The Moos Room™

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Emily: Welcome, everybody, to The Moos Room. OG3 here, and we are back with another outstanding guest for this week's episode. I'm really excited about this guest. It is a dairy producer that I have worked with since I started in Expansion. I'm really excited to have her on. We are joined by Stearns County dairy farmer, Lisa Groetsch. Hey, Lisa.
Lisa Groetsch: Hello.
Emily: Just to kick things off, why don't you briefly give us the short 60-second rundown of your farm?
Lisa: 60 seconds. If you know me well enough, Emily, 60 seconds is probably not enough for an [crosstalk]--
Emily: I know, but I knew I had to limit you, right?
Lisa: Yes, there it goes. Steve and I got married about 32 and a half years ago. Started with 40 cows, bought his family farm. 1997, we built our first free cell barn, about 150 cows or so, double seven parlor. Then in 2011, we expanded it again, retrofitted our barn, added on to the barn and put in four robots, and now milking 260 cows for 10 years already, we're in the robot.
Emily: Yes, I remember when the robots went in. It was quite the fanfare. Yes, it was just--
Lisa: No stress moments here at all, I tell you.
Emily: Yes. I know it was not stressful for you guys ever. Well, good. Now that we have just a little background on who you are and what you do, because you are a guest, we do have two super secret questions that we're going to ask you. Question one, what is your favorite breed of beef cattle?
Lisa: Oh, for heaven's sakes, why do you ask that? Okay, well, I guess I'm going to have to say Angus just because that's what we have. We haven't bred with any others. Basically, from what I'm told, you get paid better for the Black Angus, so that's where we went.
Joe: Well, that is one of the correct answers. Not according to Bradley, but it is.
Bradley: The correct answer is Hereford Red.
Lisa: Oh, Hereford, no. All right.
Emily: No.
Joe: Let's update the totals quick. That puts Black Angus out in front, two ahead of Hereford with 10. Herefords are at 8, Blacks Baldy is at 4, Belted Galloway, 2. Scottish Highlander 2, Red Angus 2, and then all with one Stabiliser, Gelbvieh, Brahman, Chianina, Charolais, Simmental, Nelore, Jersey, Normandy, and Shorthorn.
Emily: All right. Super secret question number 2, maybe you figured it out. What's your favorite breed of dairy cattle?
Lisa: Well, I guess I'd go Holstein with that one just because I was like, "No, I have to go with the Holstein," just because that's what we have. We've been able to work well with them with production and butter fat. Of course, our kids, our youngest now is trying for the Jersey or Brown Swiss to move some of those into the herd. We'll see where that goes. [laughter]
Bradley: We only accept Jersey as the correct answer.
Emily: No.
Joe: Absolutely. Jersey is the correct answer, but that helps.
Emily: No.
Joe: That's fine.
Lisa: We have some red and white Holsteins too.
Emily: There you go.
Lisa: We'll go with some of those, but the Jersey is because our barn is truly, truly built for 15, 18 Harp on Holsteins. Jerseys, it's a really tough fit for them for here for right now. Barn has to be built correctly for Jerseys.
Joe: Well, they could sit two in a stall. It'd be fine. [laughter]
Lisa: One backwards, one forwards. That's how that would go.
Joe: [laughs] All right. With the totals on the dairy side, we've got Holsteins really pulling away here at 16. Jersey's at 11. Brown Swiss at 5. Montb�liarde at 3. Dutch Belted at 2. Normandy at 2, and one Guernsey named Taffy.
Emily: One Guernsey named Taffy. Now that we have all that riff-raff out of the way here and got that vital information that we needed from you, Lisa, I was really excited when the three of us discussed having you on. There are just so many things about your dairy and your farm, I think, to get excited about, at least from my point of view. As I mentioned, I've known you for, well, let's see, since I started in Extension, so close to nine years, eight years, somewhere in there.
I feel like from the outsider looking in perspective, I've really seen a lot of things grow and change. You guys learn from your lessons and making decisions based on that. It's just been really incredible. Yes, as Joe said, Bradley and I have really been talking you up. I'm just like, "Yes, Lisa is the best." [chuckles]
Lisa: Wow. How do you even have a comment after that?
