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Grass to Milk
Milking in the Meadow
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Article and photos by Curt Arens
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Five years ago, brothers Kelly and Kirk Bruns had the highest producing Jersey dairy herd in the state. But even with a wall full of milk production plaques, their wives still worked at off-farm jobs to make ends meet, and their children saw a lot of the babysitter.
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The New Zealand pasture milking parlor built by Kelly and Cindy Bruns.
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Solid milk production wasn’t translating into financial
stability for the two families. But they held on to a dream of making
their northeast Nebraska dairy farms pay enough to fully employ their
spouses as well as themselves. The dream called for drastic action:
some would call it risky.
Instead of expanding in the face of nose-diving milk
prices and expensive feedstuffs, they simplified their farms and made
the move toward seasonal, grass-based dairying.
They started by seeding all their row crop ground to
grass and forage grazing crops, then sold off their top producing
cows, those cows they thought would not be able to maintain health
and production if they had to graze for their lunch.
The Bruns brothers run separate, but similar, operations
so they can coordinate efforts to meet long-term goals. Over the last
three years, Kirk and his wife Kristi along with their three children,
Kara, Paige, and Ben, have seeded 70 acres of former row crop land
to a mixture of orchard grass, meadow brome, creeping foxtail, and
red and white clover. They have divided those fields, using electric
high tensile wire, into 17 grazing paddocks for their 50 milk cows.
Kelly and his wife Cindy, also working with their children,
Kali, Cole, and Kate, run 86 head on 156 acres of native grass and
inter-seeded alfalfa which is divided into 22 paddocks.
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Kelly, right. and his brother Kirk in Kirk's pasture.
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Each brother moves his cows twice a day to new
portions of a paddock, after both morning and evening milkings.
After being grazed, each paddock is rested between 45 to 60
days for regeneration of root structure and foliage before the
next grazing. A watering system with hydrants in alternating
paddocks gives them close access to water, so portable water
tanks can be moved along with the herds.
Kirk and Kristi each year purchase, and later
sell, 400 Jersey and Jersey-cross replacement dairy heifers
as a way to utilize extra forage. Manure from over-wintering
the heifers provides fertilizer for their pastures.
Five years ago Kelly and Cindy did something probably
never seen before in Nebraska. Out in the middle of their pastures
they built a small, New Zealand-style, open-air milking parlor.
Milking out where the cows graze keeps the manure where they
want it, on the forages, while also helping keep the cows clean
and healthy.
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Kelly and Kirk pulled off their own surprise when they
crossed their beloved Jersey cows with other breeds such as Normandies,
natural foragers that would better fit their grazing system.
They also started to synchronize the gestations of all
cows in their herds so all would be in milk at the same time, during
the grazing season, and, conversely, all would be dry during Nebraska’s
bitter winter months.
Now, after five years, the great experiment is paying off in spite
of lower herd production averages, and new projects are in the works.
Production is no longer the focus of these family dairies.
Kirk said the herd production average in his grass-based system dropped
from 19,000 pounds milk on a 305-day lactation period to about 9,000
pounds. Butterfat has remained between 4 and 6 percent with Jersey-cross
cows.
The surprising upside is that, financially, these dairy
families have never been more comfortable.
Forages and grass are the keys: they don’t feed
grain. By relying on green pasture and stockpiled winter pasture,
along with baled and ensiled forages, they keep feed costs down, way
down. The absence of grain in rations also reduces fly pressure around
the pastures and milking facilities.
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“The cows are healthier and fitter on grass,”
Kirk said. “We’ve just about eliminated milk fever
and feet and leg problems.”
They now process their own milk-from-grass and
sell it to health-conscious customers who travel up to 60 miles
one way to buy the milk at a premium price directly from the
farm.
“We’re getting control of our lives
again,” said Kirk. They have gone from being price-takers
in commodity markets to price-makers through direct marketing
of milk and more recently cheese.
Kirk and Kristi feed corn, alfalfa hay, and some
of their excess milk to a small hog herd, directly marketing
more than a dozen milk-fed butcher hogs to customers each year.
Their cows are milked from March or April to early December
and are dry all through the winter. Kelly and Cindy milk a few
cows in a traditional barn on their farm over winter just to
satisfy the needs of their regular direct-market customers.
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Both families have an eye on agritourism opportunities
too. Because their dairies are so unique, Kelly and Cindy have already
hosted several farm and university groups, scheduling pasture chats
and a few motor coach tours for folks interested in their low input
grass systems and dairy products. Cheese making opens up even more
opportunities.
For Kelly and Kirk and their families, their self-designed
grass-based system and on-farm processing have actually simplified
their lives. Both families are now fully employed on the farms and
they have been able to financially garner more of the profit in the
food chain for themselves by keeping costs down and marketing direct
to customers, building relationships with the folks they feed.
“We’ve put things in perspective,” Kirk
said. “When we wake up in the morning, we actually enjoy what
we’re doing.”
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Cheese from Grass
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Kirk Bruns has almost completed an $80,000 on-farm cheese plant
that will convert milk from both his and brother Kelly’s
grass-based dairy herds into a healthful product for which consumers
are willing to pay a premium. The plan is to process all the
milk from both farms as well as from other grass-based dairies
nearby.
When things get rolling, the Bruns’ cheese facility will
be the only on-farm plant in Nebraska that makes cheese using
milk from grass-based dairies only. They’ve hired a former
master cheese maker from a local plant that recently closed.
Their plant will house two cheese vats, steam pasteurization
equipment, and a cold room for aging molded cheeses. They will
begin by producing basic hard cheeses such as cheddar and Colby,
but they also plan to work into specialty cheeses as well.
For a seasonal dairy, cheese is a natural because it will store
longer and is easier to transport than other dairy products.
Kirk said they might also try making spring butter.
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Parlor in the Pasture
Tired of the old days hauling hay and grain to their cows,
then hauling it all back out of the barns as manure, Kelly and
Cindy Bruns wanted a future where the cows did some of the work.
So they built an open-sided milking parlor, New Zealand- style,
out in the middle of their pastures. From the road, it looks
like a little metal shed. But their low-cost alternative to
building a new high-tech confinement facility has been turning
heads in the industry ever since. Doors and windows all need
maintenance and repair, so their open-air parlor, built for
only $35,000, has none. Inexpensive to build, it is also cost
effective to maintain.
"We've had almost every milk inspector in the state through
here," said Kelly. They all want to see how this open air milking
works. Finally, after discussing the facility at length, the
inspectors told Bruns they had never seen a cleaner, more manure-free
dairy.
Kelly said the open-sided parlor allows air to flow through
which helps keep moisture low and lowers milk bacteria count.
Most of the manure is left in the pasture where they want it.
The milking area is open to the south, with a wall on the north
side as part of an enclosed room housing their milk cooler,
bulk tank, and cleaning equipment.
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The milking area is pole-barn style with ten milking units
swinging out from the middle. Cows come into the parlor from
the pasture, enter on the west side, and stand side by side
on both sides where Kelly and Cindy work.
Once milked, cows leave on the east side of the structure and
walk around the barn into a new paddock of fresh pasture. According
to Kelly, their cows know the routine and seem to look forward
to traveling through the milk parlor just to get the fresh salad
bar that awaits them.
One person can milk 100 head in an hour. Kelly milks their
86 head by himself in the mornings. Cindy cares for their bucket
calves during the day and helps with the evening milking.
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