Barn Talk - Robotic Dairyman Harnesses The Power Of Social Media w/Iowa Dairy Farmer

Episode Date: January 21, 2022

Welcome To Barn Talk, Milk-n-cookies addition! Our guest today not only dispels falsehoods and lies of the militant vegan disciples. His gymnast-like dance moves give dad bods hope of seeing their feet once again. With almost 500k followers on TikTok and more teats than PornHub the Iowa Dairy Farmer has become a de facto spokesman of the dairy industry and family farmers alike. FOLLOW DAN: FACEBOOK: https://bit.ly/3qReo12 TIKTOK: https://bit.ly/32ooIEA INSTAGRAM: https://bit.ly/3rHyOJ4 YOUTUBE: https://bit.ly/3tLiTML Barn Talk Merch! 👇🏻 https://www.thislldo.co/ SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST ➱ https://bit.ly/3a7r3nR SUBSCRIBE TO THIS’LL DO FARM ➱ https://bit.ly/2X8g45c SUBSCRIBE TO BARN TALK CLIPS ➱ https://bit.ly/3BlZnqq LISTEN ON: SPOTIFY ➱ https://open.spotify.com/show/3icVr4KWq4eUDl7Oy60YMY ITUNES ➱ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/barn-talk/id1574395049 ADD US ON: INSTAGRAM ➱ https://bit.ly/3gaobdN TIKTOK ➱ https://bit.ly/3eJfftr ------------------------------- ***PLEASE NOTE*** Barn Talk is a significant break from the typical content viewers have come to expect from This’ll Do Farm. Please be advised that we will be exploring a wide variety of topics (some adult-themed) and our younger viewers (and their parents) should be advised that some topics will be for mature audiences only. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

But somebody will put a comment. It's like, how many milkings have you missed? And then it turns into a giant pissing match of who's gone the longest. Never. Oh, I missed my daughter's wedding. I'm like, good for you. And these guys are proud of it. It's like, why?

The ego is unreal. I brought the IV. I was taking chemo and I brought the IV to the parlor. It's easier for me to say, but I mean, you witnessed it firsthand how many hours I used to be working away from the kids. I mean, oh yeah. I mean, before, excuse me, the robots. I'd have the kids in bed every night before he was done milking. And to think that that's how we were going to continue our family life is just what were we going to do?

What were you thinking? That was going to make you easily replaceable because your kids didn't know what you looked like anyway. She could bring anybody home and go, well, here's dad. The dairy industry has produced a lot of bankers. Yes. If I had a nickel for every banker that I've ever talked to, male and female, that says, yeah, you know, I grew up on a dairy farm here or there. and it's like, does anybody run the farm once in a while? I say, well, my oldest brother does or my youngest brother does.

But most of them are like, no, none of us did. Because they had the experience that you're talking about. All of the food we eat and much of the clothing we wear comes from plants and animals that are raised on farms. Farms are different in type, in size, and even in name. Welcome to Barn Talk, milk and cookies edition. We got another snowstorm last night, and I think we, I think we're going to be pretty lazy today other than what we have to because we had wiener pigs come last night. We moved snow all day and we move snow this morning.

And we, this podcast is a little bit of a snowstorm miracle in the fact that we didn't think it was going to happen. And we appreciate our guest making it down from the North Country because early this morning I was like, I don't know if this is going to happen or not. We're back in the garage because I don't know. what the holdup is, but the Tesla power walls and the million BTU solar heaters, it hasn't arrived. I mean, it's got to be coming one of these days. I really thought... Insulation. We got to get some insulation in there. I thought maybe Elon would take pity on us here in Iowa and just say, you know, we could send them out. You need to get your shaker cup out and just

start shaking it. Panhandle? Yep. We need some money. I need my pothead glasses, so I look like I'm blind. I am kind of blind, actually, but that's okay. Well, today is a special episode because we actually have a guest. Thanks to them for making it down from up north. What's new and exciting, Sawyer? Well, all I'll ask from you guys is if you get any value from the show, pay the fee, shared out with your friends, family, co-workers, whoever we're trying to grow this thing, trying to do some good in this world. It's kind of the ticket to admission to watch or listen to the show. Also, leave us a review on iTunes or Spotify. whatever. It helps us out. And if you don't want to share the show, just leave us a review.

We also like getting you, if you want to humble us a little bit, give us a one-star review. We like reading those sometimes. When I get a little too full of myself, I read all the one-star reviews. It brings me down a few notches so that I don't get too cocky. Also, we got BarnTalk merch. If you guys want some merch, you can cop that. I'll have the link in the description if you're watching on YouTube. And I'll also have it in the show notes if you're listening. Guess today not only dispels falsehoods and lies of the militant, the militant vegan disciples out there. Boy, I made them sound pretty rough. We don't have, we don't have militant vegan swine haters, apparently.

You're lucky. They must all bag on the dairy guys because ours are pretty, are pretty mild. I think it's just because I'm so damn intimidating. I'll sense him your way. Don't worry. So his gymnast-like dance moves also gives. people to have man bodd man bodd like me hope that someday i might be able to see my feet again but that kind of falls back on that new year's resolutions that i haven't started i think i was actually

supposed to start those last week but maybe next week we'll see um with about with almost 500 000 followers on ticot and more teats than porn hub i wrote that myself i'm pretty i'm pretty proud of the iowa dairy farmer the iowa dairy farmer has become a de facto spokesman of the dairy industry and family farmers alike. We are thrilled to have in studio, which was not a guarantee to happen, so big thanks for making it down through the storm. Iowa dairy farmer himself,

accompanied by his legal team, and maybe his legal guardian, we'll have to dig into that. Welcome to Barn Talk. Oh, we're glad to be here. Welcome to Barn Talk, guys. You've had kind of a quick journey into social media. You haven't been at this very long.

Why don't you give us a quick background I guess just talk about your operation, kind of where you're, what you guys do and when you started and we'll let you go. How you guys met all that good stuff? Just a good old, good old background. All right. Well, we got probably a good hour here so we can get into that.

So our, I mean, I grew up on the farm, on our family farm. So dairy farming itself has been in my blood, my whole life. So I initially thought, I mean,

my whole life, I thought I was going to be a dairy farmer. But to make a long story short, I initially started at Iowa State to go be an ag teacher. And that was fun. And I got pushed a lot in high school by other teachers saying like, hey, you would be really, really good at this. You should be an egg teacher. And they weren't wrong. It is something I feel like I would have been good at. But I just, I felt that pull to come back home to the farm.

I mean, you guys know as well as I do. There's something special about being able to continue your family farm. So I did that. And it was at college. So that was my freshman year. I went to be an ag teacher. And then sophomore, junior year, when I got to my senior year, I was convinced, okay, farmers usually are old and bachelors.

I'm going to die alone. And then it was at a football game. I actually met Jamie. And I just showed her pictures of cows and she fell in love with the cows and then me. So I got lucky with their, use those to rope her in. I'm not forgetting anything with that story. I mean, that's pretty much it. That's it.

Yeah. I was the cows. I was sold. Already had a football game. You're like, win. Yeah, exactly. I don't know if the game. Loves cows.

Win. I won. So, no, then, uh, graduated college, came home. And, uh, we were farming at the time. Uh, our farm has been where it is since the 40s when my great grandparents moved from Nebraska. Uh, as it was when I moved home, my dad and my uncle were farming together, 50, 50. My uncle had a son.

My dad had two sons, me and my brother Don. And we were all kind of there together. And it was working. as you guys, I'm sure are familiar with when you think of family farms and more generations coming on, it can get crowded. And sometimes there was too many chiefs, not enough Indians. And now I'm glad to say our family's in great shape. We all get along well.

But there was certainly some tension at times. And everybody kind of finally came to a point. It actually worked out incredibly well. My uncle and his son, they never fully had the passion for specifically dairy farming like me and my brother and my dad did. So it worked out well that there was enough acres. there was enough assets. They took what they wanted for the crop farming and they crop farm.

And then we got what we wanted and the acres for dairy farming. And both families are more successful now than we've ever been. So that worked incredibly well. That's pretty impressive. I mean, you hear the horror stories out there and there was a time we thought maybe we're not going to be one of those. Are we, you know, one of those horror stories. But my grandma did a great job making sure everything was set up right because my dad has

five other sisters too. And it's all laid out, written. So, I mean, The farm transition that they did, they did a good job. We're very, very fortunate. It's all about the hard conversations. Got to have them. Got to have them.

And it's something that I don't feel like anybody in our family, we probably avoided it more than we should, but when it came down to brass tacks, those conversations were had. So in 2015, my brother and I formed an LLC and bought my uncle's half of the cows and equipment. So that's kind of, I guess, would you say that was kind of the start of our official farming career.

