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\n\n\n\n\nPosted Saturday, December 21, 2024 12:00 am\n\n\n\n
By Danielle Nauman | danielle.n@dairystar.com\n\n\n\n
BONDUEL, Wis. \u2014 Luke Stern was drawn to dairy farming as a young boy, even though he did not grow up on a dairy farm.\n\n\n\n
\u201cMy dad is an agronomist and has a herd of beef cows,\u201d Luke said. \u201cI grew up on a farm, just not a dairy farm, but his friend had a dairy farm and I spent a lot of time there growing up.\u201d\n\n\n\n
That early fascination led to high school jobs milking on dairy farms. Eventually he found himself working at Brian Engel\u2019s dairy outside of Bonduel, where his future would be laid. \n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen Brian started out, he did it on his own, like me,\u201d Luke said. \u201cSince he started like that, he wanted to see it keep going. He mentioned it one day, and I thought about it and decided it was something I wanted to pursue.\u201d\n\n\n\n
The two struck up a deal where Luke would purchase the cows from Brian when he retired, and rent the barn. After five years as Brian\u2019s employee, Luke purchased the milking herd May 1.\n\n\n\n
\u201cBrian shipped to Mullins so we continued to ship there,\u201d Luke said. \u201cThat transition was really smooth; it was basically just switching names on the check.\u201d\n\n\n\n
Luke and his girlfriend, Alyssa Diemel, are milking 62 cows. Alyssa works full time off the farm as a lab technician for CentralStar Cooperative Inc. and helps Luke on the farm milking in the evenings.\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat has been nice,\u201d Luke said. Doing it by myself, I was out there until 10 p.m. sometimes. Now doing chores together we can get done usually by 8 or 8:30. She milks and I milk the bucket cows, and feed the calves and cows.\u201d\n\n\n\n
Alyssa previously worked on a dairy farm as well.\n\n\n\n
\u201cI like it; I want to be here,\u201d Alyssa said. \u201cIt can be stressful some nights, but most of the time it\u2019s pretty good. When I\u2019m not here, I wish I was.\u201d\n\n\n\n
Brian still owns the heifers, which Luke is purchasing as he needs replacements. Brian handles the cropping duties making the feed for their commingled animals. The two plan for Luke to eventually take over the cropping duties as well.\n\n\n\n
\u201cBrian\u2019s been really good to me and we have a great working relationship,\u201d Luke said. \u201cHe still helps me out in the barn and is a great mentor.\u201d\n\n\n\n
The cows are fed a total mixed ration, with everything grown on the farm.\n\n\n\n
Luke has some equipment he owns and uses for custom work, creating an additional revenue stream.\n\n\n\n
Since taking ownership of the cows, Luke has begun learning the ins and outs of dairy farming.\n\n\n\n
\u201cOne of the biggest challenges has been stuff with the cows,\u201d Luke said. \u201cI have milked cows for seven years, but milking is different than owning them \u2014 knowing when to treat and what to treat them with and treating them at the right time, that has been the biggest learning curve.\u201d\n\n\n\n
Over the past seven months, Luke has made changes to the barn to streamline his fledgling operation.\n\n\n\n
\u201cI put in a bigger bulk tank right away in May,\u201d Luke said. \u201cWe were at the point that we were almost running it over on every-other-day pick up, and I wanted to stay on every-other-day.\u201d\n\n\n\n
In August, Luke removed some youngstock pens at the end of the barn and replaced them with additional tie stalls, eliminating the need for switching cows and simplifying his choring routine.\n\n\n\n
With half a year under his belt, Luke has one eye firmly on the future.\n\n\n\n
\u201cRight now, I just want to focus on paying for the cows and preparing to purchase the farm,\u201d Luke said. \u201cI just want to keep improving on what is here. In the future, I\u2019d like to maybe put up a freestall barn for housing the cows.\u201d\n\n\n\n
Once the house Brian is building is complete, Luke and Alyssa will move into the farmhouse. Luke is currently living with his parents three miles away while Alyssa lives 15 minutes from the farm.\n\n\n\n
\u201cThree miles isn\u2019t that far, but being on the farm will be nice,\u201d Luke said. \u201cIt will be nice to be able to just come out and keep an eye on things.\u201d\n\n\n\n
So far, dairy farming has been everything Luke dreamed it would be.\n\n\n\n
\u201cI like being my own boss,\u201d Luke said. \u201cI worked at a soda factory and milked here nights and weekends \u2014 a 10-hour shift there and milking here, that was draining. I worked two other jobs before that, too. Farming is hard work, but so far, it\u2019s been worth it.\u201d\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Alyssa Diemel and Luke Stern stand with their cows Dec. 7 near Bonduel, Wisconsin. Luke purchased the cows from his former employer and began renting […]\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sciencesandnatures.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7492"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sciencesandnatures.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sciencesandnatures.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sciencesandnatures.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sciencesandnatures.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7492"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sciencesandnatures.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7492\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7493,"href":"https:\/\/sciencesandnatures.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7492\/revisions\/7493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sciencesandnatures.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sciencesandnatures.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sciencesandnatures.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}