Starting from scratch

CATARACT, Wis. — Brothers Justin and Jared Roberts saw their dreams come to fruition this past April when they sold their first tank of milk.

What started as a passion project milking four cows without a contract, and having enough milk to feed some of the neighbor’s calves, but discarding the rest has turned into Driftless Holsteins, owned and operated by the brothers and Justin’s wife, Rachel. 

Justin and Jared grew up in the dairy industry working on the farm operated by their grandparents, Mark and Darlene Merow, in Cataract and helping their mom, Kelly Merow, who had taken over an uncle’s farm.

However, in 2017, part of their dairy farming world disappeared as Kelly made the decision to sell her herd.

“As unfortunate and miserable as it was, I think it’s really worked out for the best now,” Jared said.

The brothers could have taken the dispersal as a sign to leave their dream behind.

“It was the worst thing we experienced in our life at the time,” Justin said. “Looking back at it, it opened us up to seeing things differently and trying things in a different way.”

Without the pull to go back to work on a herd at home, the two gained experience working for Jerry Schmidt at Indies-View Dairy in Melrose.

“We had good experience working on our farm when we were younger, but working for Jerry really brought in a whole new realm of knowledge,” Jared said. “His herd management skills were deeper than what we were used to. He taught us a lot about breeding strategies and that’s really helped us.”

Working at another dairy, one that was bigger than what they were used to, helped set the pair up to learn even more about how they wanted to run their own herd.

“Jerry’s had 50 years of experience dairy farming, so we really learned a lot from him,” Justin said.

Four years ago, Jared and Justin got their dairying dream started. The brothers purchased five heifers, two from Schmidt’s herd at Indies-View, where Schmidt housed them for two more years.

“We got started milking on our own in our great uncle’s old pig barn,” Jared said. “We milked that first group with a show pump.”

Milking with the show pump worked for a while, but the cold temperatures of the Wisconsin winter forced the two to board their milking cows until the weather turned.

Around this same time Justin and his future bride, Rachel, were looking for a place to settle down.
They bought a house with an existing lean-to a few miles from his grandparents. It had the right bones for a milking barn but was not ready for a herd of cows, even a herd as small as what Jared and Justin had at the time.

“When we got the place, we had to rework a lot of it,” Justin said. “There wasn’t a milking facility, so we put one in. … Beams were breaking (so) we cleared out a tree from near the silo. The whole place just needed some work.”

Justin, who works at Preston Dairy Equipment Inc. in Sparta, had the background knowledge to construct a milking barn. The two put in a 20-stall tiestall barn, with four box stalls where they milk their 17 cows. Their herd average is 80 pounds of milk per cow with tests of 4.2% butterfat and 3.2% protein.

“We basically took the toughest route we could to get started,” Jared said. “Looking back, I don’t know if I’d do it a different way. We built exactly what we wanted.”

To get their dream off the ground, both are currently working in other full-time positions, Justin with Preston Dairy Equipment and Jared as a fitter with Jerry Schmidt’s oldest son, Garrett.

“Garrett has been fitting for about 18 years, and that’s how I got started,” Jared said. “I’ve been working with him for three or four years now. That’s really helped us expedite our process. I get to see all these other dairies and how other people operate their herds.”

The brothers sell their milk to Grassland Dairy. 

“We wanted to work with a smaller creamery, but we were either too far out of the way, or they couldn’t pick up any more,” Jared said.

Justin agreed.

“We’ve been really lucky with Grassland,” Justin said. “They’ve been nothing but great to us.”