A Successful Program for Raising Dairy Calves

Abstract

Our operation has been written up in the Des Moines Register and they said that we're the largest cattle feedlot in the state of Iowa. I think probably some of those old Hereford and Angus boys would take exception to that. Our operation has been in business for three years and we are raising and marketing Holstein calves. We start with them from about three days of age and take them on to market. Because of the nature of our operation, we start with the baby calf and take it through and have it custom slaughtered and put a pampered beef label on it and the meat is sold over the counter as "pampered beef." We have a unit in Wisconsin at the present time with 3,500 baby calves. My younger brother runs that operation. We have 12,000 Holsteins in our feedlot. We have just completed a feedlot in Missouri that will be a 6,000-head Holstein operation. This is again from birth to market. We are under construction with a unit in Ohio that will produce a thousand calves per month.