Red R
VERNON ACHENBACH JR.
Lancaster Farming Staff
EPHRATA (Lancaster
Co.) The top colored breed
herds on test in Lancaster County
were recognized by the Red Rose
Dairy Herd Improvement Associa
tion during its banquet recently.
While the non-Holstein breeds
are in the minority, the owners of
the various dairy breeds report that
having a different breed cow does
not mean that management is
much different.
(The top milk-production Hols
tein herd, owned by Roger Mills,
was reported in the Dec. 14 issue of
Lancaster Farming .)
This past year presented some of
the same management problems to
many dairymen. The effect of the
drought on availability, cost and
quality of feed changed some feed
ing programs. It resulted in invo
luntary cuts in rolling herd milk
and milk component production at
many farms.
The price of milk and the reces
sion caused some dairymen to add
a cow or two to the milking lineup,
in an attempt to increase cash flow.
Others eliminated a cow or two
to shore up the herd and looked
hard to cut other operating costs.
Those production leaders
among the DHIA colored breed
dairy farms in Lancaster had their
share of changes.
Warren Schmuck, of Fumiss
Road, in Peach Bottom, had the top
Ayrshire herd in Lancaster Coun
ty. Last year, he had a rolling herd
average of 14,939 pounds of milk,
597 pounds of fat and 507 pounds
of protein. He milks about 76
Ayrshires.
Schmuck, who also plays organ
at the United Methodist Church in
Quarryville, had a milk production
record this past year on the same
number of cows that went up to
15,600 pounds of milk, 626 pound
s of fat and 526 pounds of protein.
At first glance, the comparison
of records would indicate that
Schmuck changed something of
his feeding program to increase
production. But he said that is not
the case. He said his herd’s pro
duction was just making a
comeback.
This is the third year in a row
that Schmuck’s herd has been the
top Ayrshire herd in the county.
Even with a drop in production.
“The year before (1989) we
were at 15,500 (pounds of milk). It
dropped in 1990 because of poor
feed,” he said, adding that the
feed alfalfa hay and corn
mostly he used this past year
This is the text of the report of the Reorganization Commit
tee, delivered on behalf of the committee by John Howard to
the membership of Lancaster Red Rose DHIA at their annual
meeting
For several years, PaDHIA has been pushing toward a
centralized management structure, with a target date of October
1,1992 to have all counties centralized. What this involves is the
dissolving of all county boards, after which all control of the
DHIA program would be turned over to the state. They would
then administer the testing program from State College, with a
layer of "middle management" called regional managers in each
region of the state and senior supervisors on the local level. Hir
ing and firing of supervisors, setting their wages, and testing fees
to dairymen would all be the responsibility of PaDHIA.
While this is needed and welcome in many counties who do
not have the cow numbers or the desire to run their own program,
in Lancaster County the situation is much different. Here we
have 58,000 cows on test in one county, nearly a fifth of all the
cows in the state. In fact, our size ranks us in the top 30% of all
state DHIA's nationally.
As a county board, we had many questions, the most obvious
being, "What will the costs be to our members?" We could never
get an answer to this, and in fact to this day have never been told
what the testing fees would be in the long run. Their normal pro
cedure when bringing a county in is to negotiate a fee structure
ose DHIA Recognizes Top Colored Breed Herds
was belter quality.
Schmuck, 34, is single and
works on a 112-acre farm. About
65 acres of the farm is tillable and
the crop is mostly com, though he
does raise a little bit of hay and rye
for feed. The rye is planted as a
double crop over the com. It’s a
cover crop and in the spring he
takes it in for ryelage.
For the past seven or eight years
Schmuck has used a total mixed
ration for his herd. “When I
switched I got a steady increase for
about a year,” he said.
The switch also gave him more
confidence in his managing skills.
“I know exactly what to give them
and they get what they need,” he
said. He uses a nutritionist from
Virginia who has established a
route in the vicinity of the farm.
Though he’s single, Warren
doesn’t operate the farm alone. His
father, Larry Schmuck, DVM,
does all the breeding, while
brother-in-law, “Tex” Hambrick,
does field work and helps with the
milking.
Schmuck’s DHIA records indi
cate mat 25 percent of his milking
string this past year was first-time
milk cows. His culling rate was 28
percent of the herd.
Experts say that 30 percent
replacement rate is about normal,
to allow for culling for “voluntary
reasons,” not because a cow won’t
milk at all.
