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BTO sale in April

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greg oliver

Well-known Member
Local dairy is selling and thought I would share the ad. I don?t have any connection to the operation just another sad story.
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That?s a sad story and sounds like a great herd. By today?s US standards that?s more on the small family farm size as most likely only half the head selling are milking age?
 
There are a few here who I would have loved to have seen fail when times were good. If they'd have gone under in good times,it would have been their own fault. I don't take any pleasure in seeing them fail at a time when so many are going under though.
 
Philip, They were large for around here. Cooperstown is the home to the baseball hall of fame so they won?t miss another stinky dairy farm. For 3 months in the summer kids from all over the U.S. play at the Cooperstown Dreams park.
 
That's for sure. Especially if somebody went before their time. I've been to some for old folks though,that were all about celebrating the old guys life just as much or more than the funeral was.

Seems like there are a lot of them around here this year that say "Due to the death of....".
 
Rrlund, The auctioneer That owns the Cattle Exchange got into a verbal battle in the local paper back in the early 80?s with my father. They were arguing over cooperate farming that my father called tax dodge operations. He said my father had a Neanderthal mentality! 30 years later we are still discussing it!
 
So much for the economy of scale lie. If you can?t make a profit from 100, you won?t make a profit from 1,000. Sad for this family, caught up in these times in agriculture. How many farms had to go under so this farm could grow to this size?
 
There seems to be a lot of the "Third generation curse" going on now too. The first generation built it,the second generation thrived and the third generation lost it.
 
I think at least a third generation family farm. owner was only 56 and died from cancer. she did a lot for the farming community in her life.
 
I have to agree with you on that Bruce. Seems to me it takes a better manager to make a living from a few than it does to make a living from a lot. You can do it with a smaller margin if it's spread over more "production units",but it takes some skill to make it with fewer units.
 
Bruce, They were running all over for crops and were not alone. At least 2 other local BTO?s do the same thing. We were really small only milked 33 cows but had a pipeline, barn cleaner, and silo unloaded. On a good day I was done milking cleaning barn and feeding cows by 9:30AM by myself. Don?t miss the mornings that I heard the sound of running water on the way to the barn and temp was below freezing! Or when the State inspector showed up as I was repairing barn cleaner chain for third or forth time that morning! Lol
 
Bruce, this was a well respected farm family. They were community minded and also very progressive thinkers.
Their purebred Holsteins have been at the top since the 50's, and they and my uncles partnered on several bulls. They were also very conscious of the environment, as their farm surrounded the head waters of the Susquehanna River. They were making their own electricity with a bio-digester back in the 70's.
Jenifer married a fellow that my son went to school with. He was a mechanic and a crop man. The Hunington's were cow people. They made a great team. I am sure that that Eric is devastated.
It is sad to see this institution come to an end.
Loren
 
Not a farm, but a similar situation. A friend of mine had a dump truck service. Over a few yrs. it grew to over 20 trucks. Long story, short, he was having more trouble with maintenance and drivers. He finally went back to one truck, which he drove himself, and made more money, with a lot less headaches.
 
Bill, Do you still have cows? I met you over to the Roseboom show a few years ago and seems like your farm was down toward Binghamton from me. Oneonta and Cooperstown bank on the dreams park and it?s seasonal I think it?s dumb not having some industry.
 
Bill do you still have cows? We met at the Roseboom show a few years ago. Your farm was down toward Afton if I remember right.
 
Too bad a death caused this. So sad to die so young.However I have no sympathys for the broke bankrupt BTO. The accumulate way too much debt,Often are poor managers( they often just farm 'acres',not crops).Plus all the smaller farmers who are forced out by that mentality.
 
SAD. I knew Jennifer had a bout with cancer a few years ago, but didn't know she had died. I think that farm was financially solvent. I used to breed there.
 
As much as I want to bash BTO's the simple fact is many younger people did not want to stay on the farm and did not in the decades prior to today. In a fair amount of instances the soil lacked the quality for a dairy farm to compete when it became a matter of concentrated feed value. The dairies on my road faded away a long time ago as the number of acres to support a cow unit (Holstein) was appreciably higher than farms with higher quality soils. Did not matter so much when most of the feed was derived from medium quality forage such as clover, trefoil, and timothy but was very noticeable when corn and corn silage along with alfalfa played a larger role. The higher quality soils could create more feed value from a single acre than their lower quality neighbors.
 
