FALL 2019 NEWSLETTER
The Van Der Geest Fall newsletter has arrived! We are excited to keep you informed about our dairy operation. Our dairy has always had an open-door policy, keeping our neighbors, land owners, employees, friends andbusinesses in touch with our farm.
Our cattle are our livelihood. We, along with our employees care for them every day the best we can. Ourcattle have access to feed, water and have a dry comfortable place to lay. We continually try to improve thecomfort of our cow areas with rubber mats for them to walk on, dry comfortable sterile bedding that weproduce ourselves by recycling sawdust and manure. We have over 100 fans to keep them comfortable withwater misting on them when temperatures are above 65 degrees. The environment our cattle live in isextremely important and we constantly strive to keep them as comfortable as possible. We carefully train ouremployees on proper and humane animal care. We have protocols, constant training, video monitoring andwe work with nutritionists and our vet as well as outside people on best practices for our animals. The peoplethat work with the cattle are trained with an in-depth training manual and strict guidelines on proper animalwelfare. We do not tolerate animal miss treatment! Daily monitoring by management assures a clean,comfortable work environment for our employees and our animals.
Animal agriculture seems to be constantly under attack by animal rights organizations trying to makeagriculture look bad to the public. These organizations attempt to gain public support by showing the publicthe few people that do try harming animals and this is by no means what animal agriculture is about. Many ofyou have viewed our facility and our animals, you can see we care about our animals. Please help get themessage out to people that are not educated in production agriculture. Call us with questions or concerns youmight have or even set up a tour!
The agronomy side of the dairy operation has had a challenging year. The long, cold, wet winter killed most of our alfalfa fields. This required us to change many of our cropping plans. The hay fields were changed to mostly corn and we had to seed many more acres to hay because of the shortage. The coldwet spring also caused a late planting of all crops. Now the crops are progressing nicely but are about 3weeks behind schedule. Let’s hope for a late freeze this fall!
This fall Feddick Farms from Medford will be custom chopping and hauling our corn silage. Once corn harvestis complete, we will be hauling our liquid manure to the farm fields. If you have a special event planned,please let us know in advance and we will make every attempt to work around it. We have a short window to harvest and apply nutrients. We may have to work nights, weekends and holidays to accomplish this. With all the trucks on the road please be patient. The drivers are instructed to be courteous, careful, law-abiding drivers. Please let us know if this is being done either way.
The manure application to our fields is a very important process that allows us to grow quality, nutrient rich feed for our cattle. This process is monitored, recorded and reviewed by the DNR through reporting and spot inspections done by them. A third-party state-accredited firm hired by the dairy provides our nutrient management plan. They test the manure, the soil it will be applied to and they look at the crop being planted. They then tell us the proper amount of nutrients to be applied for that crop. We calibrate our equipment through an approved company toensure meters that apply the nutrients are accurate. We record the amount of product being applied, as well as when and where it was applied via GPS monitoring. We inspect the field during nutrient application and again after completing. Nutrient management is a very intense process that needs to be done correctly and accurately. Although it may seem to a passerby that we are applying a lot of liquid manure to the field, keep in mind that the manure is about 98% water, due to the manure recycling process and natural aeration process that it goes through prior to application. 
All operators that apply the nutrients go through yearlytraining. They are instructed on the amounts to be applied,setbacks from certain soil features and placed structures in andaround a field such as a well, school, waterways etc. Each applicator has a map, as seen, telling them where to apply the nutrients. As stated earlier we take great pridein applying the nutrients correctly and safely. If you have questions or concerns, please give us a call.
Thanks for working with us!
