Each month we like to celebrate a farmer in Wisconsin that’s gone above and beyond! Our October Farmer of the Month is Tyler Wager from Twin Elm Farm in Manitowoc. He’s been on the farm since he was born and now owns the place with his parents and his wife. His main job on the farm is taking care of the heifers and doing maintenance on the machinery when it needs to be done. They currently milk 240 cows with four robots.
Wagner was explaining how the robots only came into play once they started pricing out a new parlor and realized that robots were the cheaper route. His dad was reluctant at first, but in the end they agreed to make the purchase. He explained that one deciding factor was the labor issues in agriculture. “I knew the labor issues weren’t going to get any better…even finding people to milk cows wasn’t easy before and it’s not going to get any easier in the future,” Wagner said. He mentioned that once they started using robots, you could tell that the cows were calmer because they got to eat and get milked on their own schedule. He called it an “all-inclusive resort for cows”.
Other than making sure the machinery’s working properly and raising the heifers, Wagner also has four kids at home. He talked about how he loves raising his kids on the farm because he’s not on a set “nine to five” schedule like most people. He’s able to pick them up and bring them to the farm. He’s able to take a couple of hours during the day and see them when he wants. Dairy farming’s hard work, but at least he’s able to share his love for agriculture and spend time with his children when most parents don’t have the opportunity to do that every day.
He explained that right now they love coming to the farm so they can see the animals, but before you know it, they’re going to be helping on the farm! He hopes when that day comes, they learn one specific lesson from the job. “When they get old enough, they’ll probably want to help out. So they’ll learn how to sustain a decent job and do a good job so that way they get a paycheck or an allowance or something for helping out dad on the farm,” Wagner said.
When it comes to COVID-19, the farm didn’t have to change too much because they have fewer employees since they milk with robots now. One thing he has to keep in mind is making sure the milk house is safe and clean for when the truck comes to haul their milk away. Other than that, not much has changed. Last year Wisconsin lost 818 dairies and that was before the virus impacted farmers. It’s safe to say that we can expect the drop to keep increasing by the end of 2020. Wagner talked about the future of dairy and said he just wants the best for other dairy farmers. He said he hopes the farms that struggled this year can make it through these last few months and can hold on and look to a brighter future in 2021. Only time will tell, but I hope he’s right.
Congratulations to Tyler Wagner for being our October Farmer of the Month!
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