Starting from scratch

CLAREMONT, Ill. — It all started with a bold idea to milk cows. Fourteen years later, first-generation dairy farmers, Travis and Erin Michels, are still going strong.

“Everyone told us we were crazy for wanting to get into this,” Erin said. “When Travis decided dairy was the direction he wanted to go, I jumped on board with him. We put in so much of ourselves to make this current life possible. It was actual blood, sweat and tears.”

The couple runs Weiler Enterprises Inc. near Claremont with their three daughters, August, Willis and Becket, and their son, Gentry. The family milks 125 registered Holsteins with two Lely A4 robots. Erin is also a high school agriculture teacher.

The Michelses incorporated with Erin’s dad, who owns a grain operation, and use part of his acres to grow corn silage, alfalfa, triticale and rye to feed their cows.

All four of their children help on the farm. Gentry makes the feed. Willis is in charge of calves and gets a hand from Becket, who helps give feed and water. August was responsible for calves before heading to college.

“We bale all our own hay, and our son is heavily involved with that,” Erin said. “He makes feed twice a day, for a total of four loads.”

The family started dairy farming from scratch in the summer of 2012.

“It was really hard in the beginning to make that lifestyle change, but looking back, I don’t know that I would change anything,” Erin said. “It’s a lifestyle that we have enjoyed. It’s been a good lifestyle for our kids to grow up around too.”

Travis and Erin rented a dairy farm from a Mennonite family that had recently quit milking.

“We found a banker who believed in us and bought 50 cows and two tractors,” Erin said. “We milked three times a day, just the two of us. It was a long few years.”

Erin also worked full time off the farm. The young entrepreneurs lived about three miles from the farm. For the night milking, they packed up their kids who slept on a cot in the milk house while they milked cows in a double-12 parallel parlor.

Dairy farming is in Erin’s background, as her grandpa, dad and uncle used to dairy farm together.

   “They had Jerseys, but they quit before I was born and moved onto beef,” Erin said.

Travis did not grow up on a dairy farm either, but both he and Erin grew up showing beef cattle. While attending the University of Illinois, Travis worked on the school’s dairy farm.

“That’s where he fell in love with dairy,” Erin said.

Erin’s attraction to dairy cattle began as a youth at her county fair.

“When I was showing beef, there was always a herd of dairy that came, and I felt drawn to them or maybe envious of how calm they were compared to the beef animals I had always been around,” she said.

After Travis graduated, he worked on a 500-cow dairy south of Indianapolis for approximately five years before receiving a call from the U of I to return and manage the dairy, which he did for five years. Then, the opportunity to rent a farm prodded him and Erin to return to their hometown and kickstart a dream that was burning in their hearts.

Their first heifer was born Sept. 1, 2012. In 2015, Travis and Erin broke ground on a robotic facility, which they moved into in February 2016. That month, a cattle trailer showed up in the Michelses’ driveway one day.

“It was one of the other dairymen in our county,” Erin said. “He had told us that if we ever did get started, he was going to give us his best heifer, and he did.”

The neighbor gifted them a 6-month-old Holstein, which Travis and Erin named after him. Every first daughter from that family is given that same name of “Koertge.”

Cows average 2.7-2.9 milkings per day on the robots. The Michels family sells their milk to Prairie Farms, sending it to a local plant in Olney for processing.

The family doubled the size of their herd when transitioning to robots. They moved in with 50 cows and bought about 50 more within six months.

“When Travis was cow shopping, he came home on our (wedding) anniversary and said, ‘I got you a present,’” Erin said. “He had bought two Red & White heifers for me. I begged him to get me a red heifer when we were starting up, but he never would. That day he came home with two.”

The family houses calves in two calf barns, each with capacity for 30 dairy and beef-on-dairy calves.

“We breed a lot to Angus,” Erin said. “It gets you a little more profitable calf to sell.”

Located in southeastern Illinois, their farm is one of two dairy farms in Richland County. As such, they have experienced a thinning infrastructure for support. For example, when one of their cows had a displaced abomasum, they had to make a 2-hour trip to the U of I rather than treating her on the farm.

“There is not a vet around here who could do the surgery,” Erin said.

Passionate about educating the public, Erin also  offers tours of their dairy.

“We did not realize how many people would be interested in seeing what we have going on here,” she said. “We didn’t design it for tourism, but we love showing what we do.”

Visitors include neighbors, school children, high school and college agriculture students, and more.

“When people started visiting, we quickly realized how disconnected the general population is from farming and where their food actually comes from,” Erin said. “We accepted tours just to show people, ‘This is what we do. This is where your milk comes from. This is the care we’re giving to the animals.’”

Erin also created a Facebook page called “This Dairy Life,” which she uses as a teaching opportunity, showing others what she and her family do daily.

Erin said she and her husband have no regrets about the path they chose as dairy farmers.

“There are always going to be hard days, but then there are also days when you finally get in the house at night and can say you had a pretty successful day,” she said. “It’s been challenging, but it’s a rewarding experience to walk outside and see what we’ve built over the years and know we’ve created something meaningful.”