Emily: Well, instead of comments, we can maybe go into some questions. I'm going to start. Something with me that I think you do so well on your farm is you have a focus on how you manage your farm. We talk about management a lot on this podcast. Also the culture that you build around your farm. You guys are very family focused. I think you've put a lot of thought into how you can keep that family focus as a part of your farm business. Why don't you just tell us a little bit about your culture and how you keep your family involved and all of that?
Lisa: The family. Steve and myself, obviously, and then our three grown children. They're all in egg in one way or the other. Oldest is a veterinarian in Upstate New York. She always says Northern New York, not Upstate. Large animal vet up there. Then Matthew's just been home with us now for two years, full-time, and talking about ownership now after he's gotten through the, "Okay, do I really want to work with my parents forever" moment. Then our youngest now, Kaitlyn, has moved back to Stearns County from South Dakota and has found a full-time job and is now tinkering in the part time position here with Gretcherry.
Hopefully, where that leads, we don't know just yet. She's the one, of course, that would go Jerseys all the way, just so you know, Brad. She'd be all about it, but again, let's make the bar and what it needs to be before we bring in those little girls.
My brother works with us. My nephew works with us. My dad's been here way more days than he probably even can count, doing all kinds of odd jobs. Then our staff and our crew, I would like to consider them family after you get through that training time where you're asking them things about their lives because they're giving up part of their life to help you and help us succeed. I feel like that's a pretty big deal to try and get to know them as people and get and maybe understand some of the things they're going through.
Teenagers, everyone knows it can be really difficult to employ a teenager. Their lives are full on, but I also feel that they are the ones you need to invest some time in, have conversations with, treat them like people, not just employees and laborers. I try to find myself at it and thinking about that on a weekly basis.
The best advice I'd ever heard at one of our first employee meetings on how to employ people was to put a penny in your pocket for every employee you have, and by the end of the day, move those pennies after you've chatted with everyone. Now, that's not practical for me. Maybe once a week type thing, so moving those pennies to the other pocket by the end of the week, just to make sure we have a face to face.
There's things that they won't tell you via text. Granted, they're all amazing at texting, but there's things that you can talk with them in person about that they won't share with technology. It's important to have those conversations. Hopefully, that answers your question.
Joe: Yes, I think that's perfect.
Emily: That was such a great answer and music to my ears. We know how important that social connection can be just for employee retention and general employee happiness. Of course, there's that mental health component there, too. Knowing that somebody cares and wants to know what's going on outside of just work is really important. I think it's so great that you've just integrated all of these things into what you're doing, and that you admit that it's not perfect and you can't do it as much as maybe you would like to, but the fact that you're doing it and you're trying, that's so great.
Lisa: I find that we put in the robots to deal with less people. Isn't that hilarious, because we have more employees now than we've ever had? It's more of a way for us to manage, have more time for managing all the things that there are to manage. I'm so proud of the idea of employing local high schoolers, local adults, supporting the community with that kind of a thing with payroll.
Emily: I've had the chance to meet and talk to some of your employees. They're all very friendly and seem very happy where they are and are always excited about what they're doing.
Lisa: We did some visiting here a couple of weeks back. The first Sunday of January, we had a celebrating 10 years of the robot party. We invited everybody that was employed more than a few months over the last 10 years. A lot of people were there, but it was so fun to see some of the ones that we hadn't seen in years. Some are married and have children and you're like, "How is that possible?"
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Emily: Oh, that's great.
Lisa: Yes, it was fun.
Emily: Awesome.
Lisa: It was fun.
Joe: One of the reasons that we have Lisa on is that we're excited about this culture that she's built on her farm and how much importance that she's put on it. It's also because she's extremely successful in the dairy industry. Their farm does really well on the production side.
Lisa: 2021 was a little bit of a challenge. We dealt with some Klebsiella. If anybody's ever dealt with some of that, that hit us pretty hard because we had never. We struggled a little while until we figured out what was going on and how to combat it a little bit and what to do with those girls straight out of the gate. Don't think twice, just do this, this and this. I believe per robot, it's funny that we're talking about production, lately just sent out their numbers and I believe we hit a 95-pound fat protein corrected milk for 2021. Good production and not anywhere near that I take any of that credit.
