814-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, November 8,1986
Star Farmer Todd Miller Will Compete For National /Ward In Kansas Crfy
BY ROBIN PHILLIPS
Berks County Correspondent
HAMBURG Todd Miller, the
21-year-old son of Ernest and
Joyce Miller, R 1 Hamburg, will be
attending the National FFA
Convention in Kansas City next
week.
Miller, one of 735 American
Farmers in the United States, has
earned the title of Eastern
Regional Star Farmer and will
compete with three other regional
winners for the title of Star Far
mer of America.
National, state and local FFA
officials select the stars on the
basis of production agriculture
management, the return on in
vestments from their enterprises,
and the growth of their programs
from the time of enrollment in
vocational agriculture. FFA
members are also Judged on their
leadership in FFA extra curricular
activities.
“He’s going to be competitive,”
says Miller’s FFA advisor Lynn
Van Tassel of Hamburg Area
School District. “He’s the primary
crops management person there
(at his home farm).”
The skills that earned Miller the
honor to be among these elite FFA
members come from experiences
on the farm, which include, feeding
a 22-cow dairy herd, reducing calf
mortality and managing 703 acres
of crops.
As a one-third partner in his
parent’s “Mil-Joy” Farm between
Hamburg and VirginviUe, Berks
County, Miller shares duties with
his mother, who does much of the
milking, and his brother, Scott,
who is herdsman.
This year, Todd has complete
control of feeding calves,
managing the alfalfa and corn
acreage and maintaining the
machinery.
For over half his life, Todd has
Sat. Nov. 15,
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been feeding an average of 20
calves a day. As a 12-year-old,
Todd fed calves in an old chicken
house on the farm. Three years
ago, after a solid FFA education
and “the chance to get out and see
what was working for others,”
Miller relates, they converted to
outside, individual calf hutches.
“I learned the hard way,” Miller
says of his calf raising abilities. He
continues, “With the experience of
feeding them for a while and just
knowing what to do with a calf
when it gets sick,” helped this
ambitious farmer reduce calf
deaths.
Today, Miller calves are raised
in individual hutches placed side
by side on a forward slanted stone
pack. Fencing along the front and
back of the hutches ties them
together and allows the calf
freedom to roam about. A plywood
panel prohibits any contact bet
ween calves.
Hutches are bedded with
sawdust. The hutch system also
includes cement slabs that Miller
obtained from old sidewalks and
placed in front of each hutch. The
cement slabs keep mud and
manure from the front of the hutch
and are cleaned when it rains.
Calves are fed colostrum from
the bottle and then trained for
bucket feeding. “When it’s nice,
we’d rather have our cows calve
outside,” Miller explains. The
calves are then brought to the
hutches and fed colostrum.
“The sooner you get them off
milk, the more feed they eat,”
Miller notes. Calves are weaned at
six to eight weeks, wormed before
they are moved to group pens and *
then twice yearly after that.
Miller also helped develop the
feeding and cropping systems on
the farm. The dairy herd is divided
into five groups: dry cows, low
group, medium group and a high
production group. The high
producers are further divided into
a “just fresh group,” kept in a
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loose-housing manure pack bam,
and all others housed in a spacious
free-stall setup with concrete feed
areas.
The herd is fed a total mixed
ration including haylage, com
silage, high moisture ear com,
roasted soybeans, soybean meal
and oats. Todd was instrumental in
converting the dairy herd to
haylage instead of baled hay.
“I was doing the feeding and our
haylage was testing 2 percent
higher (19 percent) than the baled
hay, and we were killing ourselves
baling the hay,” he explained.
So, for the last two years, they
have baled hay only as a last resort
and have depended on haylage and
silage. “It’s just too many acres to
run across to bale,” Miller said.
With haylage, he said, they get
four to five quality cuttings.
Miller cuts alfalfa “as soon as
you see little purple buds here and
there.”
“We can average 60 acres a
day,” putting away haylage, he
notes. “There’s no way we could
bale that much. It is a really fast
system.” In addition to the added
protein (in the haylage), “labor
was a big consideration,” he said.
The Millers store everything in
trench silos, another labor and cost
conscious management decision.
They can fill two trenches at a time
with loader tractors and skid
loaders.
“We can make better
quality...put it in a bit greener and
save on labor and maintenance
costs,” Miller says.
Because of increased cuttings,
the Millers fertilize the fields
heavily. Miller, who works with a
feed consultant on the feeds he
uses, says the fields are holding up
well.
The Miller herd average is in- an d radicchio on supermarket served with that all-American
creasing after a change in feed shelves, what’s next? Ms. dinner along with the steak and ice
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17,300 pounds milk with a 3.6
percent butterfat on 228 cows.
Cows are milked in a double-six
herringbone parlor.
Free time out of the fields finds
Miller in the shop going over
equipment to reduce down time
when the harvesting must be done.
“I like working in the shop. I
don’t like downtime in the field. We
do all our own shop work here and
go over the equipment pretty
thoroughly,” Miller said.
Todd has attended previous FFA
conventions and was a member of
the 1982 winning dairy judging
team that went on to place third in
the nation. Todd was the third
place individual. He was also
active on winning teams in 4-H
competitions.
Miller received a gold medal in
dairy showmanship in Kansas City
in 1983 and has always had the
ambition and skill to be a success.
Miller’s mother, Joyce, a 4-H
leader, said she would like to see
her youngest of four children
receive the top award at next
week’s convention.
(Continued from Page BIO)
marketing common snails as _ starfruit - “may become the
escargots. A Frenchman in most important ‘new’ fruit since
Dripping Springs, Texas, is trying the kiwi. ’ ’
to cultivate truffles. Bok choy and Another coming thing is a
other Chinese vegetables are variety of mushrooms, Cohen says,
grown in New Jersey. A University and Frieda’s Finest has its eye on
of Minnesota professor and others the hon shimeji mushroom. “We
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cultivating Japanese shiitake says, “but New Zealand melons,
mushrooms; the Shiitake Growers passion fruit, and kiwi are all being
Association of Wisconsin was grown in California now, so. ”
formed last year with 96 members. So someday, American-grown
With tortillas, tofu, snow peas, hon shimeji mushrooms may be
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As for Todd, he credits his
parents for always being there
with the encouragement, advice
and experience he needed.
“FFA is definitely worth all the
time,” Miller says.
With future goals of doing an
even better job at home and in
creasing the herd average through
better feeding, he credits FFA with
an education outside the
classroom. FFA also provided him
with an opportunity to travel and to
meet other people with the same
problems and different ways of
doing things. The experience, this
young farmers says, has been
invaluable.
On the eve of his trip to Kansas
f i'v. Miller says: “It’s something,
i tie ;c. ‘1 .ought I’d get this far.”
FFA advisor Van Tassel is ob
viously proud of his student. “It’s
saying something about the calibre
of farming here in Berks County.
The Miller family won’t be the
only ones cheering Todd on; all of
Pennsylvania will know he is a
Star Farmer.
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