Kruegers grow into new facilities

ALLENTON, Wis. – Before moving into new facilities last April, Justin and Samantha Krueger were milking 102 cows in a 42-stall stanchion barn.
“We were doing 2.5 switches,” Samantha said. “It was a little insane.”
The Kruegers had outgrown their buildings and were looking toward the future with plans of expansion on the farm near Allenton where Justin began working when he was 11 years old. It had always been more than a job to this farm-loving boy who wasted no time making his mark on the operation he would one day run.
“In July, I’ll be here 29 years,” Justin said.
Two years in, Justin began buying heifer calves, and when he graduated from high school, he owned 12.5% of the 60-cow herd. He and the farm’s owners, Jim and Carol Maul, set up a limited liability company and the farm became a partnership. Justin bought the rest of the herd in 2009.
Today, Justin and Samantha milk 180 cows and farm 700 acres. The couple nearly doubled the size of their herd when moving into their new facilities. Their goal is to get up to 200 head milking.
Building a farm of their own alongside the farm they rent, the Kruegers completed a building project last year that included a new freestall barn, special needs barn and milking parlor on land they purchased on the farm in 2015. New facilities solved problems of overcrowding and relieved the stress of switching cows multiple times while creating a simplistic system for working with animals.
Within their modern setup, the Kruegers have discovered improvements in efficiency, convenience and cow health. They have also seen an increase in milk components.   
The new 160-stall, 4-row freestall barn features a hybrid ventilation system with curtains on both sides and on the west end. The barn is set up for tunnel ventilation with the east end boxed out for tunnel-ventilated fans. The barn also features automatic scrapers, and cows use the automated brushes located on either side of the barn.
The special needs barn features dry cow, maternity and fresh cow housing. Connected to the main barn by a breezeway, this building is situated close to the parlor and contains 40 free stalls for dry cows on one side and two bedding pack pens for maternity and one for fresh cows on the other side. Cows spend two weeks in the maternity pen prior to calving.
“We have a lot more room in these maternity pens,” Samantha said. “I keep fresh cows in the special needs barn until I feel comfortable they are ready to move on. Once they hit a certain level of rumination for two to three days, we’ll move them out. We want to make sure they’re out of the woods for milk fever and ketosis.”
The Kruegers also appreciate the ease of transferring dry cows to the maternity side.
“We don’t have to move them across the yard anymore or deal with ice,” Justin said.
The special needs barn is a 4-row style that Justin said could easily be adapted for free stalls on the fresh cow side as well if they choose to in the future. Both barns feature headlocks which the Kruegers find convenient for doing ovsynch protocols, breeding or working with fresh cows in the bedded pack.
Cows are milked twice a day in the Kruegers’ double-10 parallel parlor. The parlor is a used model purchased from a farm that was switching to a rotary. The Kruegers upgraded to a rapid exit style and rebuilt the parlor with new equipment. A 3,000-gallon bulk tank also came with the parlor.
“It saved us quite a bit of money doing it this way,” Justin said.
The parlor had been in operation for 20 years, but the fronts were 3 years old.
“We stripped the box clean and put all new equipment in, but we didn’t have to rewire or put in new air lines,” Justin said.
The Kruegers also began using an activity monitoring system when they moved into their new barn, and additions to the parlor included waterjet cutouts for the readers. Monitoring milk, activity and rumination, Samantha said the system took animal health to a new level.
“I love it,” she said. “The monitoring system is the best investment out of this entire project. It’s definitely paid for itself already.”  
Samantha said the system helps catch sick cows before she notices they are sick.
“I’ve tested it,” she said. “I noted which cows the system said were sick, but if a cow was chewing her cud and looked fine, I didn’t treat her. The next day, she was down. If you catch it right away and drench her once, she comes back up and never skips a beat.”
Having an extra set of eyes on the herd frees Samantha from having to be in the barn milking cows every day.
“It does everything that I could see when I would milk,” she said. “I come in the morning, sit down at my computer, and in 10 minutes, I know what I need to do. And, I know if something isn’t right.”
The parlor/holding area features push-button air-operated sort gates and a double return alley that enables easy sorting. An automated footbath in the return alley is filled twice a week for cows to step through as they exit the parlor.  
The Kruegers receive help from three full-time and four part-time employees, and their new milking setup has benefitted the labor situation.
“Milking shifts are a little longer now, which makes it easier to find help as we can fill a day’s work between two shifts,” Samantha said.
The Kruegers also put in a 3.4-million-gallon manure pit last summer. A seven-to-10-day reception pit in the barn holds manure temporarily, and when full, the Kruegers open the gate and release it.
“We do a big flush at once so the sand doesn’t build up in one spot,” Justin said. “It works well.”
The Kruegers have bedded with sand for years, even in the stanchion barn.
“You can’t beat the cleanliness of sand,” Samantha said.
A prototype auger by Patz – which Justin said is the first in the country – pushes manure from the special needs barn toward the pit. Runoff from the heifer barn drains into the manure pit as well.
New facilities freed up older facilities, enabling the Kruegers to move their heifers home in October. Since 2009, heifers 8 months old to springing were housed at a neighbor’s farm. The Kruegers’ former dairy cow freestall barn was transformed into housing for breeding-age heifers that includes an outdoor area with fence-line feeding. Every breeding-age heifer wears a monitoring collar, eliminating the need to tail chalk.
The Kruegers also converted their old dry cow barn into bedded pack housing for heifers ages 6 to 12 months. In addition, they are planning to gut the stanchion barn this summer and put free stalls in.
“The new facilities turned out better than we could have imagined,” Samantha said.
The couple has a son, Max, and is expecting their second child in June. With facilities to take the family far into the future, Justin and Samantha are hoping the next generation will share their desire to farm.