Making a smooth transition

COLEMAN, Wis. — Keith and Stephanie Abts both descend from dairy farming families, making them third and fourth-generation dairy farmers. But together, the pair have struck off on their own to create their first-generation farm, their way.

The Abts family operates Abts Champion Beef & Dairy near Coleman, where they milk 225 cows and raise all of their replacements. The herd is primarily registered Holsteins and Guernseys, along with a few Brown Swiss. They also feed out all their bull calves to market as steers,
both direct-to-consumer and by market. The Abtses have enough available cropland to raise all the feed needed to sustain their herd.

Stephanie continues to work part time doing nutrition consulting through Rio Creek Feed Mill in Algoma, while farming full time alongside Keith. The young couple were also finalists for the 2022 Wisconsin Outstanding Young Farmer award.

“Dairy farming is what we’ve both always wanted to do,” Stephanie said. “It’s a good way of life, and it’s nice raising your kids on the farm. We’d encourage young people to pursue it if it’s their dream.”

Giving their three young children — Theodore, Maureen and Oliver — the opportunity to grow up on a dairy farm that they each had is one of the most rewarding parts of their career choice, the couple said.

“The way we run our farm, our business, we’re very much first-generation dairy farmers,” Keith said. “We pretty much started from scratch. It’s doable, you just have to not be afraid to do it differently. It’s hard work, but if you have the gumption to do it, you can.”

Stephanie agreed with her husband.

“You have to be on top of everything, you have to know your numbers,” she said. “Finances are obviously important. You have to treat it like a business, not just a lifestyle — but you need to stay on top of everything else, too. Reproduction is so important, and in the end, I think that is what burns a lot of new, young farmers.”

The couple established their herd together on Keith’s family farm near New Franken, in Brown County. Keith originally purchased his parents’ herd in partnership with his brother in 2013, and the couple bought out his brother in 2019, continuing to milk 110 cows in the farm’s tiestall barn.

Stephanie’s journey to dairy farming has a different path. Her family’s herd was sold in 2012. Stephanie attended the University of Wisconsin-Platteville. After graduation, she went to work full time as a nutritionist and began milking a small herd on her family’s farm and raising steers for marketing. When the couple got engaged, Stephanie moved her cows to Keith’s family’s farm.

Looking for a path towards farm ownership, the couple moved to their present location in Oconto County in December 2024, with the purchase of a farm with free stall housing and a parlor, 50 miles from their home farm. They were able to continue shipping their milk to BelGioioso Cheese.

“The move went pretty simply,” Keith said. “We purchased this farm from two retiring brothers. We bought their milking cows and added ours in. It took us well over a year to work out all the details and come up with a plan that worked for both parties. We were very grateful for the opportunity and that they were willing to work with us.”

Preparing for their move, the Abtses did not make any haylage in 2024, putting all their hay up as baleage. Having that plan allowed them to begin the process of moving that equipment, along with the baleage, throughout the summer.

They were facing overcrowding at their previous location, so they began bringing heifers up to the new farm’s heifer barn that was vacant at the time. They worked with the brothers they were purchasing the farm from to care for the animals.

The remainder of the herd was moved in December over a 2-week period. A crew of 20 people brought trailers and helped the couple complete their move.

Transitioning their management style from caring for their cows in tie stalls versus caring for the herd in a freestall barn was the biggest challenge the couple faced in moving to their new farm.

“That was a huge learning curve, way bigger than I ever would have thought,” Stephanie said. “Added to having 100 new cows that we had to get to know, it took some time to get things figured out.”

Despite the learning curve, the Abtses said their cows handled the transition to the new housing and milk setups well, without dropping production.

“The biggest thing was for them to learn that they had to go up and eat; we weren’t bringing their feed to them anymore,” Stephanie said. “We had a couple of cows that just weren’t aggressive enough to come to the bunk and eat, but overall, they did well transitioning.”

The barn consists of two pens of sand-bedded free stalls, with a Patz feed bunk in the center, along with a smaller pen to the side for pre-fresh and fresh cows.

Calves are raised in hutches until just over 3 months, before going to group housing in the calf barn. Bred heifers are housed with the herd’s dry cows. Steers are raised in a pack barn just up the road from the dairy.

The Abtses do not breed any of their cows to beef semen, preferring to raise true dairy steers, along with selling a few bulls for breeding purposes.

Tackling the management of their new farm, Stephanie tends to take care of the cow-side duties, while Keith focuses on the feeding, cleaning and cropping work. They employ some help, but do the majority of the daily work themselves.

While their ration has changed some initially because of the use of baleage in their total mixed ration rather than haylage, Stephanie was able to use her background in nutrition to keep the differences to a minimum.

The couple said they are grateful they were able to continue their relationships with their vendors from one farm to the next to help keep the transition smooth.

“We’re blessed to have a good team of people surrounding us,” Stephanie said. “That’s the key to being successful, I think, regardless of size — surround yourself with good people who care as much about your farm as you do. This isn’t an industry where a farmer can make it alone anymore. You need to rely on people who will help provide you with the information to make the best, most informed choices for your farm.”