A feature article in our 2021 Winter Issue written by Kathleen O’Keefe.
There’s an old adage that says ‘a good cow is where you find her’. While there are plenty of good cows to be found along well-traveled roads across the continent, sometimes it’s gratifying to get behind the wheel and look for some good cows off the beaten path. You’ll find a pile of outstanding Ayrshires at Good-Vue Farms located in Pennington County in northwest Minnesota. And when we say northwest Minnesota, we mean waaaayyyy northwest!
Visitors to World Dairy Expo are often surprised how much more Wisconsin there is north of Madison. Well, imagine driving four hours northwest of Madison – that will get you to the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. Then drive about five more hours northwest, and you’ll be nearing the Red River Valley region, and now you’re in the neighborhood of the Hanson family and Good-Vue Farms. Famous for its rich farmland, the area is also home to a number of purebred dairy cattle breeders, including the Hansons.
When those breeders consider making the long trek to Madison, you know they think long and hard about taking cattle that are good enough to compete. That trip has been worthwhile for the Hansons the last several years with some very special results. 2021 was a bang-up year for their show string, which was borne out in the recent Ayrshire All-American nominations and winners for 2021. Grand-View HP Gibbs Dips-ET EX-93, owned with Kelsey Petit, won the 5-Year-Old class at the 2021 International Ayrshire Show, and was voted Unanimous All-American 5-Year-Old. Along with Dips, their homebred Good-Vue King Vana was third-place winter calf at the 2021 show and voted Reserve All-American Winter Calf, and Old-N-Lazy Reagan Wren-ET was nominated All-American Junior 2-Year-Old.
Other success in recent years include in 2019 when Old-Bankston-Al Reagan Blexy was 2nd Milking Yearling and Reserve All-American, and Good-Vue Dempsey Gizel was third Milking Yearling and HM All-American for the family in 2017. They co-owned GVP Dreamer Gabriella-ET, the 2016 International Ayrshire Show Junior Champion and All-American Spring Yearling with their good friends at Palmyra Ayrshires.
From the farm’s inception, Ayrshires have been the primary breed for the family, now seeing the third generation milking the red spotted cows. The first generation, Lynn and Norma Hanson, purchased a farm in NW Minnesota near where Lynn grew up. They began milking in a stanchion barn in 1955, raising their son Mike while adding more acres and growing the herd. In 1974, Mike graduated with a two-year associates degree from University of Minnesota-Crookston, and came back to the farm to help while also acquiring cattle and land himself.
Twenty years later, in 1994, Mike and his wife Linda (who hails from an Iowa Ayrshire family) purchased a 40-stall tie stall barn a few miles from the home farm. They began milking their own Ayrshire herd while Lynn and Norma continued milking in their stanchion barn. Eventually, Mike’s parents retired from milking, and Mike and Linda took on those cows from the original herd, thus preserving those earlier genetics and adding them to their herd. Mike, Linda and their three sons, David, Matthew and Steven milked in that tie stall barn until 2015 when plans began to come together for a new facility to be located on a farm site 2 miles from the tie stall dairy. In September of 2016, upon completion of the new facility, Good-Vue dairy moved into the fully automated barn complete with two Lely A4 Milking robots and a Lely Vector Feeding System, just the second in the US at that time.
Currently the dairy is managed primarily by Matthew, a 2016 graduate of the University of MN with a Dairy Science major. Matthew handles all day-to-day routine jobs on the dairy from robot maintenance, cow health and calving, breeding, genetics and ration decisions. Mike handles the majority of the feeding for the lactating, dry cows, and bred heifers, keeps the feed kitchen for the Vector full and additional barn maintenance. Linda handles the daily chores and health of bottle and post weaned calves, record keeping, tagging and registrations and the farm financial records. She also fills in where needed with herd health and cleaning of robots and other milking equipment.
Mike and Linda’s youngest son, Steven, a 2017 Ridgewater College Dairy Management graduate, works with Mike mostly on the crop side of the business. He also handles much of the continued maintenance of the farm’s tractors and equipment and fills in at the dairy when needed. David, the oldest and also a U of MN grad lives in southern Minnesota working with his wife’s family registered Holstein and Brown Swiss herd – Forest-Lawn Holsteins in Nicollet, MN – but has a vested interest in Good-Vue Farms and travels north when needed during busy times of the year. He also offers input on genetics to use particularly when looking at marketing opportunities. His wife, Dr. Ashley Swenson, is a DVM specializing in Embryo Transfer and IVF, does the farm’s embryo work.
