“I’ve been farming all my life. I’ve never done anything else,” says Kenny. “I’m a third-generation farmer, been farming since 1960, and these guys are fourth-generation,” he says, pointing to his two sons. “My sons and I have been in partnership since 1990, operating as Bleacher Farms, and we pretty well have our work divided the way we want it.”

Alan says he’s always loved farming: “It’s something different every day. Not the same boring job.” Randy is partial to doing the fieldwork while Kenny says he especially enjoys filling the silo and doing other farm chores. When asked, the Bleachers all nod in agreement: they’ll be farming for a long time to come.

“Besides Alan and Randy, all our wives help out here,” says Kenny.

Kenny’s wife, Linda does the bookwork when she’s not working in the kitchen at a local school, while Alan’s and Randy’s wives tend the chicken houses.

“In addition to using our two New Holland FX58 forage harvesters for custom chopping, we raise about 176,000 layers,” Kenny explains. “Trasee, Alan’s wife, and Randy’s wife, Angie, take care of our two chicken houses where they collect around 150,000 eggs daily.”

Kenny and his sons agree they would rather raise chickens than livestock. “We’re contracted with a large local egg firm who furnishes us 18-week-old chickens and the feed, too. We keep them for a year and a half. We like it because it’s all inside work, no slopping outside in bad weather as we’d have to do with livestock.”

And to further spread the farming risk, Randy operates a 150-foot greenhouse where he hydroponically grows starter tobacco plants for resale to local growers. “It’s a way of bringing in additional income,” says Randy.

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Spread the risk

On just 160 acres, the Bleachers grow corn, tobacco and barley. They sell most of their corn to local dairymen and sell the tobacco at a local tobacco company. Besides the chickens and the tobacco greenhouse, it’s the custom chopping that provides the three families with income.

Bleacher Farms in Millersville, Pennsylvania, custom cuts corn, rye and alfalfa for dairies and feeder steer operations.

“We started out in 1960 with New Holland equipment. In the beginning we had a Model 800 pull-type and then an 818 self-propelled forage harvester. We’ve had 1880s, 1895s, 2100s, 2115s, FX45s and now we have a pair of FX58s. “After our first two years, we began using 8’ dump trucks and forked the silage off with table blowers and then into the silo. In 1963, I got the idea to build a dumping station to fill upright silos so we could use our dump trucks. From that point on, we just got bigger and bigger,” Kenny says.

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Dairy customers

The Bleachers have a half dozen large customers, mostly dairies, that they custom cut corn, rye and alfalfa for. They do custom cutting for a few feeder steer operations as well.

Kenny uses his FX58s to do four to five alfalfa cuttings yearly. The family uses eight tandem trucks and one tractor-trailer with the two machines. They estimate they can fill a truck in 2-1/2 to 3 minutes with the FX58s.

One of Kenny’s biggest customers is his neighbor, Frey Dairy Farm. The Bleachers chop about 25,500 tons of corn silage every year for them. The corn goes into a macadam trench that’s about 300’ x 350’.

“The Freys started talking about corn processors, so we bought an FX45 with the processor in it. They were real happy with the product we delivered, and the next thing we knew, they sold their forage harvester, and we started doing it all,” Kenny says.

Frey Dairy Farm sells their milk to Dairy Marketing Services, a co-op that supplies milk to large dairy product processors. Frey Dairy Farm was the predecessor of Turkey Hill Dairy, a large ice cream and dairy product producer in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Turkey Hill sells its premium dairy products in convenience stores and in supermarkets up and down the East Coast from New England to the Carolinas.

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Eight-row corn head

The Bleachers have two 355W 12-foot windrow pickups for barley and rye, a 360 six-row corn header and a new R1600 eight-row corn header. “You can go anywhere with it,” says Randy. “You can harvest corn, regardless of the row spacing or the direction in which the rows were planted.” “We were the first in this local area to have the eight-row corn head and we planted some 15-inch row corn to try it out,” says Kenny. “We’re trying the 15-inch corn rows, instead of the normal 30-inch, to see if we’ll get more tons to the acre and better weed control because the corn shades the ground so the weeds won’t grow.”

The Bleacher family: Angie, Becky, Linda, Kenny, Katey, Laura, Sammy, Aaron, Trasee, Alan and Randy.

Kenny has owned New Holland forage harvesters for 42 years. “I never saw a reason to switch,” he says matter-of-factly. “We used our FX45 for three years before we got our first FX58 four years ago. That machine now has about 1,841 hours on it. And I’m pleased with the service we get. The New Holland guys really take pride in seeing them run.”