bull.
But these days a dairy
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farmer doesn’t really need
bulls on the premises to rate
the Progressive Breeders
Award. By working closely
with Delaware extension
dairy specialist George
Haenlein, the veterinary
researchers at the
University of Penn
sylvania’s New Bolton
Center, the Dairy Herd
Improvement Association
supervisors and their per
sonal veterinarian, the
Phipps are able to make use
of the most sophisticated
record keeping and breeding
techniques.
The Phipps keep type
records on their animals in
addition to the more com
monly used milk production
records. Not coincidentally,
their cows are often blue
ribbon winners and top
sellers at the Delaware State
Fair and Annual Holstein
Sale at Harrington.
But it’s a cow named Hell
that really demonstrates the
reason the Phipps won the
Progressive Breeders
Award. Because they
thought the animal was too
good to turn over to the
impersonal care of a hired
hand, they took her into their
own basement when she was
bom and raised her with
tender loving care.
Now Hell is something of a
family pet, but she’s also
much more. She has been
classified 86 (out of a perfect
100, which is very good). She
has about a 4.3 percent test,
and for the third year in a
row, she has averaged more
than 1000 pounds of milk fat
per year. In the past year,
she produced 28,565 pounds
of milk—more than any
other cow they’ve ever had.
Right now Heli is
pregnant, artificially in
seminated by the top bull in
the country by way of the
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Wins Progressive Breeders Award
.jinn ii i
Phyllis and Levis Phipps pose with Heli, the Holstein who played a major role in their receiving
the Progressive Breeder Award. '
U.S. Mail. And she’s not only
carrying a calf herself;
another one of her embryos
has been transplanted into
the uterus of another less
valuable cow.
Artificial insemination
makes it possible for a
proven bull to sire many
more than his normally
expected 150 or so calves,
anywhere in the world.
Likewise, hormone in
jections, ova collection and
embryo transplants make it
possible for a good cow like
Heli to have more than her
normally expected number
of calves.
im
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With the use of these
breeding techniques in
combination, a good dairy
herd can soon become an
excellent one. The Phipps’
herd is a prune example. ,
Despite such success, the
outside world is closing in on
Centerdel Farm. It’s star
ting to seem too hard to
continue as the only dairy
farmers in Chateau Country.
While the Phipps children
are spending afternoons and
weekends feeding cows and
grooming calves for their 4-
H projects, their
schoolmates are taking
extended vacations in
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Hawaii and the South of
France. These other
children can’t understand
why the Phipps kids have to
work so hard without even
getting paid for it.
So Levis, Phyllis and the
children are planning a
move. They’re looking for a
more congenial place to
farm with room for ex
pansion and neighbors who
share their lifestyle
neighbors whose children
understand the need for all
members of a family to pull
together for a common goal.
They’ll have to sell part of
the ancestral land to do it,
but they’ll keep some of it m
the family.
Grandmother Phipps
plans to stay on at the old
place. It’s hard to turn one’s
back on such a long-standing
family tradition.
Levis and Phyllis will take
the herd with them, though,
and they’ll bring along their
love of animals; the ac
ceptance of hard work; their
good business sense; and
their willingness to take
calculated risks with the
latest scientific techniques
that earned them the
Progressive Breeders
Award.
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24 HOUR
SERVICE
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