And then we were married in 2014. Yep, I forgot that important step. Married in 2014. And we were living in town at that time because my cousin was living on the farm because he was older than me. He just made sense logistically when my grandparents moved off to farm. So after the whole transition, we moved down onto the farm where the dairy is in 2015. And, you know, you were talking earlier about kind of my jump to social media.

And we tried a few different jumps here and there onto Facebook because if you're in the ag industry, for even a month, you hear about the need for advocacy. I mean, it's kind of, and it's, it's important thing to try to get people to do. And so we, we tried it. And I don't know if I just kind of, you know, just gave it a half effort or what. We didn't know the right avenue. I guess I think we were, we saw other advocates and we were like, okay, let's try to do what they're doing.

But that didn't work to do what everybody else is doing. Yeah. And I just, and I had, I guess I was probably too arrogant and just thinking, well, they did it and it worked. I'll just do that and it'll work, right? and it didn't work. And to be honest, I just got bored. And I just, that's not the right approach. Because I tell people now, even if you put a post up and it doesn't go viral, like, that doesn't mean you're a failure. And to me at the time, I didn't listen to my own advice. I was just

failures. It sucks. I'm going to quit doing this. It's not funny. We don't see results. Yeah. I mean, to an extent. So, 2015, I tried putting some posts up. And I did that for four or five months and then just kind of got bored with it. A couple of years went by. I think in 2018, I dabbled a little bit. My Iowa Dairy Farmer handle in like 2010, 2011, when Twitter was really taken off, I got that handle on every social media handle that was out there. YouTube, Twitter, Facebook.

I made an email address. I got it spoken for and everything just in case I wanted to do something. So I've had the Iowa Dairy Farmer handle for over 10 years. I never used it. Yeah, you were thinking ahead. I mean, I got lucky. Again, it better be lucky than good. And you'll hear me say that several times throughout this interview.

you. But and then it was just kind of in 2020 on the pandemic. We hopped on TikTok. I thought it was super dumb for a long time. Oh, TikTok was super dumb. I mean, it's still dumb. A lot of dancing kids and you're kind of like, what do I, what am I doing here? Yep, fail videos. It's slowly ramping up though. More and more people are getting on that are in so many different things. What was it? Last year in 2020, in 2020, I think Google was the most used website or social media. I don't know. Google's not really social media. I forget at what the metric was, but now it's TikTok. That put Google off its throne.

But yeah, in 2020, we were just on TikTok. And it was, I joined in March of 2020, never put up a video. And I would say it was about a year later. So our friend Megan Derry Girl is on TikTok. She got on, boy, six, seven months before I did. And I saw on her page, there's like, I kind of tell people, there's three things that kind of made me to push the TikTok, to push to get on to TikTok.

and one of them was Megan. I mean, I've known her all throughout high school, and I saw she's having really good luck. What she's doing is working really well. I thought maybe that would be a successful way to pursue agvacacy. The second thing that ended up kind of making me do it was we gave a tour to some college students on the farm about the robotics. And one of them, one of the college students, it was a nice video.

It wasn't like he was throwing my robotic stuff under the bus, but he had just put up a video of the vector, the feeding system, on his TikTok page and just saying, hey, how cool is this? And then I read the comments. And the comments were like, this is so dumb. Why would anybody ever buy this? Like, is this guy, is this farmer really that lazy? And that just kind of lit a fire.

I went nuts in the comments. There was like 200 comments and I replied to every damn one. I was just, oh, that drove me nuts. And then the third thing was Jamie. You said, just make a TikTok video. Because I knew he was going to be good at it. I mean, I know that he has these skills to teach people. I know that he's great at that.

And just do it. Just try it. You got nothing to lose. Yeah. And I go back and watch that first TikTok video I made and it's abysmal. I just look at like, Oh, yeah.

But that's everybody's first video is the worst. Oh my gosh. Who is that guy? Yep. So I hopped on TikTok and I think I don't even remember looking back what I decided my approach was going to try to be. I just, my idea was that people just would want to see the robots.

So I think the first, I don't know, dozen videos I did were kind of just sent it around the technology. And then once I started getting some more of those, you know, you kind of mentioned earlier to the militant vegan comments. After seeing the number of those I was getting, but also just the number of people, I knew, okay, I knew it was bad. We didn't know how bad it was.

I didn't know how bad it was the literacy around farming and especially dairy farming and just how terrible it was. And so many of those arguments are so easy to debunk. So I just thought, I know enough about it. we'll just debunk it. And then that kind of stigma of my account is what kind of took off. Yeah. Just kind of taken some vegan argument and just showing their video,

showing my video, you guys watch both, decide which one you think is true. Yeah, that's when we were talking earlier before, I was just like, you know, that's the one beautiful thing with ag,

making content for ag is like, you can make a video about a certain topic. And then you get the comments. And then you're like, boom, I'm going to make a video about that exact comment. Yeah. And then it just,

you know, spirits out more and more ideas. What I've learned is the key to success on TikTok is to put as little effort as possible into the TikTok. Because the stuff that I don't think people are going to find interesting, find interesting.

I forget, I don't have a perfect example at the top of my mind right now, but there's been a few videos where I'm like, oh, it was that one about the Taco Bell cow. I hadn't put up a video in like two or three days on TikTok.

And this was early on in Facebook too. And I was just tired that day. I think we just got done fixing the chopper or something. I was just kind of in a mood. I'm like, I'll just put up a stupid video. And there was this guy who claimed he used to work at a meatpacking plant and cows going, dairy cows are used, abused. They go in there with cancers and cyst.

I'm like, this guy's an idiot. And I was just, I was just in a sour mood. So I just kind of took his video and then put my, and that's probably the most successful Facebook video I've done in terms of like a rebuttal. And it just came out of a sour attitude that I had. So, yeah,

some of those videos where I've put in the least amount of work into, are the ones that end up doing the best. So I still don't know how the whole algorithm works. They can see your passion, your fire. They're just like, yeah. Well, I think that's something, when you talk about your timing, I feel like one thing that has probably changed

since when you think about 2014, 2015, to today, and we talked about this just last podcast we did. I think one of the trends that really started after COVID, or during COVID and you're seeing it come more and more through everything is authenticity. People aren't interested in all these perfect videos because they know that's bull and they want something that's real and they want something that isn't, it doesn't need to be perfect.

It just needs to be honest and authentic. And that, I think that trend is just steamrolling. That's a perfect point because I forget we're, I think you and I were even talking about this, that whole, and you guys are kind of in the, or no, not kind of, you are in the pork industry. That billboard of the farmer with his arms crossed. I care. Oh, that's terrible. I don't know who you are.

As a consumer, I don't know who you are. I don't know anything about your pigs. And I think you're right, that raw authenticity is what people crave. And they don't care if the video editing isn't perfect. They don't care if this isn't done 100% of their standard. They just want to know, you know, the person who's growing their food and growing their product. and what I tell people, like if I'm ever talking to people who are thinking about jumping on social media about advocacy, and this is my opinion, so take it for what it's worth. But I think if somebody's thinking about getting on, I think it's important that they pick a personal persona.

Don't do a farm name. Don't do Smithfield Farms, even if that's the name of your farm. You can do that to an extent, but you need to get rid of that bigger umbrella. perspective and make it a person. You know, and that's where, again, I got lucky. I mean, I didn't know that when I picked the Iowa dairy farmer handle. Right. But I think people like knowing that I don't think they care what my farm name is.

And if my name was what our farm name is, and I try not to get that out there in public. But if they knew what my, if my handle was just my farm name, I personally don't think I would have the reach of the following that I do because it comes off to big industry. Yep. You know, but this is just a guy, just a farmer. They don't care about my farm name. They don't care about how much, you know, how much. That's a good point. That's a really good point.

That's just been my opinion, I guess. But I feel like even when you look through Instagram, Facebook, the farmers that typically have a bigger following usually have a more personal name, personal page name brand. Yeah, exactly. While we're at it, you might as well just, where can people find you? So we forgot to mention that in the beginning. Yeah, Iowa Dairy Farmer on everything. Iowa Dairy Farmer.

You guys heard it. Iowa Dairy Farmer. go follow him, go leave some comments, go support this guy. He's doing a lot of good in agriculture. Email, YouTube, Instagram, all of it. We just try to keep it similar. You covered like, you covered a big swat. He nailed it. Come on.

Yeah, I mean, we can shut her off right now. We're good to go. But I wanted to go back because, so you, you grew up in the dairy business, which you harpooned my first question of how much paste does a kid have to eat to decide. Or let paint chips. Dad and I, I asked Dad or about. Like, what, why would you say paste for? Oh, yeah.

