Mich. Thumb Dairy Farms

I lived near Marlette, MI for a short time in the mid-60"s.Returned for a visit about 5 years ago. I had not been there at all in the intervening years. What struck me most was the total absence of Diary Farms in an area that was previously almost exclusively Dairy, literally thousands of them. The are seemed so well suited to dairy, with deep, deep sandy loam soils suited to hay and corn for cattle feed. But now Ther are not even any beef operators, just grain. What happened?

Probably somewhere in that neck of the woods is a megadairy. The same thing's happened around here, w.c. Ohio. Used to be lots of small dairies, now just a few mega ones.

Just a guess. Low prices ,Low prices , and more Low prices. Poor return on investment , and labour, takes the fun out of life on the farm , Quicker than hard work ever will. Bruce

I dare say there's as much milk coming out of there as ever. It's just coming from a darned site fewer places.
It's like here. At one time Dad used to talk about getting a full load of canned milk between here and Greenville. Well,there's only 2 herds between here and there now but one of them is shipping 5 tanker loads a day.

Amen Bruce.

Glenn F.

We have one here in Livingston county that is milking 2500 cows. There are a few little guys, and a few big guys, not much in between.

Ever met those folks? I have had some dealings with them from time to time. Quite an operation they have there isn't it?

There still are a few around...but they are not the small family farm that you remember....I live in Lapeer Co, and a buddy of mine is an organic dairy farmer, around 100 head, 50-60 milking...he is in North Branch...there are 3-4 other conventional dairy farmers in his area...with about the same head count. I have one about a mile up the road with about a 100 head...then there is the dutch...there are 5-6 of the Dutch MEGA dairies up by elkton...they don't have storage tanks, they milk, chill & pump right into a waiting tanker...they milk around the clock with 3 shifts & rotary parlors...the cows never see outside..the small one is around 2500 head, and another just got approved to go to 7000-7500 head...there are several others in the 3000-5500 head range...you don't need 100's of 50-100 head dairy's when you can have 3-5 large mega dairy's like that...I travel Van dyke to work and pass several tankers every day, both ways...they drop an empty , pick up a full one & head to the processing plant, rinse & repeat...they buy /contract with the local farmers to grow feed for them, so a lot of the guys that were dairy farmers , a re growing feed for the BTO now...I do miss going by all the small operators , and seeing the diversity, and the different management styles....Oh well ....Shawn

DFA just announced they were building a new plant over that way so there must be some milk somewhere.
I remember back in the real early 70s the field man took me over that way looking for a bulk tank. They had bought a bunch from guys who had quit. Quite an exodus at the time,but I seem to remember that was over a new nuclear plant that they were going to build over there or something. Anybody remember that?

I reckon I already knew the answer to my question, maybe I was just trolling for comments from a Michigander!! BTO"s were surely the downfall to the family farm. But, perhaps all is not lost if those same operators can sell feed to the BTO"s at a fair price (Yeh, right!)
We have a couple of those "merry-go-round" milking parlors here in Virginia, they are amazing operations. The ones here are on quasi-family farms.... I don"t know how they can amortize the cost of installation over the lifetime of the farmer!!!

My dad ran milk truck every other night into New Wilmington about 5 years ago, said there were always several tankers there out of Michigan.
The guy who bought our old place just sold his cows to a dutch dairy somewhere in Michigan. Guess he bought a couple thousand that week out of New Mexico, too.

"Get bigger or get out" in dairy farming has been going on for many years all across the U.S. Economies of scale in dairying are no different than in any other way of life. It's disheartening to see it happen and we can reminisce about the past but "we can't go home again".

im not sure as its been a few years but got inboved in a fight with a mega dairy and at that time the dutch were paying there farmers to relocate they even had a office in the us to help farmers buy farms

I have not met them. A neighbor of mine, his grandson works for them.

This area use to be about 98% dairy and 2% other livestock with the big dairy herds being around 40 cows. now there is one guy with about 40 (BIL) and just a couple of more with the smaller one being about 100. Then you jump to 400 milkers. Now we have some locals without any livestock that are just doing grain and a few with beef. The big herds have pretty much taken over for the old time guys that milked between 10 and 40 head.


Rick

That's kinda funny. I just got back from New Wilmington this morning. And Ya, 7 of the 11 trucks in line were from Mi.

The new plant is in Cass City. They are supposed to take 60 loads a day when they get going. Condense it and ship it out.

I take that back, New Wilmington is Farmers Cheese, right? He usually went into Deans. Can't think of the town that's in.
He drove when I was in elementary school, I remember there were a bunch of plants he went to, Dunkirk Ice Cream (got there one afternoon and took so long getting unloaded I almost missed my last day of 6th grade), his night route went into Farmers, a couple of the day routes went into Hillside in Cleveland Heights. Now and then he went to Wooster.
I rode along to help him out a couple times when it was cold that one winter. Mitchel's guy that wrecked a few years ago would pass us on the way in, then he'd be asleep on the wheel drooling over his papers while the inspector sampled the load and hooked up the hoses for him.
We were told those tri-axle Pete's would take that curve on 18 into Greenville at 80+, I told dad don't you even try it, my Chevy won't do it at 60.

They sure rode nicer than the S2500's the owner's grandfather ran back in the day.

Ya, New Wilmington is Farmers cheese. I get out there couple times a month. Usually central Ohio. Micellis in Cleveland, Brewster cheese in Brewster, Rieter in Spingfield or Dannon in Minster. It's amazing how much milk is leaving MI. Some where between 100 and 200 loads a day I would guess?