Top Performers: Rick and Ann Stocker

How many times a day do you milk, and what is your current herd average, butterfat and protein? We milk two times a day. Our butterfat averages 4.6% and our protein averages 3.5%. Our rolling herd average is 27,500 pounds of milk.

Describe your housing and milking facility. Our cows are housed half of the time in a stanchion barn and the other half in a freestall barn. We milk in a 38-stall stanchion barn, then switch our cows, bringing the cows in from the freestall barn.

Who is part of your farm team and what are their roles? Rick is in charge of most things that take place on the farm. Rick and Ann do all the milking. Ann takes care of the calves, both morning and night. During the day, she works at Jordan Public Schools. Ann also does all the bookwork for the farm. Tony, Ann’s brother, helps with morning chores, including cleaning and bedding the barns, feeding youngstock and grinding feed for steers and calves. Our three sons, Kevin, Jason and Jeff, help out as needed, especially when we are doing field work or taking some time off. They all are married and have off-the-farm jobs. Our daughter, Emily, lives out of state but helps with the milking and feeding whenever she is home. Our neighbor, Gene, fills in whenever he is needed for chores and fieldwork.

What is your herd health program? We have a herd exam every two weeks. We have been using the G6G breeding program for about 10 years and have had very good success with it. Twice a year, all the youngstock are vaccinated with a 9-way vaccine and a pour-on wormer. Newborn calves get two doses of Nasalgen 3-PMH at 7 days old and again around 30-40 days old.

What does your dry cow transition program consist of? We dry our cows off 60 days before they are due. When drying them off, they get milked once on the first day, then skipped on the second day. On the third day, they are milked in the morning before receiving Quartermaster dry tubes and a sealant. They are vaccinated with Vira Shield and Endovac. We then put them with the bred heifers and other dry cows. Two weeks before freshening, they are brought into a close-up pen located in the corner of the barn. They are boosted again with Vira Shield and Endovac. We put them on a special dry cow feed consisting of dry hay, corn silage, five pounds of fine ground corn and dry cow dietary cation-anion difference concentrate. After they freshen, they stay in the stanchion barn for two days before being switched in and out of the freestall barn with the rest of the herd.

What is the composition of your ration, and how has that changed in recent years? We feed a total mixed ration of corn silage, haylage, fine ground corn, a concentrate blend from Big Gain, cottonseed and EnerG-3. Over the years, we stopped feeding dry hay and coarse ground corn.

Tell us about the forages you plant and detail your harvest strategies. We plant all brown midrib corn for silage. The alfalfa is started in spring with a triticale and pea mixture. This is harvested for the heifers. We try to cut hay every 28-30 days. We like to cut it all at once. First and second cuttings are put in a silo and bag. Third and fourth cuttings are used to refill the silo.  We big square the rest and use the bales to feed youngstock. The corn silage is stored in a pit silo, a stave silo and a bag. The bag is not opened until the next fall, in hopes we do not need to feed fresh silage until it has fermented for a few months.

What is your average SCC and how does it affect your production? Our somatic cell count averages about 120,000, although in the winter we can generally keep it under 100,000. In the summer it is a little tougher to keep it low. We use sand bedding in both the stanchion barn and the freestall barn. We think sand bedding and vaccinating with Endovac helps keep the SCC down.

What change has created the biggest improvement in your herd average? We work closely with our nutritionist, Frank, from Big Gain. We feed only high-quality feed, including fine ground corn and the BMR corn silage. Sand bedding, tunnel ventilation in the stanchion barn and more fans in the free stall barn have also helped to increase the herd average. We also added a soaker line over the feed alley in the free stall barn to keep the cows cool in the summer.

What technology do you use to monitor your herd? We use the Dairy Herd Improvement Association report to monitor cows that have a high SCC and cows that are high in days in milk, but did not breed back. DHIA is also used to monitor low-producing cows. Using the two-week herd exam helps monitor open cows.

What is your breeding program and what role does genetics play in your production level? Everything is bred the first time using the G6G program. We herd exam every two weeks. We use all high Net Merit bulls.

List three management strategies that have helped you attain your production and component level. Using BMR corn for silage, grinding the corn to 300 microns and feeding cottonseed have all played a role is helping us to reach our current levels of production and components.

Tell us about your farm and plans for the dairy in the next year. We live on a century farm where we plant 375 acres of corn, soybeans and alfalfa. We milk 85 cows and finish all of our steers. Our milk is shipped to Bongards. In the next year, we plan to continue striving for herd health and timely breeding to keep the farm profitable.