And he was like, well, soar back in the 80s in art class, these kids would just eat this like Pates. When I was a kid, every... I just think of Billy Madison when you guys bring me. I was like, that didn't even register for me because I was like, why don't you say like paint chips or something? Yeah, his, I hear. Your generation didn't have Pace.

So my, you know, my generation, every kindergarten first grade, you had one kid in your class that was always sticking his finger in the pace and chewing on the crayons. But anyway, but you, you were born into it. it. However, so you, you meet this guy, did you have a dairy background? No, I did not have a dairy background at all. I did grow up on a farm. I mean, I loved ag. I loved being a farmer's daughter. My dad was a grain farmer, corn, corn and soybeans. So we had a couple cows for fun, but I mean, I had no idea what you were signing up for. Absolutely not. What's been the biggest challenge of being a farmer's life, especially dairy farming, because we know that's one of the most

taxing long hours in the whole industry? I would say, I mean, I remember when we were first married, I missed a bachelorette parties and my friends in college. I got married when I was a junior in college, so I wasn't even done yet. So then I come home to the farm and I'm milking cows instead of going to bachelorette parties and weddings for my friends. I was just going to say probably the time commitment would be the hardest thing to get used to. So, I mean, I can't speak. My wife, so Trisha, she didn't come from an ag background. And when we got married, that was probably one of the first points of contention was, I don't think that she realized that these animals have to be chored every day. And they don't really care what day it is that they can bring. And they can

break something. And I always tried to explain to her when we were first married. She's like, I just don't understand. You know, so we were supposed to go here, go there, and feed system's broke, or this is broke. And I'd be like, Trish, you need to think of pigs like convicts. They got nothing to do but sit in that pen all day and dream up ways of busting out or breaking things. How long in your relationship before did he coax you down to the parlor and say, you know, here, try your hand at this? We milked cows often. I mean, a lot of our dating. life was bail and hay together, milk and cows. Obviously, that was just what we did. Looking back, I can't believe how busy we were. I can't believe it either. And honestly, I can't believe that I was

like, yeah, I'm going to marry this guy. So was that part of the litmus test? You'd bring these girls home from Iowa State. You're like, let's see if she can throw some bail. She's the only one that stuck around. Okay, that's good. You're like, football game win. All right, we got to get through the other things. We got 20 more hurdles. He's got a check. He's got that checklist. All right. Phelan Hay. Fair. She made it through that. I remember when I brought him home the first time, I mean, my parents loved him, obviously.

But my dad was very serious. It's like, do you know what you're getting what this is? Yeah, when you told me that, I gained a lot of respect for your dad because your dad basically sat you down and said like, don't marry him and then get mad at him. Yeah. Or if he's busy, you know. Exactly. It's like, you know what this is going to be like. Don't complain about it.

Like, this is how it is. Don't change him. I do think there's something to be said, though, too, like in dairy farming, too often we like, what's the word I'm looking for? Martyr ourselves on our pride of how hard we work. I know dairy farmers, okay, so there's a group I'm in on Facebook. I'm in a few dairy farmer groups on Facebook. I don't comment. I'm just a fly on the wall.

But somebody will put a comment. It's like, how many milkings have you missed? And then it turns into a giant pissing match of who's gone the longest. Never. I don't. I missed my daughter's wedding. I'm like, good for you. These guys are proud of it.

It's like why the ego is unreal. It's like the horrors. I brought the IV. I was taking chemo and I brought the IV to the parlor. And we kept going. My wife delivered in the barn, you know. I mean, I will say I called him when I was in labor with our son and I'm like, finished chores.

I will drive myself to the hospital. Wow. Meet me there. Yeah. I mean, I was there for the birth. But I drove myself. I mean, that was on what, the third kid though? That was the second one.

Second one. You got to know what was going on. No, that was the third one. The first. The first one, I was doing calf tours when I knew. I was like, all right, something's going on here. You drove yourself on the third one. I drove myself in the morning at 5.30.

Not on the second one. It was the third one. For Paul, yes, absolutely. Are you sure? Okay. Oh, now, don't do that. You don't want to ask, are you sure on that deal? I'm pretty sure.

Take it from a veteran. Yep. Yep. There's too many guys that just still, you know, you get the guy, the farmers that are proud of their new equipment. And if you don't have new equipment, and if you don't have new equipment. There's farmers on the exact opposite of that spectrum. They're just as proud of that I don't have new equipment.

Right. better than you. Right. Just everybody do your thing. Do your own thing. Don't judge everyone else's farm. Yeah. We're all out here trying to do the same job, you know.

We're just trying to feed the world. But people just get so. Oh, man. I know. It does lead. It leads to good questions and good comments that you can play off of. It's like last night, we were getting wiener pig. What a weaner pig?

I think of like, you know, like the food. Oh, what do they call? those picnic pigs or uh oh weiner wings is what they were called no no like people that buy those those little they buy they roast a pig that's like 120 pound pig you know i can't remember what they're called yeah what are we roaster pigs in the hog business there's two different kinds of guys that finish the pigs so there's guys that run buildings that are feeder to finish where they bring you a 50 pound feeder pig and that pig has come through a

nursery. Okay. So when they wean the pigs off the sows, that's a weener pig. Okay. And so in some systems, they'll wean those pigs and then they take them to a building that is, they only keep them there for six to eight weeks. Okay. So they grow them from, say, they're 12 pounds when they come off the sile and they grow them until they're 50, 60 pounds. And so then they go to a finisher where those buildings aren't equipped with as big a heaters and they don't have the extra equipment you need to take care of baby pigs right and then there's you say wiener pigs you're just talking about the young ones that are going to that finishing yarn got so all our buildings are set up wean to finish so we get them straight from

the south farm and then usually the the integrator that we feed for they overstock us so they put extra pigs in our building because they have guys within their system that have had have feeder pig barns. Okay. And they don't want to have to take care of the little ones. Okay. They want 50 pound pigs. So we'll start.

So like in a 2,400 head barn, we'll put 4,000 pigs in there. But then when they get to be 40, 50 pounds, we take part of them out and they haul them and they fill somebody's building that's set up feeder picks. So I don't mean to interrupt. No, you're fine. Is Farrow, how common is like the full birth to finish on one farm anymore? Is that still happen? Very.

very rare because biosecurity today. Wouldn't that be more biosecure if the pigs are born there and leave there? No, the problem with it is that your sows. So your sows, and I think a dairy cow would be like this too in the fact that they're around long enough that they'll have diseases that or viruses, the flu, whatever, and they've had that virus and they build up an immunity to it and they have all the antibodies for it but then there's a certain amount of virus that they may carry they may have that okay and it doesn't affect them but if you had those sows on a farm and you ferroed on that farm and then you had a nursery and you had a finisher

if any of that virus spread from say the gestation building to that finisher you could have a group of pigs and that finisher that are what we call naive they've never had they've never had that virus and if they got it it would it'd be i mean i wouldn't say it'd be devastating to them it depends on what it is but they they get sick and then the problem with it is if you get any disease on that farm that farm is basically continuous flow it's never empty it just stays there so it just stays there and it just circulates and circulates and circulates that makes sense so back in the you know where we're sitting here, we had 400 styles fair to finish for years and years.

And we got along fairly... I mean, I always used the analogy because my dad used it, that it's like being Amish, as long as you don't know any better, it's okay. I'm not saying that it worked perfect, but in our mind, it worked perfect. And I mean, I'm sure we had... And then most guys were doing it in the way. That was how it was. And in this neighborhood, you could go up and down the road

and everybody had 150 or 250 or... Just like milking in a tie stall barn. Yep, exactly. But today, getting that break so that a site is completely empty, that stops that cross-contamination. I mean, it helps. You still can get, you know, where we live here, if you stood on the top of one of my finishing buildings,

you could probably count 25 hog buildings within five miles. Yeah, you're pretty similar to our neck of the woods, too. So there's a certain amount of virus transfer that can happen just because it can happen. But anyway, we try to do all in, all out. And today there's very few guys. In fact, I'd be surprised if there's hardly any. And there's guys that independently grow for themselves. Right.

But they buy, they have shares in a sow unit. Sure. And then they just buy into it. Or if they have a sow unit, it's a separate site. Oh, right. They have the sows on one spot. They might have a nursery somewhere and then they're finisher's or wherever. Okay.

