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HAYFIELD, Minn. – One of the things Kyle and Keith Behounek enjoy about dairying is the variety.
“I like the change,” Keith said. “You’re never doing the same thing every day.”
The brothers dairy with their parents, Ron and Rhonda, Keith’s wife, Heather, and eight part-time and full-time employees.
Ron grew up on the farm, and his farming career dates back to 1958 when he first started to own livestock.
Now, the family milks 260 cows and farms 1,100 acres, including corn, hay and sweet corn.
Heather said she believes that part of the farm’s success is connected to the varied expertise the three men in the operation have. Kyle knows diesel mechanics, Keith knows carpentry, and Ron learned metal fabrication when he was drafted into the military.
For Keith, the joy in farming comes from the small moments.
“It’s the little things like seeing calves buck around in new buildings,” he said.
June 13 was a full day with a little variety thrown in for the Behouneks.
The day began at 5:30 a.m. In the double-8 parallel parlor, three employees started morning milking.
Outside the barn, Kyle and longtime employee Jamie Kiefer began getting the cows fed a total mixed ration. They mix feed once a day, but their herd requires them to mix seven batches with their 630-cubic-foot capacity mixer. These seven batches go to their dairy animals and their herd of buffalo.
At 8 a.m., Keith took his youngest children to day care. Heather began training her daughter and long-time employee Sabrina Smith on calf chores in their new calf facility they completed last year. Smith has been working in the milking barn but is cross training on calves to become more versatile.
At 9:40 a.m., back on the home farm, a semi load of high oil canola meal arrived. Kyle and Kiefer worked to help get the semi backed into their shed to begin unloading its hoppers. The semi unloads from the bottom and, therefore, had to make several passes across the shed, with Kyle piling the meal in the back of the shed with a skid loader after each pass.
The Behouneks have been using the canola meal for about 10 years as a substitute for soybeans. They are part of what they believe to be a small group of dairy farmers in Minnesota using this product.
Back at Keith and Heather’s, after finishing day care drop off, Keith spent the rest of the morning feeding heifers and getting ready to wrap baleage later in the day.
After lunch, the focus shifted to fieldwork. Kyle and Ron worked to get a tractor that had lost oil fixed and ready so that Ron could cut grass hay on a farm they rent a few miles away while Keith worked on getting a tractor and cutter ready for mowing ditch hay.
Ron went to cut at 3 in the afternoon.
At 5 p.m., Kyle worked with Kiefer and his father, Roger, to start hauling freshly baled forage they had purchased over to Keith’s where Keith worked on wrapping it.
The day finished with evening chores that started at 5:30 p.m. and concluded around 10:30.

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