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    BLOOMINGTON, Wis. – There was once a blonde girl who loved to help her dad on their family’s dairy farm. She learned to love the farm, and eventually that little girl grew up and decided to embark on her own journey to establish a career in the dairy industry.    
    “My passion for dairy probably started around the age of 5. My dad raised me on the farm,” said Abby Daul.
    Daul grew up helping her father, Ben Daul, on the family’s Daul Dairy Farm near Mosinee where they milk 64 cows.
    As a student at Marshfield Middle School, Daul was introduced to showing dairy cattle through her involvement in FFA.
    “Getting involved with showing really sparked a passion for me, not just for dairy farming, but for breeding animals too,” Daul said. “I started out just showing one heifer each year. Then one year, a family friend, Charlie Wegner, blessed me with a free Jersey calf. That calf really sparked a passion in me.”
    That calf, who Daul named Boggs, continued to stoke the flames of her passion by taking home honorable mention grand champion Jersey honors at the Central Wisconsin State Fair as a junior 2-year-old.
    “I grew up with the Holsteins and like them for their production, but I have really grown fond of the personality that Jerseys have,” Daul said.
    Boggs has provided a foundation for Daul’s herd and has several daughters and granddaughters on the ground. Daul said she now owns 10 cows in her father’s herd, a mix of Jerseys, Holsteins and a Brown Swiss.
    Daul’s interest in showing has led her to an increased interest in registered animals. She has begun investing in registered Holsteins and Jerseys.
    “My dad always used to tell me that you can’t milk a registration paper, but I think he enjoys it more than he would like me to think,” Daul said. “Even with the Jerseys, he gets excited when we make the decisions on what to breed them to.”
    When Daul graduated from Marshfield High School in 2019, she decided to continue her education by enrolling in the dairy herd management program at Southwest Wisconsin Technical College in Fennimore.
    “My parents said I needed get away from the farm for a while to decide if it was something I really wanted to do,” Daul said. “We had traveled through the Fennimore area on our way to Iowa, and I liked the area. Then I visited the school and decided it was the right place for me. It just felt like home.”
    While attending SWTC, Daul found employment at nearby Moravits Dairy, a 500-cow dairy farm in Bloomington. There she helps with many aspects of the farm, including calf care and field work.
    Daul enjoyed her classes at SWTC and her time at Moravits Dairy during the week. She drove 3.5 hours on weekends to continue to help her dad on the family farm.
    While at SWTC, Daul learned dairy judging was an activity she really enjoyed.
    “One of my instructors, Ryan Weigel, was looking to form a new judging team, so I got involved with that,” Daul said. “I like to get to look at different cattle. Everyone sees cattle different, and I like to see how my opinion compares with others.”
    Daul competed in contests at the Accelerated Genetics Dairy Judging Contest in Viroqua and at the North American International Livestock Exposition in Louisville, Kentucky. She also competed in the practical contest held at the World Dairy Expo in Madison.
    When the coronavirus pandemic forced SWTC to move to virtual instruction to close out the 2019-20 school year, Dual was disappointed.
    “The great thing about the dairy herd management program at SWTC is how hands-on all of the learning is,” Daul said. “You just are not able to have the same experience through virtual school.”
    The announcement that the school would continue in a virtual platform for the 2020-21 school year caused Daul to decide to take a year off from her schooling in hopes to be able to continue when she could again have the hands-on experience she had come to love at SWTC.
    However, Daul did not pack her bags and head to the family farm. She chose to continue her education by working at Moravits Dairy during the week and heading home on weekends.
    For the 2021-22 school year, Daul decided to stretch her legs in another direction; she has been accepted into the University of Wisconsin-Madison Farm and Industry Short Course for this coming winter where she will study in their dairy herd management program. After her first year of short course, Daul is undecided on her next step but prefers to keep her options open.
    “I would like to go home and take over our family farm at some point,” Daul said. … “But right now that future is kind of uncertain. One thing I know is that I don’t ever see myself not in the dairy industry.”

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