But anyway, the other, so last night, we were waiting on this truck, and they're coming out of Nebraska, so he's going to be late anyway. And then they were- At all the nights. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's the way it always works. But he actually had, he was going to a site that was finishing getting filled. So he had about a thousand pigs on this truck, but the site that was getting full before us, they needed like 500 pigs. So he went there to drop off these pigs, and he backed in the ditch. So, you know, he was supposed to be here at 6 o'clock.

And then it's snowing. It picked up and started snowing more. So I'm blading snow, blade and snow. And then we go up there and we sit for a while. And then he texts and he's like, oh, yeah, it's going to be a while. Then my fieldman calls and he's like, yeah, he's going to be a little longer because the guy that was getting the pigs called me and he's going to get a tractor because this guy's in the ditch and da-da-da-da.

So I'm like, well, I might as well go blade again. because the wind was blowing hard enough that was drifting through. Anyway, long story long, he finally shows up, and I have a 466 little utility tractor with a blade, which is handy for blading where we need to. You can get out anywhere, you know, you can get in anywhere you need to. Well, that was the only tractor I had up there. And I had everything bladed out, and I thought, there's no way,

there isn't anything, you know, it's not like he has to back over a, there's no ditch around. So it's good. He comes in and he barely puts along and he starts up. There's a slight incline. He spins out. He's done. And then he starts backing up and he's back in the trailer into the field instead of on the road, on the lane.

And I'm like, I was about ready to lose my mind. Anyway. This made for really good contact. The only one was happy out of this deal with Sawyer. I'm like, yeah. He's out just. Money. He's got a phone in one.

hand, GoPro in the other hand, and he's smiling, and the driver wasn't happy. I wasn't happy. Anyway, I bladed out behind him in the field to where it wasn't going to be hung up, and I turn around and he starts going. And I just go up behind him with the loader on the tractor, and I just start pushing him up the hill. And I honestly didn't think I was going to get him, but I did. And it worked out fine, got him up there, got him in. The first comment, Sawyer put some picture about... I said, I said... Dynamite comes in small packages. I'm glad about the small packages. Thanks for the 4066.

Yeah. And the first comment is some farmer, and he's like, that's not a farm tractor. Yeah. And I'm like, well, no shit, Sherlock, but it's what we had sitting up here, you know. It's like, gosh, day. Those get you more than the militant vegan. Yeah. It's just.

It's 50-50 sometimes. If you'd like to hop in your 340 R and drive it down here, we can put him back down the hill and you can pull him out. But this is what I had and we got it done. So we talked earlier about like 10. tech your, you know, all the technology you got on your dairy farm. You want to shine some light on some of those for people to like, you know, just one of the best ones and the most useful ones you use. Yeah.

And I was going to mention this earlier and this leads right into it that it's easy for me just to take things for granted that like, like sometimes it's easy just to not go into detail about something. Like everybody already knows about this, right? It's like, no. Me and my nutritionists were talking about this too, not to get sidetracked. But, you know, sometimes I worry, I'm going to run out of content. And then our nutritionist, Jake said, Dan, you grew up here.

You've lived your whole life here. You went to school for this and you've been doing this. You have a lifetime and a school degree of stuff to teach people. And so part of that with the robots and that's where like, you know, when you kind of first pushed me to get on TikTok, Jamie, was we have a lot of stuff to show people. There's a lot of stuff people just don't know. And so like with the robots, when I just say robots, in the dairy industry, everyone knows. Oh, yeah, robots.

But these are milking robots. So for those of you who don't know, the cows, this is a completely voluntary system. So the cows walk up to any of three stalls. We have three robots, one for the younger animals, the first lactation ones, and then two of them for the older girls. It's kind of like junior high in high school. And they walk up whenever they want and they get milk. So they average like 2.8 visits a day. So some cows might come up every five hours.

Other cows might come up every 13 hours. It just depends how much production. they're giving and what their stage of lactation is, how long it's been since they have. So they get a gluten pellet treat in that robot. And so honestly, that's like 80% of their motivation for coming to the robot. Get a treat. If you took that treat away, and I know I've gotten some of those dumb comments from activists, they're like, well, they only come up to the robot because they're in pain and they want

to relieve that pain. It's like, no. If I took the treat away, there would still be some who came up just because they have it. They enjoy being milked. It's not a painful experience. It's actually probably a pleasant experience. But 80% of why they come up is they want that little treat. And I think we shoot for like, boy, if my nutritionist is listening and I get this wrong,

he's going to shoot me like 10% of their energy diet to be at the robot. So if they're giving milk, they want energy and they know they can get energy at the robot. So that is the, excuse me, that's probably the biggest piece of robotic equipment. I shouldn't say the biggest. That's the most common, the one people are familiar with. The other one is the vector. So that was the first one in the state of Iowa. That's an automated feeding system.

So that has a, we call it a kitchen. A more appropriate name would be a pantry because the pantries where all the ingredients are. But we put all the ingredients in the kitchen. So corn silage, hay silage, ground corn, straw, corn stalk, whatever you want to feed. And this grabber will weigh each ingredient as it lifts it, dump it in the mixer. And the mixture has load cells on it too. So it's keeping track of how much weight of every ingredient has been added. to the mixer. And the mixer, once it's full to a certain point, we'll drive to the barn and

just dispense what is in the mixer. So that for us has made the cows actually go up on production, but what's been a really nice benefit is so when we think of the robots, we have what's called fetch cows. So there's always some cows that don't visit the robot. It's usually the same ones. Ruby is one of the most chronic fetch cows I have. Sometimes it's just their personality. and sometimes it's maybe their milk production started to go down a little bit so they aren't getting as many treats at the robot. So they're like, I'll just get my energy at the bunk.

So basically we just stand them up and walk them up to the robot. But what the vector has done is completely change the way cows are fed. So in the dairy industry, 99% of farms, especially in the winter, we'll probably, I shouldn't say 99, but a lot, we'll feed just in the morning. They dump all the feed in the morning. When it's hot, they'll dump twice a day to break down. up. But when you would dump feed in that kind of feeding scenario, 90% of the herd would come eat. Fresh feed. They're going to come eat. And then they'd all want to go get milked. And then your

fetch list is way bigger because I couldn't get milked. I'm going to go lay down. Or they just ate a whole bunch of feeds. So they're kind of full. I got you. Yeah, that's right. So we don't feed once a day or twice a day. They get fed an average of like, see, the milk cow pen, where the mature cows are. I think they get fed like eight times a day. Just break them, just small little portions. Yep. So each fence, and there's two fences on that side, each one's getting like seven or eight batches a day. So they're getting like 14 fresh feed dumps over there. Wow. Okay. So in that situation, is it that they are, they all eat smaller or they're, they just eat when they want? Yeah. Because they know, once they figure out that the dinner platter is coming back, right? They'll decide when they want to eat. It's a little bit of both of those. So, you know, when you would dump feed in the traditional way, you would get a 90% response.

We'd call it 90% of those handles would be up eating. When this dumps feed, we're getting a 30%. Right. But the nice thing is it dumps at three in the afternoon, six at night, nine at night, midnight, midnight, three in the morning. I mean, it's not on a timer. I'm just kind of making those up. But then as they come up to eat, like, oh, I'm eating. Oh, the robot's open.

I'm going to go get milked. I mean, we're milking on those three robots, like 200 cows right now. And we had to fetch four cows this morning. To put that in perspective, a normal herd running the amount of cows. on three robots, they'd probably be fetching 15 to 20 cows. So that would be a lot more work. And when you say fetching, you mean just go get them to get them on the milk. Yeah, we just put them in the robot. So, yep, yep. And there's usually the cows, like I said, they're later in lactation. Maybe their pellet allotment, a lot minute the robot went down. So they're just not as motivated to go

get pellets. Yeah. But the vector is completely, I think an unforeseen benefit that Laley does not advertise is what it does to your fetching. Because it just, it makes our workload in the barn. I mean, I can do it. Me alone, I can run a 200 cow farm. Like without those, how much labor, because that's something we talk about a lot, is one of the biggest problems we have today and going forward in agriculture is, you know,

when I was a kid, there were all these farm kids, there were all these kids that needed a job. Every family had seven or eight of them. Today, you can't find labor to do anything. It feels like. So in your situation, How much labor are you?

So I guess how much labor do you have there the way you're doing things today? And how much labor do you think you're saving by doing what you're doing? Well, a day-to-day basis, it's me, my brother, and my dad. Jamie does all the books. So I joke at people. She runs the farm. I just work here. And so my dad does mostly like the calf chores and just kind of odds and ends.

And my brother does most of the replacement where the heifers are. He lives a few miles away where all the heifers are raised. But we're all down there every day just to get kind of the bulk of the stuff done. but it's easier for me to say, but I mean, you witnessed it firsthand how many hours I used to be working away from the kids. I mean, oh yeah. I mean, before, excuse me, the robots, I'd have the kids in bed every night before he was done milking. And to think that that's how we were going to continue our family life is just what were we going to do. What were you thinking?