You've got everything from forages that my husband does an amazing job with. You talk with your nutritionalist who does the rations and keeps up with things. You got our employees to maintain those girls and make sure that there's healthy cows down there because sick cows do not produce, correct? I feel like I shouldn't take hardly any of the credit because all that stuff goes to so many people.
Joe: The thing that I've seen, at least when I was in practice and I was running around all these different farms, is that it's very rare to find a farm that has really good production that doesn't also have some element of having a great culture on their place.
When you're talking about really appreciating employees and making time for them and doing all those things, can you really see how much that directly impacts production? Is that just a bunch of little things that add up over time that make it easier to hit those big numbers?
Lisa: Steve's- one of his famous things, I think, what he says is about doing the little things right continuously. When you put the crop in the ground and you harvest that, to be able to concentrate those 48 hours of that silage pile, how critical those 48 hours are, and how long they are, but if everyone doesn't stay on task and get things done the way we're supposed to, for a whole year, we have not the highest quality of feed we could have, correct? Same with our employees showing up every day from taking care of baby calves to heart health, those little things every day, watching for a Vechur cow, watching for a sore foot, watching for a cow that they're fetching.
It's amazing. Our high schoolers will leave me a little list. "This cow, I don't normally fetch, but I had to fetch her today." "This cow really got a part," or "she really limped on her back right foot." Those notes are priceless to me because I am not out with those girls every single day like they are three, four, five times a week, whatever they're here. I am indebted to them for their attention to our animals and considering that for them to consider their part of their critters. Do you know what I mean?
Joe: Yes, and I don't think that happens without- from the top down, providing that example and making that culture so that people feel like they are part of the team. I love that saying, though, doing all the little things right continuously is really what makes everything go. It's a daily grind, but it all adds together. It's all connected. I love that attitude towards the dairy.
Lisa: Yes, and you can have one person that's not part of the team and doesn't pull the weight, that can yank that team down so quickly. Then we talk about, and this is a saying from someone that I had met, and he's talked about corner posts in your business, "Who are your corner posts that hold up the entire fence?" Then your part-timers, they can fill in those little gaps.
Those four or five or six corner posts, the posts that hold up the whole fence, that's your herd manager, Steve and myself, my brother Doug, who's been with us for over 20 years. You talk to those people and now Matt coming on board, putting him as a corner post, how important those people are to maintain their satisfaction in their jobs, where they feel like they're growing as a person and not just we're just here doing the work. You want them to be part of what we're succeeding in.
Joe: You mentioned that you've had robots for 10 years. Bradley really wants to talk about robots and all the other things that go on. You have some sensors out there, I'm sure, so Brad can get into that as well. The decision to go to robots, I find it really funny. You already said that you have more employees than how than you ever have in the past, but what led to the decision initially to put the robots in? What was your thought behind that?
Lisa: It was basically because we wanted to milk more than twice a day, and we didn't want to have another shift. I usually did the evening shift with one of the high school kids, and Steve did the morning shift with a part Timer that we had hired for the days. We knew that if we did a third shift, it was just chaos to what our normal schedules were. The robots became very enticing on that part.
Then obviously, there were some changes to our barn that we made that was really good choices from going to sand versus the mattresses and sawdust. Granted, there's a maintenance thing with that. It's a lot harder to handle the manure, but once we came up with the manure system, it just seemed like the right thing to do. I don't know. I just think it felt like the right thing to do, even though it was a really big investment for us.
Joe: It's a huge investment. No doubt about that. The robots are expensive and it's not like you could get away with just one. You had to have four, right? You always have four.
Lisa: Well, we needed three for sure. But if we were adding on to the bottom, then it made perfect sense to make sure we had enough for four.
Joe: I know it's been a while since you put them in, but going into having robots, did you have any expectations about what would happen that really turned out to be correct? Then also the other side of that, did you have any expectations that just were way off and didn't really match up?
Lisa: I would say that going into it, I'm an easily excited about the little things kind of person. I was elated about this whole experience and about whatever, and it was exhausting. There was about two minutes of my life where I'm like, "Oh, my gosh, what did we do?" It took that two-minute walk from the barn to the house, and by the time I got to the house, I went, "We've got this. We're determined people. We've got a lot of people that are around us that will help us with whatever we need." We had a good crew at that time. We had good people behind us from the trips to the list of vets. We had that core group that could help.
