A generational expansion

EDEN, Wis. — Fifth-generation dairy farmer, Steve Abel, is looking forward to bringing his son, Nate, into the operation as a sixth-generation owner one day to continue a tradition started nearly 170 years ago. This desire to bring on the next generation drove a recent expansion at Abel Dairy Farms.

In a project that more than doubled the size of their herd, the Abels grew from 1,800 cows to 4,400 cows while building new facilities that emphasize cow comfort. Two new freestall barns, a rotary parlor and a manure digester were the highlights of the expansion.

The family showcased the end result June 23 when they hosted Fond du Lac County’s Breakfast on the Farm, welcoming more than 4,400 people to the dairy.

“This was a generational expansion,” Steve Abel said. “My dad expanded 25 years ago, and he did it for the next generation, too. We didn’t want to be a terminal dairy. My family has been here since 1857, and we didn’t want my generation to be the last to farm here.”

Abel farms with his father, Allen, and his brother, Bill. Nate works on the farm while also attending college, and Abel’s wife, Deb, is the office manager. The Abels milk 3,850 cows and farm about 3,000 acres while also buying crops off another 2,000 acres from local growers.

The first milking in the Abels’ new 80-stall GEA T8800 rotary milking parlor took place Feb. 14, 2023. Cows are milked three times a day at a rate of 550 cows per hour. Each rotation lasts 7 minutes, and a cow gets on the platform every 5.3 seconds. 

“The biggest challenge is getting them off,” Abel said. “They like to ride it, but they can’t go around a second time. At one point, the rotary was stopping over 100 times an hour. We had to make some changes, and now it never stops unless an employee pauses it.”

Previously, cows were milked in a double-20 parallel parlor.

“The parlor was very old and tired and needed to be replaced,” Abel said. “Cow flow and cow comfort in the rotary is awesome. The employees like it and requested to go from 8-hour shifts to 12-hour shifts. It was more practical, and their bodies are not as sore.”

Employees work within different stations in the parlor: pre-stripping, running the teat scrubber, drying, attaching units and post-dipping.

“We will be automating some processes in the future,” Abel said. “But labor is not a weak point for us, so with everything being equal, we lean towards labor right now.”

Cows are averaging 104 pounds of energy-corrected milk per day.

“We bought over 2,000 cows with this expansion and after a year, we are back to our pre-expansion production,” Abel said.

The milking parlor also includes a visitor center with viewing windows of the rotary.

As part of the expansion, the family built two new barns and added onto another. The 8-row barns are tunnel ventilated and feature four feeding areas – one on each of the outer sides and two in the middle.

“The cow-to-headlock or feed bunk space ratio is better than our old barns, offering more linear feet per cow,” Abel said. “Cows can eat on either side of the pen.”

Each barn holds 1,100 head split between two pens with four rows of stalls in each pen.

“I really like this design,” Abel said. “We toured a lot of barns but couldn’t go as long as we wanted because of the wetlands on our property, so we chose this design. Our employees like it, and the cows like it.”

When adding onto one of the original freestall barns, the Abels also remodeled pens in the older part of the building to bring the barn up to date.

“We looked at everything in our old barns and said, ‘Let’s do this’ or ‘Let’s not do this,’” Abel said. “Cow comfort is extremely important, and this allowed us to build in all the things in the new barns that we wish we had in the early barns.”

One challenge Abel said they faced was underestimating the number of systems that needed to change on the farm — from feeding to pregnancy checks to breeding to sorting.

“Those all had to get adjusted, but we have a great team, and we figured every one of those areas out,” he said. 

The Abels employ approximately 50 people and expanded their team as they expanded the dairy. It was necessary to hire more people for certain areas, such as special needs, milking and feeding.

“This is the largest expansion we’ve ever done,” Abel said. “With certain expansions, you just work harder. For this one, working harder and longer was not the answer. This expansion required changes on the management side of things. We had to sort through how to get things done and find out what employees needed to do their jobs.”

Housing for youngstock was not a concern during the expansion since calves are sent to a custom heifer grower as newborns and do not return until 6 weeks prior to calving. Calves are raised in Kansas until 6 months of age and then sent to Nebraska. The Abels own Oshkosh Heifer Development — a heifer ranch in western Nebraska — with seven other Wisconsin dairy farms.

“We made that change in heifer raising 10 years ago for health and financial reasons,” Abel said. “Not having youngstock allows you to specialize.”

Once construction was completed, the Abels switched from bedding cows with recycled sand to bedding with biosolids made from raw manure. Since firing up their digester May 1, the Abels now get their biosolids from the digester, which is owned and operated by Northern Biogas.

The system holds 21 days’ worth of manure within three digester tanks. The digester produces renewable natural gas that is directly injected into a pipeline, and Abel Dairy Farms receives a percentage of the profits.

Working on upgrades to the dairy is ongoing, and the family is currently in the process of building a new hoof trimming center. Abel said they will eventually need a new maternity barn as well and possibly a new feed center.

“We continue to upgrade as cashflow allows,” Abel said. “You can’t do it all at once.”

Heading in a direction of growth has always been the philosophy of Abel Dairy Farms. When Abel’s dad expanded in 1996, the family was milking in four stanchion barns. The Abels built a parlor and a freestall barn while increasing to 600 cows. In 2000, the family expanded again and slowly built cow numbers. By planning for the future, the Abels said they spur success for a new generation.

“It’s never been about milking 4,000 cows,” Abel said. “This expansion was more about efficiency and sustainability. Nate plans on coming back, and with another generation coming in, I said, ‘Let’s do it right.’”