That was going to make you easily replaceable because your kids didn't know what you looked like anyway. She could bring anybody home and go, well, here's dad. Yeah, I mean, it's funny to think of it that way. but what was getting kind of just disappointing was, yeah, I never saw my kids go to bed. I mean, it was. I was doing just all of the parenting. Yeah. It was tough.

And I was on the school board at the time, but that was all the extra time I had was to do that. And two of our two oldest kids actually spent the night at my sister's place. She wanted to have a little sleepover. And so last night we just had the youngest. And I told Jamie, just having the one, like, 16-month-old in the house, I couldn't believe just like how much quieter it was. And it's like, no wonder I got so much more stuff done back when we only had one kid. Because back when we only had one kid, we didn't have the robots. So like, because now looking back, I'm like, how did I ever do that all?

And then once you get rid of two out of the three kids, you realize, oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Less chaotic. Yeah, it is less chaotic. So if it wasn't for the robots and the equipment, what we do on Facebook would not exist. It wouldn't exist. And the robots certainly do give me a platform and something interesting to speak about. More importantly than that, they give me the time.

Yeah. Because when we were milking in the parlor, it was eight hours every day, two guys. So 16 man hours every day. And it was more than that. I feel like most of the time. Because my dad's getting up there in age. He's had a few car accents in his life. He moves slow. And my brother, I love working with him.

But he kind of matches the pace of the fastest person in the room. So like if my dad's milking, him and Don, it took, I mean, no offense to these guys. I mean,

if they hear this, they'll laugh. Like, if Dad and Don are milking, it probably took five hours. If like me and Don are milking, like four hours. Like,

Don works hard. He just kind of matches whoever he's working with. So, yeah, I mean, it was, it was.

just to milk the cows. In the morning before the robots, it was 4 o'clock. I was up, 412. I had to be out the door. I had to have the first batch of feed dumped in the barn. I mean, I had this down to a religion. At 506, I had the first batch of feed dumped. At 525, I had the first barn cleaned by 547.

I had the calves done by 615. I remember once you quit doing calf chores. By 640, second barn was done. By 7.40, the dry cow barn was done. By 8.15, the third pen was cleaned. And by 9 o'clock, I had the final batch of feed done. and then at night I had to do the next batch of feed and milk. Every single day.

Every day. And it was getting too much. So which came first? The robots for the milking or the vector? Yes. Kind of the same time. The vector got started actually a month earlier because it just wasn't as much startup involved with that as it was with the robots.

So we built the whole barn in mind with the vector. And that's a whole other conversation, which I've actually gone into on the TikToks, is our budget, you know, metaphorically was gay big. And I know everybody listening can't see this, but it was yay, big. When we added the vector, stayed the same size. Because we shaved so much off the building cost because we're not fitting a big

tractor and mixer in there. And because we don't remember earlier, we were talking about how many cows would come up to eat, well, when you have a 90% response rate, you need a spot for all of those cows to eat. Now I don't. So now before we had two foot of bunk space per cow, now we only have like

16 inches. So that's less headlocks, concrete, rubber matting, stalls, freestall loops, lights, boards, tin. So the vector, how does it run? Is it run on a, is there a rail system that? There's a metal strip on the floor. And so there's a right motor and a left motor and then just a dolly up front. So that magnetic, what do they call it, an inductive sensor or something like that in front is, you know, a few inches wide and it's just searching for that strip.

So the right motor or left motor just speeds up or slows down, follows that strip. It's honestly, I mean, the computer in that is way less simple than what we hold in our hands every day. it's a very simple computer and very simple process somebody just figured out how to use it to feed cows pig loader pig loader yeah we always joke put a magnetic strip down the middle of the alley perfect just push them just got to get them out of thin somehow just to get the old juno feed pusher that lately makes just put a plow in the front of it we always joke about we got to train a grill to load pigs because then they would just run right on the truck we always joke about that I don't know why.

I loaded pigs once in my life, and I don't remember it being a pleasant experience. It's a battle of wills. It is a battle of wills. Definitely. I think this is a Churchill quote, and I don't know why he had an affinity for hogs, but there's a quote that dogs look up to you and cats look down upon you, but pigs look you right in the eye as you're equal. And that is pretty true because they, when they get to be fully grown,

they can knock you on your butt if they're not. Well, and they're not, they, it's a battle of wills in the fact that if they respect you, they will move the direction you want to. But if they turn and if you've ever seen one look at you and they have that look in their eye that they've lost all respect for you, you probably better get braced really hard or get out of the way. Because that pig, he's coming and you, they can be a gazelle. And the funny thing is, if they try jumping over you, then, and they fail, they kind of are like, All right, yep. I'm going to go back. That's how cows are too. My grandpa's always said, if cows knew how strong they were, I mean, they could kill you in an instant.

Right. And that's the unique thing about dairy cows, though, is that we're one of the only industries that our industry is 100% only possible because of the complete cooperation of that cow. We couldn't stand between its legs and milk it if it didn't cooperate. And I've seen some heifers do some crazy stuff, jump over a six foot tall wall or something like that. And I joke at people and I talk about it with different activists and different TikToks. Like our barn is not a military base to where it is sealed tight. Right. I mean, on that one wall, the whole barn, there's not much holding a cow out.

Like you've seen some of the stuff, animals. Like if these cows were in these horrid, stressful conditions that they claimed, they'd be gone. Right. I mean, they'd be gone right now. There's not much hold. Like the neckrail, even in the calving barn, there's a four and a half foot gap. Our cousin in Nebraska was out. He has beef cattle.

and he's just he's floored every time he comes out i don't know how you're not chasing cows all day they just i mean they there's a certain amount of trust and they just know they like me in there they like having food they like having a nice place to lay they like having water yeah we had seven of them get out of the milk cow barn one night and i i only knew that for two reasons one there was footprints all over the yard the next morning but i got down to the barn though and they were all in their pen well i checked on the robot they each have a you know a little pedometer on their neck right I don't know, it was like 10, 30, 11 at light. Those six cows in that pen, I checked each one individually.

Their activity went way up. So I could tell, they went on a little jog at night and then said, screw this. Like, we're coming back. Yeah, isn't that funny? The world sucks. Somebody was the instigator. And then the rest of them were like,

that looks like a good idea. Yeah, she was wrong. This sucks. Let's go back in. Yeah, well, that's good. That's good. It is crazy. And I think that's something that,

anyone that doesn't have firsthand experience in the world of animal agriculture doesn't realize that these animals, you really do, you get to have a sense and your side more than ours and the fact that you're with them more intimately every day than what we are with the pigs. but you almost have a relationship and you have a sense. Like on any group of pigs, by the time those pigs are ready to go to market, I'm ready for them to go to market. No, I am because you know all the ones that are going to figure out a way to either try to knock you down when you're walking. Like, you know, I've got, you walk through a barn and I can walk down one side and I'm like, yep, I'm all good and come through the other side.

And when I get in that pen, I'm watching because there's a pig in there, he has fully bought into the idea that you are like a Cadbury egg. And if he can just get through that chewy outer layer, there's a nougat in there. And he wants that nougat really bad. And no matter what, he's like, he's on you every time you get in there. And it's just funny. And that's something that, you know, the public, I don't think they understand that. You can love an animal but still understand its purposes to actually have a purpose. Yeah, exactly.

Exactly. And I think we talked about this earlier before we got started, but these vegans, animal rights activists, they always say that, you know, these animals have human-like feelings that, you know, they're...

They don't live in a state of existential dread. Right, you know, like, it's just what you were saying. If they wanted to, if those cows wanted to get up and leave, they would leave, but then I think they would go outside

and they'd be like, yeah, no. Let's go back to where it's comfortable. I got feed, I got water, because that's what matters to them. Yeah. They're not thinking about the stuff. we think about.

We just did a video, was it, that was last night. We had to go tube feed a newborn calf, and sometimes we'll tube feed them just to get that colostrum in them right away. And I was kneeling down on top of the calf, kind of had it, you know,

pinned down a little bit, and mainly it was for my own comfortability, so I didn't have to squat. But, and I was tube feeding it, you know, which I wouldn't say is a overall pleasant experience, obviously, but it's not harmful or it doesn't hurt the calf.

Right. And I was doing that in the front, and mom was just right behind me, licking the calf off. Yeah. I mean, if that cow, was what people say they are.