Along with Extension, Jim Salfer was big on helping us talk through some of these things. I would say one of the things that came true was higher milk production. Steve definitely set it out of the gate. We can get up to that 9,500 pounds. I was like, "Really?" Because I don't think we ever saw more than an 82 in our parlor. His thoughts and his expectations came true on that for sure.
For me, I thought our labor would be as it was or less, and that just totally was incorrect. I'm glad it was, honestly. I feel that our farm runs better with more people. It's not always easy to be the HR because that's a hat no one picks up off the floor so you have to. Oh, Lisa can do that. I do believe I am the person for the job. It's just I don't always want the job.
Joe: That's perfectly understandable. That's a tough hat to wear. You mentioned Jim Salfer, one of our regional educators, is excellent, so is Marcia Endres, who's on the dairy team as well at the state level. They put on a YouTube channel show pretty consistently where they have people from robotic dairies on.
One of the stories that I listened to when I watched that was that at one point, you guys saw a dip in your components, and it was because the silage face had dried out. It took you a little bit because it was hot, dry this summer. We all know that in Minnesota. It took you guys just a little bit to figure out all the way that must be what's going on and adjust and everything was good again pretty quickly. Do you think you would have noticed something like that before you had robots as quickly as you did, or would you just not have had time to even pick up on that?
Lisa: We definitely wouldn't have noticed it as quickly. I mean, you just seen it in your ball tank samples, but the data that we get is priceless, absolutely priceless, from the rumination to the activity, to the components, the scale, the cows weight, all those visits. You can see which cows are really doing things. Some of the cows that you're like, "Oh, she's a little slow, but she's fine." It really helps you analyze, "Is she the right cow to breed back? Is she the right cow for our herd?"
This is probably four years ago, we were way more cows than what we needed. We helped a farm start up in a small town near here, and he was willing to purchase our slow cows. We sold milk cows to him, and one in particular was milking over 100 pounds, but she was one of those slow-milking cows that you just can't have when you're full anyway. You can't have those cows that just take up too much robot time. All the data is huge. You're right, you wouldn't have seen that silage making the difference had you not seen all the numbers.
Joe: Yes, that's a huge piece. The data is massive and what to do with it is a big question for a lot of people because there's so much of it, but being able to see even those simple things on a day-to-day basis, instead of having to wait to see that number change, that's money that you guys saved immediately. You saved it in days rather than potentially weeks to figure out that something was wrong. It's a big, big change.
Lisa: Right. The data is something that was overwhelming in the beginning. I would full-on admit that, but it is about finding your two or three or five reports you stare at every morning, and then some of the other ones you maybe pay attention to once a week or once a month. Like cow flow, I do that every Sunday night or Monday morning so we understand how many are calving in, how many were drying off, cows that were moving into the closeup pen, cows that need vaccinations that week. It's become a scheduled thing and some of those reports are critical to getting that information easily.
Joe: I think the reports is key because Brad has talked a bunch about just having an overwhelming amount of data and what to do with it, but having it condensed into what you really need is key. That's really nice. Brad's been working on a question for you I think for a while, and it's potentially a tough question. I'm not going to lie. Brad, why don't you take it away?
Bradley: Now you're putting me on the spot to remember what my question was. I think I know what it was. Well, at least I've been thinking about one. Joe can tell me if I'm wrong, or Emily probably will anyways. [laughter] The question I have is, as you think about in the future, what's going to happen? You've invested all of this money in robots. In 5 years or 10 years, do you have to reinvest in robots?
Obviously, just like the rest of us, if we have old parlors or old barns, we have to upgrade to new facilities, like what you did 10 years ago with robots. 10 years later, are you going to have to put new robots in and invest another $1 million or $2 million? If you have three robots, now maybe you decide we're going to go six robots or seven and expand. Any thoughts about that?
Lisa: I think it's a necessity to think about those things. I don't think you're doing yourself a favor by avoiding those thoughts. Yes, we definitely have talked about it. Our original thought was, okay, for sure we're going to go 10 years with these robots. We're there. Someone asked Steve that question, "How long do you think these will last?" At our 10-year get-together. One of the parents of one of the kids that works for us.
