High-tech herd- Huls Dairy modernizes with computer chips, couches for cows

Remember that bucolic image of blue ribbons and gold bells gracing the necks of prize milk cows on lush dairy farms?

Forget it.

By TINA GOODRICH for the Missoulian

For today’s cows, such as the 300 at Huls Dairy northeast of Corvallis, the cream of bovine fashion is a high-tech nylon strap complete with a computer chip.

"A girl should consider herself lucky" to don a Huls Dairy necklace, said Matthew Teal, a recent visitor to the farm. Teal also is a representative of the Wisconsin-based mattress company that provides tailored rubber mattresses for each of the Huls cows.

Along with the necklace each cow enjoys her own soft bed, freedom to roam, clean living quarters and a computer system that monitors her health statistics and milk production and flow, among other things.

Dan Huls, the oldest of four brothers who own and operate the dairy, explained that every time a cow is led on to the mechanized carousel to be milked, her necklace is scanned by the computer and all the milking data is recorded.

All of the cows are identified by a number but a few have acquired names because they are "our favorite or our least favorite," he added. There is Fuzzy, and Freckles, and Zero, who was born when it was zero degrees outside and Valentine, who was born on Valentine’s Day.

"Making the cows comfortable" is one of the motivating factors behind the new $1.6 million barn, said Huls. And since the advent of the new barn and all of its features, Dan said that milk production and quality is up, the cows and the barn are cleaner and the entire milking process is more efficient.

In the older dairy barn, the company could sustain 160 cows. The new barn is able to hold 350.

A comfortable cow is happy and "happy cows make more milk," added Tim Huls, Dan’s brother. The barn is designed with the special mattresses, loop stalls, the milking carousel and a computerized scraping system that rids the barn of excess manure and urine on an hourly basis. The excess waste eventually makes its way to the "poop pond" out behind the barn, Tim Huls explained, and is used for fertilizer. Dan Huls said that he and his brothers are working on incorporating a methane generator that will ultimately provide energy to the dairy.

"This is one of the best setups I’ve seen," said Teal, who was on site to check on the video camera he had installed in the barn the day before. Teal and the company he works for, L and L Sales, regularly conducts research on the behavior of cows. By observing cows in a barn and in a pasture setting, the company can better design mattresses and stalls for cows, he said.

"We like to see how they lie down … how they get up."

Teal said he’s worked for L and L for six years, and his business travels have sent him all over the United States and to Europe. "I’ve been a lot of dairies and this is one of the best," he said.

Huls Dairy sits on 650 acres in the Bitterroot. The dairy’s decision to modernize and expand was made in part to offer a place in the business to other family members, Dan Huls said.

"One of the challenges of agriculture is attracting a younger generation," he said, "especially when you have kids who are educated and bright … to attract them back to agriculture when they see the amount of time and money needed to spend … getting them involved is a real challenge. In order to have a chance for the next generation this project was necessary."

The new barn, with its high-tech scraping system, "Pasture Mats," loop stalls, ventilation and computer systems and milking carousel has been in use since March 26.

But Huls Dairy has been a family business and a historical mainstay up the Bitterroot since 1912 when Dan’s great grandparents, Spencer and Inez Huls, started the dairy with 12 Shorthorn dairy cows, Tim Huls said.

Spencer and Inez tilled the soil and milked cows for several decades before turning over the land and animals to their son, Spencer A. Huls. Their daughter Constance married and moved to Havre soon after high school and never had very much to do with the farm, Tim Huls said. Spencer A., and his wife, Marie, however, were actively involved in the farm until 1952. Their son David had started to run the farm at a young age, due to his father’s failing health, so it was a natural progression when David took over.

David was already running the farm when he met and married Jenny Richards, who continues to live in the original home on the farm today. The young couple continued to manage the dairy and the crops until 1977 when their sons Jeff and Tim bought out the dairy. Sons Dan and Bruce bought the neighboring farm in 1974. It was during this same time that David and Jenny bought the Ravalli County Creamery. They ran the creamery until 1985 when David died in an automobile accident.

David’s children – Dan, Bruce, Tim, Jeff and Julie – run the dairy today. Jeff and Julie have their hand in the business in a limited capacity due to their separate careers, but Dan, Bruce and Tim work the dairy full-time. Jeff helps out "when we need him," Tim said, but for the most part Jeff spends most of his professional hours working for the Ravalli Electric Co-op. Sister Julie continues to live up the Bitterroot and works as a businesswoman and an artist, he said.

The brothers each have their own area of expertise on the farm, said Tim Huls, who serves as president of the corporation. He studied animal science at Montana State University so he often fills in as veterinarian giving shots and attending to the cows’ other medical needs. Tim Huls added that he and his wife, Trudy, take care of the bookkeeping end of the farm.

Jeff Huls mostly helps out with special projects and electrical matters, Dan said.

"We draft him in terms of things like that … But he can do anything."

Bruce Huls likes to do field preparation and basically takes care of most of the "farming" issues, Dan said. But he too knows how to do about everything.

Tim Huls said that Dan is extraordinarily good with computer and mechanical systems. "He keeps everything running up here." Dan also was the leader in the expansion and planning process that brought the new technology to the dairy farm.

Along with dairying comes growing. And just as Spencer and Inez plowed, sowed and reaped from the fertile Bitterroot soil, so still do the present-day Huls. Dan Huls said he and his brothers farm the 650 irrigated acres in addition to running the dairy, which supplies milk to the Darigold Cooperative in Bozeman. (The cooperative in turn sells milk to consumers in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and Utah.)

The Huls are able to grow most of the food that the cows eat plus some.

The cows eat a mix of hay, barley, wheat midds, protein concentrate, corn and a mineral package, Dan explained. The brothers are able to do most of their growing with little use of pesticides, he said, adding that the only real pest is the alfalfa weevil and that’s controlled with the timing of the harvest. They spray herbicide on the barley to get rid of quack grass and broad-leaf weeds.

Dan has hopes that his sons will want to stay with the dairy. His son Brody, 23, is involved already. His son David is 29 and works at the Selway Corp., a metal-fabrication company in Stevensville.

David is involved on the periphery now, said Dan Huls. "But the option is always open to him" to get involved in the family business. Most of his brothers’ children are all in school or college right now. Some of them work on the farm during the summer months.

Dan Huls said that the innovations at the new dairy were put in place in part to "provide opportunities to the younger generation."

"I’m hopeful," he said, "that one or two or three or four of them will come back to stay."

Tina Goodrich is a Missoula freelance writer who writes for Western Montana InBusiness. You can reach her at [email protected].

http://missoulian.com/articles/2003/06/23/business/bus01.txt