Right now, Warren said the cull
ing decisions are primarily based
on breeding problems. “Over half
of the herd are 2- and 3-year-olds,’
he said, adding that eventually as
the young cows age, production
should increase.
All replacement animals are
raised on the farm. He doesn’t buy
replacements. To breed those
replacements, he said he concen
trates on using bulls “that throw
size and strength.”
With his father the veterinarian
doing all the insemination, the
number of services per pregnancy
is averaging just over two. They
also have the calving interval
down to 12.8 months. Their soma
tic cell count is 149,000.yC 2soine
But Warren said that having his
father as a veterinarian doesn’t
ensure that his cows get better
treatment than those cows owned
by his father’s clients. “Sometimes
we’re the last one he sees,” Warren
said, then laughed.
The farm has an old bank bam,
but 14 years ago a freestall parlor
bam was built.
‘The cows are used to it now,”
Warren said. “I like a parlor.
REORGANIZATION COMMITTEE REPORT
Presented to;
LANCASTER RED ROSE DHIA MEMBERSHIP
(Editor’s Note: We continue the coverage of the Lancaster County Red Rose DHIA annual
meeting and year-end reports from Page 1 of the December 14 issue of Lancaster Farming. At
that time, we did an on-farm profile of the Spring Belle Farm of Roger and Darrel Mills who
had the highest milk and protein production with their well-known Registered Holstein herd.
In addition, we reported on the annual meeting where the Lancaster group declined centrali
zation with the state organization, and we listed top production and management records
related to individual herd records, top producting cows by protein by breed, individual herd
records for somatic cell count and the comparative results of fifty years of testing.
This week we have Vern Achenbach’s profiles of all the color breeds, the report of Lancas
ter’s centralization committee, by John Howard, and the top lifetime production records that
are either over 200,000 pounds of milk or 6,000 pounds of butter fat.)
though it took a while to get used
to. It saves bending a lot. it’s easier
on the knees,” Warren said.
Barring any great changes this
next year, Schmuck said he
expects production at the farm to
stay about the same. He said the
freestall bam is at capacity and
there are no plans to expand.
Why Schmuck uses the Ayr
shire breed goes back to his youth.
“That’s what I started with.
Anybody can milk Holsteins and
do a decent job. (But) you can go to
the top of the line faster with other
breeds; make a name for yourself.
There’s not much competition.
“As far as which breed, I say it’s
all the same; like what kind of car
your drive, or what kind of tractor
you have.
“If one was really better than
another, then everyone would have
them. And with protein prices
coming on line, the colored breeds
are better off,” he said.
Not too far away from the
Schmuck farm, geographically, is
Star Point Jerseys, a business own
ed by John and Cindy Batchelder.
Early this year, the Batchelders
moved from an Oxford, Chester
County rental farm to a farm in
Quarry ville in which they formed a
partnership with Robert Ulrich.
Since then, their 45 milking
Jerseys made an average of 15,378
pounds of milk, 720 pounds of fat
and 585 pounds of protein.
There were some big changes
for the Batchelders. They bought
23 percent of the herd of registered
female Jerseys over the past milk
record year, which ended Septem
ber 30. The couple culled and
replaced 22 percent.
“We increased our herd dramat
ically over the last year. When Bill
had his disperal last year we
bought five and then seven to 10,”
Cindy said, adding that most were
springing heifers, which freshened
within several weeks of the
move during and right after.
that is good for 1 or 2>years, depending on the financial state of
the county at time of merger. Our concern was what would hap
pen after that, and wfc could never get any commitment on this.
Their answer to questions about future cost was "We (the state
board) are all members just like you, so we’ll be fair, trust us."
We, as a county board, did not feel comfortable-recommending
centralization to you, our members, on this basis. As one of our
board members said, it would be like going to a machinery dealer
to buy a new tractor and the dealer saying, "Well, we can't tell
you now what the final price will be, but just go ahead and buy it
and well tell you in. 1993 what it's going to cost you."
Also, we could see some if we would
centralize;
1. Our very high cow concentration gives us low cost per cow
because of low overhead and local management. There is no way
PaDHIA could do this at the same cost from 125 miles away.
2. Local control and hiring of supervisors leads to higher mor
ale and lower turnover.
3. Local training and supervision of supervisors costs less.
4. If testing fees were the same all over the state we could be
subsidizing the higher cost areas, especially if supervisors start
, getting paid for mileage. (We don't ask other areas to help pay for
our higher land costs, rent, and taxes, and don't think we should
help pay for higher testing costs in other areas.)
