A day at the dairy

Several weeks ago the Wills Point Chronicle published a letter to the editor about the dairy business. The letter, sent in time for Mother’s Day, talked about the bond between newborn calves and their mothers. It suggested that dairy cows spend their lives on a concrete floor, chained with no outdoor access and that cows were artificially impregnated and so on.

Shortly after the letter published, I received an email from former Van Zandt County Extension Agent Brian Cummins asking if I would like to tour one of our local dairies to gain a better understanding of the reality of our local dairy production vs. the perception outlined in the letter.

Cummins served as VZC extension agent from April 1992 through October 2010. He currently serves as a board member with the Farm Bureau in Canton. He knows his Ag business and wanted to provide our readers with an accurate account of the dairy business here in the county.

By a long shot, Texas produces more beef than any other state in the U.S. and ranks sixth in milk production. Van Zandt County has a long history of milk production although the number of dairies has dwindled over the years.

According to Cummins, in 1992 there were 27 locally owned dairies in Van Zandt County. Today there are only seven

These seven dairies grossed more than $15.3 million in milk sales in 2015 – each paying county and local taxes.

Brian and I ventured to Wills Point and met with Bobby and John Deen at the Deen Dairy Farm. This is the oldest operating dairy farm in Van Zandt County going back to the mid-1940s.

The Deen family began drifting into Van Zandt County back in the mid-1800s.

Jack and Nancy Deen established the dairy farm in Wills Point shortly after Jack returned from the South Pacific after World War II. They began their milking operation in 1955.

Jack died in 1976 leaving the operation to his wife and children.

Nancy, now 93 years old, and her sons Bobby and John are the backbone of the farm. The next generation, Bobby’s son Zach, has stepped up to continue in his father’s footsteps. Together this family runs more than 1,800 head of cattle on more than 1,900 deeded and 1,100 leased acres. Of the 1,800 head, 640 are milking cows. The rest are bulls, steers and replacement heifers.

Deen Dairy operates under two different corporations: Deen Agri Service Inc. and Ten Deen Cattle Company Inc.

Even though they are a locally owned business, they operate under a corporation for tax and insurance purposes, and to help transition the business from one generation to the next.

Unlike confinement operations up north where farmers bring food to the cows, this operation is spread out and cows are moved from pasture to pasture to graze along with bulls to help populate the herd. The Deen dairy cows forage 300 plus days each year.

Managing the milking population – consisting mostly of Holstein/Jersey, Holstein/Brown Swiss, and Dutch Belt cows ­ ­– didn’t happen over-night. It has taken years to grow and manage the herd to get it where it is today, the Deens said.

There is a real science to raising dairy cattle and the Deens have developed a system of turning their population over as much as 30 percent each year to make sure they are getting the most out of every head.

“We manage our cows like students in school,” Bobby Deen said. “They require a great deal of attention when they are young and require a little less attention as they enter their teenage years and beyond.” 

As we toured a large portion of their land and pastures, the dairy cows grazed on rich fields of rye grass with a deep bed of Bermuda. The cows are rotated from field to field to allow the grass to grow in between grazings.

There are no concrete floors or pinned up animals other than when they pass through the milking operation twice daily. The cows aren’t as fat as their counterparts in the north since they spend most of their days grazing and walking freely.

The Deen Dairy cows are on a strict vaccination program and are palpated for breeding management purposes.  The overall medical care and health of these cows is very important to the farm as they strive to produce high quality milk.

Caring for the cows is one part of the operation. The land plays a critical role in milk production. When Jack Deen began building up the farm, much of the land had been farmed in cotton and the soil had taken a beating, the family said. Weeding and feeding the pastures comes at a price and how much or little is weeded and fed depends on the market price of milk.

Another big part of building up a sustainable farm has been the ability to apply cattle waste back into the soil with manure spreaders, Bobby Deen said.

"Waste management has really become a renewable resource for us. It has helped land quality improve and our grass to thrive," he said. “We use a Bermuda base along with rye and typically allow 16 to 21 days’ rest before putting cows back on the land. This combination allows us to graze our cows for most of the year.”

Managing the land to maximize production is critical, he said.

“We recycle and re-use more than any other business,” Bobby said.

The Deen farm operates seven days a week, 365 days a year. Milking begins each day at 3 a.m. and ends at 7 a.m.  Afternoon milking runs from 2:30 to 5:30 p.m.

The farm has seven full time employees ­­and everyone from the family plays a part in making things work. Nancy Deen will retire from her accounting duties in June and Bobby's wife Debbie will assume that role once she retires from WPISD. 

New technology has made the milking process a little easier, Bobby Deen said.

The Deens use a 32 Swing Line milking machine and when it’s time for the cows to make the walk to the milking barn they line up on their own to enter the milking chutes.

From there, workers connect pulsating milking units to extract the milk.

This process takes roughly five minutes per cow – that works out to 200 cows per hour – allowing dairy to run all 640 cows through the process in under three hours.

Thanks to more advanced dairy technology the dairy runs more efficiently than in the past, Bobby Deen said.  “Before we upgraded our milking barn it would take us up to eight hours to milk the same number of cattle,” he said.

The milk is collected in two 6,000 gallon tanks which hold anywhere from three to four milkings depending on the time of year.

The Deen farm sells around one million pounds of milk every month. 

The milk is then tested and trucked off the farm to either bottling or processing plants. The milk is purchased by the Dairy Farmers of America Co-op and brokered out to bottling and processing facilities.

The Deens admit the economics of running a dairy farm are challenging from year to year and milk prices can make or break a farm.

The Deens said they have weathered a number of storms over the years and have made many sacrifices to keep things running. And just like any other business, cash flow is critical and when the market is down it makes things a little more difficult to operate.

Current milk prices are $13.14 per 100 pounds or $0.13 cents per pound. With 8.62 pounds per gallon that makes their cost per gallon to produce somewhere around $1.13 per gallon. “Two years ago we were getting twice as much per pound of milk,” said Bobby Deen. “The current price of milk can impact cash flow as much as $130,000 monthly. Regardless of the selling price, our bills always stay the same.”