The herd, with an average age of 4-08, consists 146 milking cows centered around the 96 registered Ayrshires along with the 50 registered Holsteins which were purchased from family friends, the Nelsons, when the farm was expanding. Additionally there are 35 dry cows. RHA for the farm is 22,200 lbs with a 4.1% fat and 3.3% protein. The cows are confined to the 116 wide by 286 foot long building that houses the robots, 120 free stalls for the milking herd, 36 free stalls for dry cows, two maternity pens, two special needs pens, a feed kitchen for feed and forages and a heated shop area. The 156 free stalls consist of waterbeds bedded every other day with sawdust. Pregnant heifers live in a new bed pack barn that was built in 2020. Baby calves are born in the maternity pens at the dairy, then moved to the old tie stall barn which has been retro fitted into individual pens for bottle calves and group pens for weaned up to five months old. Open heifers are housed in bed pack sheds, dirt lot and pasture during summer months, also at the old facility site where Mike and Linda live. Along with managing the dairy herd, the family farms approximately 2700 acres that are used to raise alfalfa, grass hay and silage for the cattle, as well as wheat and soybeans as cash crops.
Like other dairy operations, they want cows that can thrive in their environment. Matthew elaborates on their breeding goals, “We want functional cows with good feet and legs and good udders, while additionally focusing on higher fat and protein percentage on the Holsteins. We’re actively pursuing higher genomics in the Ayrshire herd, so we use higher percentage bulls with high genetic numbers. Hopefully, those matings result in higher genomic bull calves that can be sold to AI, and heifer calves to improve the genetics of the herd.” Over the past two years, Good-Vue Farms has had six bulls purchased by Select Sires. Good-Vue Mandarin Brenda EX-93, a cow consistently on the Ayrshire High CPI list, produced a son purchased by Select Sires, and a grandson, Good-Vue J Breakout, who was recently released by Select Sires. They focus on a few cow families with higher type for potential show prospects and additional genetic marketing. Their 2021 All-American, Grand-View HP Gibbs Dips-ET EX-93, has a Radisson son – Good-Vue-KP Dynamic-ET – at in the Showcase Sires program at Select.
David and Matthew come by their love for showing honestly. Their parents, Mike and Linda, had exhibited cattle before the kids were born with some success, including a Junior Champion at World Dairy Expo in the late 1980s. Showing took a back seat to raising a young family and farming, but when the boys hit 4-H age in the late 1990s, the family started exhibiting again. When the kids got to be teenagers, they took over the show string. In 2007, the farm once again exhibited at Expo. Their geographical location limits the number of shows they get to, but every year they have a string at their county fair, Minnesota State Fair, and World Dairy Expo.
There’s also a family tradition of high-level dairy judging. Linda had an extensive 4-H and collegiate judging career, and went on to officiate at state, national, and international shows. “She didn’t push us to do it, but over the years, we talked about her experiences while milking cows in the barn,” remembers David. With her encouragement, both David and Matthew put their hand to the judging wheel, and both were members of very successful University of Minnesota dairy judging teams. David has continued to pursue a judging career, doing many county fairs, some state shows, and last November, he stood in the center of the ring at his first National show – the Southern National Ayrshire Open Show in Louisville, KY. If COVID allows in 2022, he has international judging gigs in Finland and South Africa.
You can’t miss the Hansons continuing dedication to the Ayrshire breed. In 2018, Linda was presented with the Distinguished Service Award by the US Ayrshire Breeders Association, recognizing her fourteen years on the National Board of Directors, and her travels domestically and internationally promoting the hardiness and versatility of the breed. David now holds a director seat on the national organization’s board. They’re now looking into acquiring more cattle with 100% pure Ayrshire blood to help build a better genetic range in that segment of the breed.
And even beyond their Ayrshire and Holstein herd, they’re optimistic about the future of dairying in the way upper Midwest. “Dairying in the Midwest gives us a lot of opportunity to continue dairy farming. The climate allows for us to grow variety of crops that some places may have to ship in to feed cows, as well as infrastructure to market and sell our products. While some Co-ops and creameries have been adding base systems to help limit large growth and over production, this region allows us to keep milking and not have to worry about dumping milk like we have seen in other states,” notes Matthew.
They’ve made decisions to help the third generation succeed on the farm in the midst of a challenging labor market, and feel it can help other smaller dairy farms survive as well as operate in a more sustainable way in the future. “Family farms have a lot of potential with the increased amount of automation that the dairy industry is seeing. It’s one of the main reasons our farm went that direction five years ago, where we were able to increase cow numbers but not having to add much more for employees. We continue as a farm to become more sustainable and efficient, making ways to save costs but also increase production. Finding ways to limit waste on our farm not only in the dairy, but with the crops as well. We’re always looking to decrease our carbon footprint and we’re utilizing technology to keep us from over applying fertilizer, using products that limit waste on feed piles,” explains Matt.
Good cows are worth the drive, whether it’s a road trip to northern Minnesota to see the Good-Vue herd, or whether it’s the Hansons hitting the road south to get their cattle to a show ring. Look for more to come from this motivated, enthusiastic family as they’ve set the stage for much more future success!