(quoted from post at 06:28:23 03/24/19) How many farms had to go under so this farm could grow to this size?
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Ask yourself why the small farms went under. We moved here to what at the time was dairy country when I was 16 in 1971. Everyone was milking. 10-20-30 head. Local BTO was 40 with you reading about a few guys going to that unprecedented 100 head. The small guy was already going away. Not because of money. because no one was there to take over. JR grew up, figured out he could make as much money or more working 40 hours a week and actually have time off to enjoy. So JR got a job or went to school and then got a job. Time for dad to retire? Or dad fell over dead from a heart attack? No one there to take over. I remember well being excited as all get out to be moving to a farm. Then my class mates in high school who had grown up on a farm. All they wanted to do was graduate, turn 18 and get as far and as fast from that farm as they could.

So those small farms that died and allowed BTO's to get bigger? They were going to die anyway because there was no one to take over.

Don't know about up there but here in the US? In 1950 there were about 35 million or so farms. Now it's about 3.5 million. So about 10 million farms died to make the 3.5 million larger farms what they are today.

Rick
 
I?m sure our neighbors won?t miss us spreading manure thus spring either. Soon as I saw the production figures that?s all I needed to see to know it is a well managed herd. Some animal rights activists believe that the cows producing well are forced to and mistreated. That couldn?t be further from the truth. High producers have the best air quality cleanest water most room to manoeuvre the most comfortable beds,highest quality feed and most gentle care. Doesn?t mean it?s profitable but they?re well looked after. I was at a meeting one time and the speaker was from a 1000+ cow dairy. He said when asked how you take care of that many cows this was his response: we figured out the best way to look after 1 cow and multiplied that by 1000.
 
While we can agree that a lot of young people moved away and in a lot of instances it was by their own choices that is not the full story that they simply did not want to be
there. In a number of cases the farm was maxed out in terms of income and in other cases people discovered they had far more talent for other things. I know of a number
of people who wanted to return to the farm even with parents who would have welcomed them home but the younger people could see the future which was not promising.
 
greg, my cows left just over a year ago. we sold the milkers in january 2015, and started up again in Oct '15 with 21 of the daughters from that herd. in 2 1/2 years, we were at almost the same number of cows we sold the first time. i'm still feeding the daughters of the second herd, and selling them when they are ready to freshen. this time, I AM ready to slow down and play with my tractors. we are just south of Afton, along the Susquehanna and I88.
 
That happened in a few cases. I was told that the beautiful herds of Lylehaven and Dreamstreet were just places for investors to put their money to avoid taxes. Hanover-Hill sales and Service also capitalized on that type of tax loop hole in the 70?s with their Designer Fashion sale which brought 6 figure sale toppers some of which went on paper to Hollywood actors of the day.
 
Philip, That was Dreamstreet that my father and Dave were arguing about. I grew up in Delaware County N. Y. home of Dreamstreet. George Morgan?s farm was only about 6 miles from our farm . George was one of the brains of the operation and a lot of little farms disappeared during that time. The secretary of the Holstein Frisian Association had a farm only about 4 miles away. It was called Chapel Bank Farm and we bought a couple ET heifers from them. His son Dave and I were in FFA together.
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Greg oliver . I also knew Pete Huntington very well when I lived in Cooperstown in the 60's before I moved to Springfield near Loren. Just to show you how much I loved the Base Ball Hall of Fame, My wife worked in it for 6 years and I have never been in it. But like Loren said the Huntington people were the best of the best. If they made it big they earned it by working hard and honest. Great people. . The Old Scovy.
 
Old Scovy, Good to hear from you. My wife is looking for a job for me in Florida right now! Lol On a lighter note a friend of my family Alice Blackman has found evidence that the first recorded baseball game was played in Hamden New York. I used to be able to drive to the Hamden Inn all on dirt roads till about a mile from the Inn.
 
greg oliver. I have been threw Hamden many times butI was never in the Hamden Inn. I was never interested in base ball. I do remember trying to play it out in the pasture with an old sock filled with straw and a old peck handle . It only lasted till the old man said it is time to milk. By then the old sock was about shot. LOL . Scovy.
 
I don't know that an operation that size is considered a BTO anymore, but Jennifer was a great person, and she and Eric did it the right way.
The sad part is, it's likely a true BTO will be the only one that can afford to buy it
Pete
 
just like anything. if you don't take care of it it won't take care of you. be it your employees, tractors, cattle or car. got to be taken care of
 
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