Nearly every farmer wonders if the farm will pass on to the next generation. For Fred and Pat Beer of Milford, the future of their dairy farm seems to be secure. Their two sons, Regg and Jeff, are equally involved with Fred in the running of the operation. Both Regg and Jeff are now married with sons (no daughters as of yet) of their own to potentially carry on the family farm.
As a young man, Jeff was already working on the farm before he went on a year and a half mission trip to Mexico. He came back in time to become the general manager of a major construction project for the dairy. Regg took a little longer to come home. He taught English in Elkhart for two years and then in Mexico for another four years.
Upon his return, Regg worked with his brother and father to develop standard operating procedures and health protocols for the farm in 2012. After these tasks were completed, he ended up staying on the farm.
The Beer Dairy has been located at the present site just west of S.R. 15 for more than 40 years. Until 2007, a 300-Holstein cow milking herd had been large enough to provide a living for Fred's family. With more families to support and much research, the Beers decided to expand their milking herd to 800 or more cows.
According to Fred, the biggest change he has seen through the years is the attention paid to the comfort of the cow. With that in mind, the new barn was designed to make the cows as comfortable as possible.
"The freestall barn has a cooling system on the south wall made of 6-inch cardboard and pipes that recirculate water. In the summer, the cow barn can be 10 to 20 degrees cooler than the outside depending on the humidity," said Fred.
Fans on the north side keep the air moving in the barn all year round. The free stalls are larger than before and bedded deeply with sand. The sand is cleaned and recycled back to the barn to replenish stall levels weekly.
"We found that our somatic cell count went way down and cows were spending more time lying down rather than perching when we moved into the new barn," said Jeff
No stranger to opening the farm to the public, the Beers are one of the sites for the Northern Indiana Dairy Trail, a Bicentennial Legacy project. The Beer Dairy will be hosting an open house on June 18 from noon until 5 pm.
"It used to be that everyone had a grandparent involved with a farm, and now everyone seems pretty disconnected to the farm," said Jeff.
"We want to tell our story so people will know how we do things and where their milk comes from," added Fred.
The Beers plan to hand out brochures that explains the workings of the farm. Visitors will be furnished with plastic booties to both protect their shoes and provide a measure of biosecurity for the herd. The guided tour will include the milking parlor, freestall barn and the sand separation area. Depending on timing visitors might also witness the birth of a calf.
The Beer family has given tours for school children for years, so they feel prepared for any eventuality.
One of the stops on the tour is the modern calf barn. The Beers raise all of their own replacement stock. Newborn heifers are tagged with an identification number plus a microchip and transferred to hutches inside a spacious calf barn for about a week and a half, according to Fred. Then, calves are moved to pens where they are monitored by a computer and a calf manager. Milk is dispensed by a robot that reads the chip, mixes the milk replacer and measures both the rate and amount the calf ingests. Calves are limited by the computer to a half liter every four hours.
"By checking the computer, we can catch a calf in the early stages of an illness if she is drinking milk too slowly or stops feeding at all," said Jeff.
Solid feed is gradually introduced as the amount of milk to the calves is reduced. After weaning, the calves are moved to another barn on the farm. However, about a third of these heifers older than four months will be making a side trip to the Kosciusko County 4-H Fair in July.
Last year and again this year, the Beers have allowed non-farm kids to show their Holstein heifer calves at the Kosciusko County Fair. Purdue Extension educator Kelly Heckaman and local dairy farmers were concerned about the dwindling numbers of dairy cattle at the fair. They came to the Beers and asked if they would be willing to lease their Holstein heifers for interested 4-H kids to show at the fair.
About 30 kids signed up for the project this year. The dairy committee members help the kids with training the calves to lead and grooming their animals for the show ring.
"When school gets out and up to the fair, the dairy committee is here six days a week in the evening from six to eight. The 4-H members are required to work with their calves at least 15 times before the fair. Some of the kids spend a lot of time out here with their projects," explained Fred.
Even though some of their responsibilities overlap, each of the Beer men has an area of expertise. Regg does all the human resource work for their 15 employees as well as the accounting for the farm and managing the seed and fertilizer for the farm ground. The planting and harvesting is all done by a custom farmer, added Regg.
Jeff oversees the cow herd. A nutritionist assists him to make sure the cows are getting the best ration for their stage of lactation. The Beers feed a mix of corn silage, haylage, ground hominy, soy hulls, wet corn gluten as well as minerals and vitamins.
Jeff is also the information technologist for the herd. Every cow or calf is tracked by one of several computers on the farm that he monitors.
Although Fred generally oversees the farm, he is ready to have his sons take on more responsibilities as he gets older.
"Having my two sons home to work with me now has been the greatest blessing," said Fred.