I would have been to- no, for a beef cow, sure. They're much more hormonal. I mean, they're just that motherly instinct is a little stronger there. And activists will claim that, wow, we took that motherly gene and we bred it out of them. We didn't put on a lab coat one day.

And there goes that gene. It's just, honestly, I think that happened by accident because of the relationship we have with these cows. It's a mutual trust thing that they, and maybe if dairy cows were left alone, 100% kind of to the extent that beef cows are, that maternal instinct would exhibit itself. But I think they just don't feel they have to show that maternal instinct because they've seen me and Jamie their whole life.

Right. So they're just, oh, that guy. He's going to take care of. They're here again. All right, cool. I'll go to the barn. It's not this big thing that people think it is. And, you know, you brought up the activists and stuff too.

And a comment I get all the time is I've had a few comments where it was like, oh, there's one on Facebook here recently. where it was a, I like this guy's channel, but he just has an ax to grind against these activists. That's going to have to be an unfollow for me. I'm like, you don't need to announce your departure, but whatever. And I commented back, like the problem with that thought process,

and that thought process is why the dairy industry is where it is, is because we just said, nah, we don't need to address it. That's it right there. Those activists and vegans are the minority by far. And I've had people say, it's like, why do you have to address them to the minority? It's like they are, but they make enough noise that they 100% come off as the majority. People believe there's so many more of them than there are.

And people, I mean, go look at where you eat and where you shop. Are most people buying animal products? Are they buying the meat? Yes. People like meat. Most people like to eat meat. And I said, when we started our journey doing, you know, advocacy, I said, you know, we got to tell our story because they're telling the story for us.

And it's wrong. And if we don't speak up and say, this is how it actually is. We're going to show you the raw, real 100% transparent. And most people, if they're, you know, logical, they use their head a little bit. They'll be like, you know, I can get on with that. I get that.

I'm with that form where he's actually showing what's up. Right. And there hasn't been a lot of damage done yet by the activist. I don't think, I guess, to be honest. But it's getting to the, I mean, there's, we're getting close to that tipping point to where if nobody from our end or your guys's end did hop on, they would start doing some serious damage.

Right. Because they don't understand what they're playing, with and that they just believe that like, I get so many comments where it's like, switch to plant based farming and you'll be happier. It's like, I can't just do that. Right. Not because of my facilities that I have money invested in, not because of the herd. You physically can't just switch to plant based farming. One, there's no market. I would go bank up. And then guess what? Some other farmer who's bigger than me, which you don't like either, is going to buy my farm. Right. There's no market for it. Two, we're in the Midwest. Iowa. What's funny is the month of January is, what is it,

veganary, veganary, something like that, why would you make the month, centered around plant-based products during the month when you import all your plant-based products? That doesn't make any sense. Every plant is dead.

Yes, and you import it all, which that's great, you know, for fossil fuels, importing it all on diesel. I mean, they get nuts about that stuff too.

But, yeah, I mean, they make so much noise that people think they're right and those people that are trying to believe they have the correct story to tell, which we know they don't, they're playing with something that is incredibly dangerous.

Because if you just take everything here that we've built and what we've built is working because it's done a great job at feeding people. We've built food security in the United States. Food security. And I'm not arguing that maybe there's some places they say, well, you could feed more people if you did plant-based products. And I've done the math on my videos. That's not true.

There are some products that can get close to what we can emulate. But even if they could produce the same amount of calories per acre, or the same or more or less, whatever, the bigger issue is food security. You're one crop away from an absolute famine. Here, if we get a drought, if we get a flood, we still ship milk every day. We have feed overlapped. We have precautions in place to make sure the cows are fed. They keep going.

We can bring in feed from a few miles away, yada, yada, yada. Milk and meat will never stop leaving our farm. That's a really good point. I've actually never thought about that in that way. Same thing to pork. I mean, there's going to be pork every day. There's going to be pork leaving those. farms every day. And if you have just strictly plant-based crops, you're going to harvest it all,

assuming you get a crop. And if you don't, then what? Well, we'll grain bank. Well, who's going to be in charge of that? Who's going to control all the crops that are grain bank? Now you're back into these big corporations, which they also hate. We should have a bomb button. Well, we've got one on there, but we've got these short little arms that we can't get to it. I, we've got to figure that out. I need a remote control to hit that. One of the, one of the things that I see amongst, uh, veganism, plant-based food proponents, animal rights people is there is a large percentage of that group that is very ill-informed. Because what you talked about right there, about food security, I would imagine that there is almost no one within that cross-section of people that have ever

thought about their position far enough to get to answer those questions. Well, and how vulnerable they are. Think about New York City. Oh. Every ounce of food, drink, everything is brought in on wheels. Every day. Every day. Every meal, like I said, food, drink, beverage, seasoning, whatever. It all comes in on wheels. I mean, that's true for us, too, to an extent, right? But those people get, I mean, their food comes from the grocery store, and the grocery store is never empty.

Right. Well, and you did a video yesterday. These people have never known hunger. Right. If they knew true hunger, they'd be begging you to produce all of these animal products. That's a great point. We talked about that on the way down here. Like Fair Life, Fair Oaks.

You guys have heard of that controversy. And again, Fair Life, Fair Oaks, there were some things that happened, but it was not their fault. That's a whole other thing. But if there was any kind of food shortage, people would be breaking down the doors of Fair Oaks to get more food if something was going on. Like that cow was talking about my video, 928. She's three years old. Some people were super sad.

Like, oh my gosh, that's so young, you know, that activists get mad or whatever. If there was an actual famine going on and there was a shortage of food and I decided, she's a little young. I'm going to keep her another year. I feel bad. I'd get hung. Right. I mean, the fact that I'm keeping a food source because I feel bad and there could be family

star. We're very blessed to not be in that situation, but that's exactly my point. Our privilege really shapes how much we can complain. And the other thing I think people leave out is like we back in the early 1900s, you know, there was so many farmers out there but like we had to move to this point where we had less people being able to take care of all the food and all the livestock so that we can do other things as a planet

you know as a country because it used to be everyone was a freaking farmer when grandpa was born right there was farms everywhere yeah but if we wanted to you know innovate and move forward and do other things do other great things we had to if you wanted to do anything other than worry about feeding your family every day had to get more productive. This is one of the first generations that doesn't worry about that ever almost.

I mean, everybody worries about paying bills and everything, right? But you're right. Food. I mean, every genera. You can get it cheap. You can get it expensive. There's so many places to get it. I mean.

You're right, though. The previous generations were all farmers. Right. And there's a lot of people that, I think, look back fondly on those days and wish we could go back to the good old days. And my grandpa always said there were the good old days, but I'd never go back. I mean, grandpa. Yeah.

I mean, those people knew. I mean, they went through some stuff. and I just think we take that for granted. Now, there was a lot of things, and I've even talked about that on my page that I am, I wouldn't say envious of, but would be worth emulating again in our society. You know, like I talk about our old milk cow barn built in 71.

That was built by the neighbors. It was built by friends and family and colleagues, and it was, they put up 30,000 small square bales a summer, and it was hard, you know, just backbreaking work that nobody today would do, but they did it, and they had fun doing it. some of that stuff is worth emulating in today's society, but I don't know how you do it. But there are things to look back fondly on.

But what we've built as an agricultural industry in terms of food security and the only reason our population has been able to grow is because of the food. That's the reason. I mean, look at, we've been on this planet for how many years, how many millions of years, and just in the last 200, the population really spiked, I wonder why. Food. Right. Cheap.

Totally. Access to food. That's the only thing that's changed. I mean, we've been here as a human generation for how many millions of years, but the only thing that's changed is we got really good at growing food. For your industry, what is the most common? What's the biggest falsehood out there that people just hammer all the time? What do you think?

Just that dairy cattle are abused. I mean, it's a very sad life to have their calves taken away hooked up to a milking machine. I say the one I still hear a lot is bullcats. are killed at birth. Yes, which... I get that all the time. Why the heck would we do that? Like, one, if I'm this greedy, evil SOB, and all I care about is money, why would I...

Why would I kill it? Don't you think it's curious that on the one hand, these activists think that we're so diabolical, that we stay up late at night, thinking up all these ways to just squeeze every last penny out of everything we're doing? Then on the other hand, they want a penis that were like complete morons that, you know, You just like that. Oh, yeah, I put all the time and trouble into breeding this cow and she has a bull calf. Ah, just kill him.

Can't use him. It's like you can't have it both ways. Not to detract from that, but that same concept applies to what were we talking about, GMOs. So I get a lot of anti-GMO things. And then on the second, so on one hand they say all your food is sprayed with pesticides and all these things. On the other hand, you're an evil person for growing GMOs. And what they don't realize is that GMOs allow us to use less pesticides. Right.