Steve's like, "We'd like to see another five years out of them, BUT, and that but is in big letters, if something changes with our children, if Kate decides that this is where she wants to be, if Matt wants to continue to own more, then another barn and double, so you go eight robots or do you add two onto this barn? We've been in those conversations with our children and each other.
Like I said, you're not doing yourself a favor by not thinking about those things. We want to see the next generation here, but it is up to them what happens with [unintelligible 00:23:15] if they buy in. If they decide to go a whole nother route, do make your own cheese or do yogurt, or do you do any of that? Completely up to them at this point. We'd stand behind them and beside them and help them get there.
We've had our chance to grow and be successful in our dairy. Not that I feel like we're on our way out, but I feel like if they're ready for that change, that we will go through that with them.
Bradley: That is interesting because I think a lot of people are-- While they're having those conversations, even as other people, younger generation comes into the dairy business and it's not just about milking cows anymore. There's a lot of other things going on. Whether you do cheese or whatever that might happen or look like into the future, it's not just about blood, sweat, and tears, spending 24 hours a day with the cows. I think that has changed a lot with robots. You;re the early adopter in the state being able to do that and be out front.
Even from our perspective, and some of us have known it, even at the university, we've explored robots and those are the questions that we talk about right away is in 10 or 15 years, who we can put new robots into and how we're going to do this. Saying you want robots and putting them in are two different thoughts.
Lisa: You have to be the right person. If you're one of those people that just absolutely thinks you're going to put those in and you're going to go out and be in the field because you want to be doing crop work, maybe, but I have a hard time believing that you'd be-- The 95-pound tank is going to be pretty hard to reach if you really just are out there scraping manure and pushing a few cows in and walking away every day. I don't see that.
For us to hire a herd manager, that was a big step for me because I felt like I was somewhat losing a job, like I was being replaced, but after it was done, I realized how very critical that was to us being more successful because I had time to do all those things that I just wasn't getting done. I still really, really enjoy being in the calf barn and enjoy supervising in the dairy barn and the robot barn. I consider myself the dairy manager and that's one of my titles and one of my hats. Much more than I enjoyed actually being in there doing all the herd work, everything from treatments to just going to find the cow to see what she looks like. I'm in a better place in my job, I feel so.
Bradley: To kind of follow up on that, any thoughts on going fully automated? You've started with robots. What about putting in the TMR feeders and just fully automated-type facilities so you can have more downtime and do fun things?
Lisa: Would you be surprised to hear that we actually looked at those? We have. The way things are set up currently, it would be a really truly big undertaking to get it all to work the way it's supposed to. Our robot barn is quite a distance from our far-off pen and our closeup pen and our heifers. You'd only be able to use it for your dairy barn.
Bradley: Sure.
Lisa: Can you make that work? We still have to have a TMR and a tractor. Do we keep going the way we offer right now? Yes. Does that change how things are done in the future? I don't know yet. Do they want to do that for something in the future? Maybe, but they have looked at it. Oh gosh, it's been a few years already before the first one was put in. We looked at it already.
Joe: One of the things I've heard about, and then there's even been studies on it, we talk about before robots and after robots looking at did labor actually decrease? Which we know is not true, right?
Lisa: Right.
Joe: There are some benefits. The thing that I consistently hear is that while you have probably the same amount of labor, it's a little different, but what you gain is flexibility, which is something that's foreign to anything in the dairy industry. Usually, it's, "I got a milk here and here and it doesn't matter what's going on, I got to be home." Have you seen that change things on the farm, that flexibility?
Lisa: Absolutely. I know that is one of the top two things Steve and I would both mention. If you ask him and you ask myself what's the best thing that's come out of this, flexibility will be the first or second answer out of both of our mouths.
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Joe: What's up everybody? This is Dr. Joe Armstrong. Episode got too long. We had too much to talk about. Too much good information. We're going to cut it there to keep things short. We'll have to come back next week to finish the conversation. If you have questions, comments, scathing rebuttals, please send them to themoosroom@umn.edu. That's T-H-E-M-O-O-S-R-O-O-M @umn.edu. If you have a question you'd like to ask us on a voicemail call 612-624-3610 at 612-624-3610. Visit the Extension website extension.umn.edu. Check us out on Twitter @UMNloser. Thanks, everybody. We'll catch you next week.
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