BALATON — The blizzard-like wind was howling outside the barn on the Lingen family dairy farm as Josh Lingen watched the foreign internship worker walk into the milking parlor on his family dairy farm in rural Balaton.
Victor Kiplangat from Kenya was in the middle of his chores. For the past few years, the farm has hired an intern to work on the farm for a year for $10 an hour and room and board.
Kiplangat represents just one of several additions implemented by the Lingens the last few years to survive in a tough dairy market.
“Good things come out of despair,” Lingen said. “Usually something good will come out of something bad. We try to look at it that way. Try to be positive and try to treat people well and work hard. What more can you do?”
For the past 10 years, each family member has pitched in several ways to keep the farm profitable. That includes jumping into a custom silage chopping industry and raising Angus cows on the side to supplement the milk check. And five years ago, an ice cream business was added as well.
“They (dairy farms) are dying,” Lingen said. “I think Lyon County maybe has one or two in it. Our County (Murray) has 20. We just sat here and dwindled. As a young family, it’s hard to get into this and it’s hard to want to be in this because you are working seven days a week. And I think that’s the biggest, discouraging thing for any young man wanting to get into this.”
Being in the dairy farm business was easy for Lingen, because dairy is part of his DNA.
“I was going to college at SMSU in Marshall, living here and working and it ended up being too much. I ended up making the decision I wanted to be here, but we also knew we needed more,” he said looking back.
Along with his sister, Heather, he is fourth generation. His parents, Randy and Denise, are still active as well. And his brother-in-law Reed Stepp is also involved in the operation.
“My dad kind of heads up all the crops and the feed. I do a lot of the feeding and day-to-day of the dairy. Mom is doing the books and dad is lining things up for next year. And he’s one of the best repair guys. Dad fixes everything Our brother-in-law spreads a lot of the manure. We haul all our own manure, which is 6 million gallons a year.”
But all the recent additions to the dairy farm operation wouldn’t have been possible without the family decision to purchase two robotic milking machines in 2012, according to Lingen. It was not an easy decision for the family.
“As a family, two years we fought it out, two years. It was we are going to do it, and we are not going to do it. Then try to half do it. We are going to do it in steps. But it’s one of those things. It’s kind of all or nothing. But it was definitely two years. It’s emotional because it’s scary.”
Two more robotic milkers were eventually added. While the investment saved in labor costs, the robots didn’t come cheap. Lingen estimates the investment boils down to $14,000 per cow to buy and build.
“It’s been four years — four and half years — of just poor prices. We have a lot of debt with the robots, but we got our labor bought and paid for too. We got the debt we are carrying, but we are also carrying our labor force for 20, 25 years. It’s already here. We are in it, we just can’t get out,” Lingen said.
“It’s been a tough go. Everybody else’s labor rates, shop rates are expensive. That gets kind of tough. The margins are so thin. Feed costs have been down, which helps, but everything else has gone up.”
The decision, according to Josh, came down to economics. The family realized labor costs were “out of control.”
The average farmer is not able to afford these increases every year.
“If you look at some of the old statistics back in 1990, the milk price was the same as it is now. And the price of hamburger was a dollar a pound, and the price of gas a buck 50, but milk has stayed the same. All these costs have gone way up. Labor is going with it. You can’t hardly get a good guy in the yard for $20 an hour. And you can’t afford that on these farms. You can get labor, but is it going to be good and consistent?,” he said. “We saw the robots took a lot of the inconsistencies away from our factors.”
Today, there are 260 cows milked by the robots. Another 140 are still milked in the parlor — 1980s technology, according to Lingen. And it takes one to two people twice a day to milk those cows.
But in the robot barn, the cows leisurely walk up to the robot when they feel the urge — and then it’s the robot that does all the work.
The robot is able to scan the cow and identify it by a number. A robotic arm with a spinning orange-and-white brush extends and gently rolls along the underside of the her belly. The brush sanitizes the teats and stimulates them, which prompts the cow to let her milk down.
Another arm holds four plastic tubes, which are attached to a transparent tank. One by one, it places the open ends of the tubes into the teats once or twice. The tube function as little vacuums that suck the milk out at a rate customized to each cow’s production.
A large computer screen is attached to the office wall, which is located just outside the milking area.
“There are 125 data points that the robot and the computer pull every time a cow milks — temperature, body weight, body scores. Conductivity, which sends electricity through the milk checking the white blood cells. Checking the quality of the milk, the color of the milk, the fat, the protein. This thing checks it all as it pulls from the cow. And it records how many times it’s chewing per hour.
“You can tell how many steps they are taking, how many minutes per day they are chewing, how many minutes they are laying down. You can just tell from all this information about the cow and what she’s doing.”
Lingen said it’s becoming a very technical business that allows for efficiency. As the cow is milked, the robot checks for its energy level. The more energy that the cow needs, energy pellets will trickle down in a tray to be consumed. Lingen said it costs the farm $2 a day for each cow in energy pellets.
“The feed and the cost adds up,” he said, stressing that a good return on each cow is vital.
“Each cow right now is giving us 10 gallons per day. Right now we are getting two bucks a gallon. The price the last couple months has been OK. So that’s a big change from what we are used to.”
One of his favorite cows is No. 1191.
“She’s an old cow. She’s great. So you type in her information. She’s been here for six lactations, and she’s had her last calf 57 days ago,” Lingen said, looking at her recorded past history. “She’s not an overly high producer, but 28,000 pounds — pretty good production for a cow to do.”
Lingen said it takes two years to raise the cows before they can be milked, but they usually last for about three to four years before they are slaughtered for hamburger meat. He said after producing three or four calves, the cow’s body starts to break down. No. 1191, according to Lingen is starting to show signs of her feet breaking down.
“Their body just gets old. It’s sad, but they don’t last long,” he said.
Dairy farms are able to replace the old cows with ones raised on the farm.
“There is always a cycle. It’s kind of about 25 percent turnover,” Lingen said.
The modern technology has enabled the farm to become one of the top dairy farms in the region as far as quality of milk, according to Lingen.
“You can monitor, you have consistent milk prep. It’s always the same prep. Good stimulation, good milk letdown. That’s all that counts. That is what it all comes down to — healthy cows,” he said.
The robots, according to Lingen, have been a life changer for him and the rest of the family. The robots frees everybody to conduct the other tasks that helps to keep the farm profitable.
For Josh, it allowed him to start the ice cream business. He teamed up with milk producer Land O’Lakes to produce the ice cream.
“We run around in the summer time and do ice cream. We run a couple trailers,” he said. The trailers allow Lingen to serve the ice cream at weddings, county fairs, city festivals and other events.
“Initially I bought an old machine and my dad said ‘what are doing buying that?’ And I just started off having this machine and we had people stopping for ice cream. Then I bought a little more efficient portable one a year later. Then people wanted to start renting it. It just snowballed,” he said.
Lingen said his mother enjoys helping with the ice cream and usually gets help from neighborhood kids to man the trailers.
“We teamed up with a lot of groups and organizations and donate money back to them to help their cause because it helps out our cause,” he said. “I’m happy to do it and I really enjoy it. When you do the big fairs, you can donate a thousand dollars of butter back to the food bank. You can do more when people support you. And it’s easy to support your friends and like that.
“That is what our communities are about. And that’s what we need to be doing. Helping each other.”