Production. Right. Yeah. Which one is it? Yeah. What were you saying before, though? You were talking about the active, oh, the most common thing we hear. Yeah.

Also antibiotics and milk. Antibiotics and milk. We pump them full of hormones. We get, we get, that's, I feel like that's just animal agriculture in general. I get excited when I see those comments. I can't believe people just, because that one I feel like has just been, we've, so many people have addressed that one. It's like, guys, you're not getting antibiotics.

Chipotle just did that commercial again. In the companies, that's what that's doing. is the companies take advantage of it for a label because they're just trying to sell. It sells. It sells. I think one of the worst PR stunts that has had the biggest lasting effect in the meat industry anyway is if you go all the way back and I don't know if it was Pilgrim's Pride or whether it was Tyson and it could have been somebody else.

But someone came up with the idea, they started labeling their chicken and it said, hormone-free. No hormones ever. And there were never any hormones to start with, but they put it on there. And that just took off like wildfire. I know when I hear somebody say, no, it's hormone-free, guys, eat it.

I'm just like, you don't know. No, it's not. Because everything has hormones in it. I mean, everything. A head of cabbage has more estrogen than a glass of milk. Right. So it's not hormone for me.

That's a lot, first of all. Yeah, the dairy industry, they're going to run out of room on the milk labels, because we were in Fairway here this summer, and I saw, I mean, RBST-free has been on the label for a while, and then also antibiotic-free. But what was the one that said it was something, it was there was, it was BST-free, hormone-free, and then they made a specific italicized sentence that said, and pesticide-free.

Oh, sure. Like, wow. Yeah. And then somebody commented was like, I want the gluten-free one, like, as a joke. Because that's next. I mean, that's what's going to come. You know, we talked a little off-air about how authenticity, is, I feel like that is kind of a, that's a trend among social media, but I feel like it's a

trend kind of everywhere that people are tired of fake and they're tired of things that are very coach. Big industry. Yeah. Do you feel like, do you feel like you'll ever get to the point? Will we ever win this battle? Will we ever win this war? I don't think it will.

And I think we just kind of have to come to grips with that. I mean, that almost, I think to an extent that would almost be like asking a teacher, do you ever think you'll get to the point where every single person doesn't need to be taught anymore? And I mean, we need to be lifelong learners, right? And I think there's always going to be new generations that always need to be taught something. So I don't think the job will ever be, okay, let me say it this way. I don't think our work for educating will ever be done. I do feel the tide is slightly turning in terms of the stigma and the perception of agriculture.

I feel like there's enough of us out there making enough noise that I do feel like there is a tide turning to where people aren't buying the border. crap anymore. What makes me so excited on our Facebook page, and Jamie points this out all the time, is the amount of people like, I'll see somebody comment, put a stupid comment in one of my videos, and I'll come back to it, and I'll come back to it 20 minutes later, and there's 30 other people that have been asking you right to it. Then they're nailing it. They're absolutely nailing it. And I just, I feel like the tide is turning. I don't have a lot of hard evidence to suggest that, but it just, things feel a little different. And I, you know, I don't know if that's just my feeling or not, but our work in terms of educating, that'll never be done.

I agree with you. Yeah. But I think that's, I think that's true. The thing is that people got to realize, you can have, you can, if you want to be vegan, be vegan, whatever. We can both exist. We can coexist. But don't come at me for what I'm doing.

You know, that's the problem with veganism. They come at us for what we're doing. I think a part of that is that it is like any, it's like anything. When it gets political. or when someone can make a subject political, there are people that, there are people that genuinely believe those principles and they are like you and the fact that they don't really care that you raise hogs.

They've chose the life that they're going to be vegan and they're going to eat that. And they don't really care. They just want to do their thing. But there are people that have figured out that stir in the pot and being outspoken and putting yourself at the top of the search list for that is a meal ticket. Yeah, they can make an income. And they're profiting from it. It's just like politics.

It's like politics when you have politicians that, you know, whatever their thing is, they're the guy for that. And do they ever really want to solve that problem? Because that problem has given them a cause and given them political cover for years. Hs S-U-S-Pedha. I mean, they don't do good for animals. They don't. Right. I mean, Wayne, what's his name?

Wayne something that is the CEO of H-S-I-E. He's a very wealthy man. Yep. He doesn't do any good for animals. I mean, yeah, it's money. Because the other thing is they see money in it. They see opportunities in it. Yep.

You know. There's some real money. Real business owners are seeing, oh, well, if the vegan trend, if the vegan start trend keeps going up, we're going to try to do plant-based products because there's an opportunity. But see, here's what's interesting. I get asked a lot. Do oat milks.

almond milk threaten your industry. I look at Burger King. Yeah, we were going to ask. When they brought up their Impossible Whopper, you know what happened? The Impossible Whopper sales went way up. You know what else went way up? The normal whopper sales. There's room for both.

If someone wants to be vegan because they just like the, there's different things that can motivate people to do that. There's a vegan and our subscriber group for Iowa dairy farmer. And they like that we show the truth and we, you know, but there's some people that just don't want to eat animals. Right. Okay. That's fine.

I am okay if you want to be vegan because of things that are true. You like animals, that's fine. Do you think we treat animals? Well, that's true. I'm not okay if you're vegan based off of propaganda and lies. So that's why I started saying militant vegans, because there's a big difference between the militant ones and just the normal vegans. Right.

Yeah, we have a lot of vegan supporters, even on TikTok. There are vegan supporters that back you up. Yep. The problem is those militant ones have given a bad name for all of them. They really have. They don't care about the facts. They just want to do the proper game. For oat milk and almond milk for us, those have been around forever.

I mean, almond milk was around in the Great Depression. I saw this one statistic. I mean, back then it was just people. I mean, people have always had some allergies to milk. Some people have. And so those alternatives have always existed. Now, they've gained a little bit of traction today because of some of these militant activists. But the population, there's always going to be people that need dairy products.

And we get, I'm amazed how many comments we get. to where they say milk and meat, and especially milk is a staple for them. They cannot stomach anything else. I mean, there's people that need these products to survive. Because we forget, we're not producing a hypothetical widget,

you know, like you do in your accounting class, and Frank has 14 bottles of shampoo, and Susie has 12. This is food. Yeah, right. This is a real asset that provides sustenance to a population.

So is it a threat to my industry? That's not the real question. The real question is, do you care about food? Right. And, I mean, there's going to be plenty of food as long as we can actually get everybody to stop attacking people who grow. And then we got to make more because, what, 2050?

supposed to be, what, 9, 10 billion people? So, you know. I mean, we have some job security for a little bit. Yep. That's for sure. What excites you about the future of your farm? Like new technologies, are you looking to grow your farm more for the next generation? I don't know.

Just that's kind of a broad question. Well, we were just talking about this the other day. We were just talking about this. Yeah, if we're going to add another robot or what or... I mean, that stuff is kind of up in the air. I guess I'm just excited right now. I feel like we're just had a good spot with the robots. We have a young family that we're actually able to spend time with. We can do stuff like this. I was, I was surprised when, when Sawyer called me and

said that you were going to be on. I was like, really? He's a dairy farmer. I said, how, I said, who, who's he got in there doing that? There is definitely a, there is definitely a persona of dairy farmers that you, so anybody that wants to play the bully card to how hard they work, I think dairy farmers, can usually trump them all because, you know, we have a time commitment. Those pigs have to be choreed every day. But the amount of time that it takes to chore them and what actually has to be done, there's actually very little that has to be done. If you're going to take one day and the automation has made it.