5. If we didn't like the way it was working out, we couldn't go
“We were at 23 (Jersey) cows
last year. Now we’re up to 45,” she
said.
The Batchelder also have a
Holstein herd on test and they
experienced a decrease in produc
tion from them, which Cindy said
was caused by the move of the
herd. The Holsteins dropped roll
ing herd average from 1990’s
22,153 pounds of milk to 21,003
pounds of milk.
However, she said production
should increase on both herds next
year they switched to a total
mixed ration and are getting opera
tions down a little slicker.
“We got the TMR working now
and we’re feeding cottonseed. I
think we’re feeding the cows a lot
cheaper than we were a year ago,
but we’re not where we want to be
in terms of production yet”
The goal isn’t a magic number,
but as much as is possible, she said.
And there are some other things
that the couple said they are look
ing to concentrate on next
“We still have some areas we’re
trying to get worked out” she said,
“Like the dry cow program. I feel
like we could make some improve
ment as far as forage quality. It was
kind of a tough year with it being
the first year (here) and a drought
year.”
The switch to cottonseed was
very recent. “We started cot
tonseed about a month-ago, and we
held production and went up in
test, and it cut feed costs, especial
ly with price of cottonseed right
now,” she said.
They got to using cottonseed
after reading about it and having
their nutritionist metntioned it.
“We had him do a comparative
ration anaylsis,” she said. The
numbers worked out well and the
couple bought a trailer load of cot
tonseed and will probably buy
another load within the next few
months, she said.
Feed quality also apparently
affected other farms in in the
back, because the county organization would no longer exist.
Also, we could see no real advantages of centralization. In the
DHIA Focus column in Lancaster Farming on November 2, ten
reasons were listed in favor of centralization. There was not one
of these reasons that applies to Lancaster County that centraliza
tion would solve. In fact, last January at our joint board meeting
with our supervisors, PaDHIA General Manager Dick Barth was
asked what advantages centralization would offer to Lancaster.
He admitted that he couldn't tell us there would be any real bene
fits for us. He told us to study it, and if it's not good for your mem
bers and supervisors, don't do it.
At our February 25 county board meeting, our directors
begain raising some questions about advantages and disadvan
tages. Also raised was the question, "Is there any provision for
counties who do not want to merge, to continue to work with
PaDHIA as they do now?" Our state directors said no. We had to
assume then that our options were to 1) centralize or 2) go else
where for the services we need.
The "Reorganization Committee” was appointed, consisting
of myself as chairman. President Clifford Blank, Dave Dum, Joe
Graybeal, Gordon Hoover, with Jay Mylin, County Manager, as
resource person. The committee had to answer two questions: 1)
Is centralization best for our members and supervisors and 2) if
not, do we have other options.
(Turn to Pago DIO)
southern end of the county.
The farm of Axel Linde and
Mildred Widmann, a brother and
sister team which jointly operates
the county DHIA’s top milk
producing Guernsey herd, saw a
slight drop in production.
With about 56 Guernsey cows
milking, Linde and Widmann pro
duced 16,166 pounds of milk, 728
pounds of fat and 570 pounds of
proetin over the past year.
Last year, the two’s herd made,
with one additional cow milking,
an average lactation of 16,554
pounds of milk, 747 pounds of fat
and 578 pounds of protein.
Management-wise, they bought
no outside replacement cows or
heifers, and culled 24 percent of
the herd. Also, 22 percent of the
herd were first-calf heifers.
Up in the northcentral portion of
the county, Richard Wenger, of
Manheim, owns the top Red Rose
Brown Swiss herd for 1991. His
36-cow milking string produced
17,923 pounds of milk, 693 pound
s of fat and 630 pounds of protein.
Last year, Wenger’s herd pro
duced 17,185 pounds of milk, 658
pound of fat and 591 pounds of
protein on 30 cows.
He said he attributes to the
feed last year’s production
which he used this year. Also, after
more than 20 years with Brown
Swiss, Wenger said that his cows
seem to make more milk when less
rain falls.
“I would say we were just get
ting a little more (milk). Maybe the
feeding program had something to
do with it,” he said. “I can’t really
put my finger on it”
“We pasture and when it rains
they seem to not give as much. We
were tending a little better. Our sil
age was a better,” he said.
He did increase his herd size
slightly, by six cows, which were
replacements that came of age and
were put on the string to build up
his herd a little, he said. He said a
large expansion is not the plan.