Farming for grandpa

VIROQUA, Wis. – Cosette Henthorne joined her parents’ operation full time after college and worked alongside them and her grandfather until he passed away. Today, she continues to farm with her parents as a way to keep her late grandfather’s legacy alive.
“My grandpa Dwain is certainly one of the driving forces behind this farm,” Cosette said. “I believe that we all strive to work hard to make him proud.”
Cosette milks 90 cows in a swing-12 parlor near Viroqua with her parents, Philip and Jacinta Henden. Her husband, Eldon, works off the farm and helps on weekends. Cows are housed in two sand-bedded freestall barns. In warmer months, the cows have close to 150 acres of pasture to roam as well.
Dwain was diagnosed with fast-growing lymphoma in 2019. At that time, Cosette was due with her first child, and Eldon was deployed in Afghanistan with the Air National Guard.  
Cosette’s parents took her in to help her adjust to motherhood, and Dwain moved into their home as well to receive hospice care. Philip and Jacinta took care of them both and still ran the dairy farm.
Two weeks into hospice care, Dwain passed away. One of Dwain’s final wishes was for Eldon to return home safely, which he did, to attend his funeral and meet his first child, who is also named Dwain.
Today, the dairy continues with Dwain remaining among everyone’s hearts.  
“Grandpa was a pretty special person to all of us,” Cosette said. “I know we are all proud to carry on his legacy.”
Daily chores are handled between Cosette and her parents. Jacinta cares for the Henthornes’ two children, Dwain and Emmett, and manages the business tasks for the farm. She also steps in to milk when the part-time hired help is not available.
The farm has seen many changes in the 75 years it has been in the family.
The legacy began in 1948 when Cosette’s great-grandfather bought the original 132 acres. Her grandfather Dwain was the second generation, and in 1990, Philip became the third generation to own the farm.
At that time, Dwain moved to a neighboring farm and milked his own herd of cows, Philip and Jacinta milked at the home farm, and Philip’s sister milked at another neighboring farm. The three families worked together to complete fieldwork.
When Phillip’s sister got out of dairying in 1994, her herd was auctioned, and the remaining two herds were combined. It was a total of about 60 cows, and they were all milked at the home farm. Philip and Jacinta purchased 120 acres from his sister’s farm on a land contract.
“It was a nice way to keep it in the family and not lose the land,” Jacinta said.
A few years later, in 1999, conventional milk prices fell to less than $9 per hundredweight. Philip and Jacinta had a growing family and were feeling the financial strain. Jacinta thought they should consider a different career path, and Phillip was tempted to agree with her until he consulted his father.
“I said something to my dad that maybe I should get a job somewhere,” Phillip said. “I could just see it in his face – the disappointment. So, I didn’t pursue it any more after that.”
Instead, they decided to transition to organic farming to capture a better milk price. Jacinta also worked off the farm as a teacher.
Jacinta said transitioning to organic was easier with Dwain’s guidance. Before consolidating the three herds, Dwain had farmed organically. Philip had helped his father his whole life, so he drew on his prior experience when implementing organic practices with the cows and in the fields.
“It was hard for a couple years, and then once we got into organic, there was hope,” Jacinta said. “It was a lot easier, and it made sense.”
They took three years to transition the land, which is one thing Philip said could have been done differently.
“We could have bought organic feed and started right away,” Philip said. “That was one thing that would have been helpful to have a mentor tell us; that there are other ways to do it.”
The herd consisted of 60 cows at transition. Two years later, a freestall barn was built, and two years after that, a parlor was retrofitted into the tiestall barn. The comfort of the sand bedding and efficient milking system helped the herd grow internally. In 2011, a second freestall barn was built to accommodate the growing herd.
“When we put the freestall barn in, the cows’ health was better as far as sand bedding,” Philip said. “Now, we’ve got so many heifers. We grew the herd from 60 to 140 without buying anything.”
Labor was difficult to find to help with chores, so the herd was scaled back to around 100 cows. Cosette graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Platteville in 2014 and returned to the farm full time.
Now, the Henden and Henthorne families are looking toward the future.
Solar panels have been installed and are in the process of becoming operational. The hope is the energy produced from the panels will pay for any electricity the farm uses.
Further plans include implementing a robotic milking system. Philip said he is going to leave that decision to the fourth and fifth generations to manage.