Yeah, it's made it so simple where even in your deal, there's a certain amount of time. Our late veterinarian, I was just out of college and I think, I don't know why he started talking to me about this, but he was talking about some of the farmers he knows that have the best family life, you know, and they actually do enjoy their family and do stuff for their kids. Their cows work for them. Yep. They don't work for their cows. Yeah. And some dairymen take that the other way and they think, well, I'm going to be, if I'm the best dairyman, if I'm a slave to him. Like, no, I'm not going to do that. You know, for us, it's my, I want my kids to remember me as a good father, not as the guy who just was always milking cows. Yeah, we want our kids to want to take over.

not to want to leave and see my dad never came to anything. I don't want any part of the. And that's why the dairy industry. That's why they all left. I mean, people complain, oh, there's no farmers anymore. It's because you worked them all to death. That's true. And what young kid wants to go into an industry where, let's be honest,

you're not going to make a ton of money. A ton of money. And you've got to put a lot of work in. So, yeah, we've got to get more advanced. The dairy industry has produced a lot of bankers. Yes. If I had a nickel for every banker that I've ever talked to, male and female that says, yeah, you know, I grew up on a dairy farm here or there. And it's like,

does anybody run the farm once in a while? I say, well, my oldest brother does or my youngest brother does. But most of them are like, no, none of us did because they had the experience that you're talking about, which is good that you, it's good that you're, you've adapted and you're aware of that. Yeah. And so for the future of our farm, we're kind of an unique spot. So Prairie Farms is our co-op. And they have what's called like a base program. So you can only ship so much milk. And if you go over that, you get docked. Um, so they kind of, and that's why Prairie Farms has been able to offer a very, a much more competitive pay price compared to other co-ops. They never have more milk than they can market. And if I had my own career, I do the same thing, right? I'm not going to produce more

milk than I can sell. Yep. As dairy farmers, when milk price sucks, we produce more milk. When milk price is great, we produce more milk. So that's why our price is so volatile. So Prairie farms is a good job controlling that. So we can't just necessarily go, yep, we're going to add a fourth robot. You know, ideally if our kids want to come home, I think there's things we can do to compensate for that and get them on board. But right now for the actual farm itself, things are just going well. I just, I kind of think we just want to. Our kids are young. Our oldest is five. So there's no like rush. Yeah. And I mean, as good as Dan is on social media, he also knows how to make milk. I mean, we have to get a new bulk tank because that's a good problem.

Well, we need to get a, we need, you need to come out with your own milk brand. Well, see, we would love to do that. That'd be awesome. The catch with Prairie Farms is we sign a contract, they get all of it. Yeah. And if I, if I were to have brought a gallon pitcher down to you guys and somehow it slipped out on this podcast and you bought it for me for five bucks and Prairie Farms, heard that they dropped me tomorrow. They don't want any milk leaving that's not theirs. So if there's a slip where you're slow.

Other co-ops, yeah, whatever. you could have two bulk tanks, send one to one company, send one to the other. And if we had that, we would definitely dabble in that in Iowa. You can't sell raw milk though either. Right. And for everybody, this is, I have rum chata in here. This is milk. It's rum chaw. It's another topic. If two consenting adults want to make a business transaction and that business transaction is raw milk, I think that should be legal, but that's a whole not other. Yeah. I mean, I would agree. I would agree. But I think the consumer would love that. Yeah. You don't have that connection with you. It'd tell the ultimate story. Well, I mean, it's kind of,

I mean, not to be cocky, but like I'd have a little bit of a brand to sell. It's like it's Iowa dairy farmers. Exactly. We believe that's one of the, that is one of the biggest trends, which is just kind of in this infancy. Because if you look, well, ag is behind a lot of things. Just like they're a little behind in social media and people telling their story. But that personal branding in the future, that's going to be a lot more important. I keep telling people, like, Prairie Farms has a lot of members that are actually on social media and active. Again, I'm not trying to be like cocky. or push my name out there, but like, put us on your milk jug. That's what we say. Put the handle. Like, you want to see how this milk is made? Scan the bar code. It doesn't have to just be me. Put all, there's, there's, there's 100, there's 100, there's 700 farms under

Prairie Farms umbrella. Just off top of my head, I know eight of them that are on social media. Like, just put their handle on there. It's like, you want to see where this gallon of milk came from? Boom. Yeah, because they would grow their business to where you wouldn't have to worry about. It's about knowing the farmer. It's becoming more and more parent.

You know what the worst thing we've ever done is? One of the worst things we've done is industry. go buy a carton of Walmart butter. And what's on that carton of butter? A red barn, a green field, and a white house. There is not, I mean, none of Walmart's milk is coming from that farm. There's no red barns anymore. They don't exist.

And that's a whole other can of worms too. That's been done out of the welfare of the animal, because the animals like our freestyle barns, that's a whole other thing. But we try to sell an image that doesn't exist. If you go to our checkoff website and you go to their virtual farm, and from like a satellite view you can see the farm and you can click on the barn and do this it's again same thing white house red barn green field doesn't exist and then people get mad

where's the field it's like we do we shoot our own selves in the foot right you know i'm out there telling people that our cows don't want a field and then our industry is painting a field where they want to be yeah so we have our own labeling issues too well we're working hard on that because you see i miss the boat the first time because if i would have been just a little more connected. I could have gotten, if you've ever been in any restroom in America, the TORC brand, I could have gotten like a penny of wipe. And I call them, I write them, nothing. Just never get it. Nothing. They can't put your face on here. So I'm, we're not missing it the second time around. We're going to get our face on the back of a pork loin somewhere. I don't know how. Yeah, we always do say

that. We always said it'd be awesome to have, you know, a QR code or something. Something. Our, our face. I get what you mean. Don't be caught. Not trying to be cocky, but we have the brand. We show the image. We show what our day to day lives are as a hog farmer.

Why not connect the consumer in some way so they can go watch, use their phones, go see what's going on? I wonder if they're scared that like, what if Dan did something they don't support? Oh no. They are 100%. You know,

but. Legal. You attach yourself to somebody that you don't 100% know. Legal is, that is probably the biggest hurdle because if they did anything with one of those producers, you or us, and we did anything that, I did anything that misrepresented that brand, it's tied to that brand. And so that's part of the problem.

I don't get political on my page at all. I have very strong political opinions. But you just brought this up here not too long ago. If you go to a lot of my followers and you look up their TikTok bio or even their Facebook profile, it's full of different stuff, pronouns or what their political affiliation is. And whatever my opinion is of that, it doesn't matter. If I made one comment, I would alienate, what, Jamie, 30%? I mean, some of these people from inner city Chicago

and the stuff they have in their bio, I'm like, how did you find my page? Because we couldn't be more different. But at least I can still be here to educate on where your food comes from. Now, we have different political things. Right. But that's where, yeah, if Prairie Farms all of a sudden had my name on their jug and I came out and said something like, I don't know, America first.

All of a sudden, but, you know, they might get all up. set and mad. And so I get their concern with doing it, but I think something has to be done if they want to get connected more to the consumer because the whole billboard thing doesn't work. It's outdated. It's not working. And so many other industries have adopted that. They have a mascot, quote unquote. They have an influencer, a brand ambassador. Yeah, you go to these farmers markets and they'll buy from these farmers because they know the farm. They know the farmers. And that's what gets me too. This is another can of worms. People say buy local. local. I'm not against buying local. It's harder than it sounds, and I don't know how much it actually

supports family farms, because in a dairy world, you can't open a creamier for less than $2 million, especially in Iowa, I mean, because you have to pasteurize it. You can't do it. So if you want to buy local from the dairy, out of the, I mean, the average farm size in Iowa, I think is like 110, 120. So when you buy your local milk, you're supporting that one farm versus when you buy prairie farms, you're supporting all of them. All of prairie farms. And prairie farms, and prairie farms, average herd size is like 100. Like it's not big. So it the buying local thing I don't think is the savior that we often think it's going to be because even if you just buy beef at Walmart, does some of it come from these big feedlot yards? Sure. But a lot of it also comes from farms like

my neighbor who just has maybe a hundred beef cows or a hundred steers or something like that. Right. You know, so I I think there's there's more to this than we think. But getting, getting prairie farms and some of these bigger, and prairie farms isn't overly big, but that's the biggest hurdle that great value will have in their entire lifetime is great value gets their milk from like 10,000 cow farms, which fine, I have no problem with that,

but that's a much tougher message to relate to consumers. And that's where I do get frustrated with prairie farms, and if anybody's listening, I have no problem them hearing this, is they have such a unique thing going on where their average herd size is 100 cows. Now, again, I talk about this too. Small farms aren't better than big.

farms. Our cows are all treated the same, but if your mentality is you like a diverse type of, you know, you want to support a diverse type of farming, whether it's a small family farm or a big family farm or you want to stick with just the farms that have just family employees or just family as their workers, and then, you know, prairie farms offer such a unique thing compared to great value. And they don't lean on that at all. Yeah, nobody knows that. No. No, they don't at all. They aren't doing a good job of getting their story out. And I feel like that's so many businesses within ag because the other side of that is i think they're a little bit they're a little bit like all of us were a few years ago with the idea that if we just don't

if we just don't speak ignore it we'll ignore it and go away well i feel like that's where a lot of these um food companies are they they don't want to they don't want they just want to ignore everything and stay on the straight and narrow down We're just going to keep producing food and not, you know. Not talk about it. See, what I want a civil discourse? So I'm going to ask you a question. What do you think the hardest part of being on social media is?

We kind of talked about this before. I mean, well, I don't know. For me, I don't even want to put myself out there. Like, I'm not on there. Exactly. No, you nailed it. So putting yourself out there is a lot. And some of the, I mean, just the hate mail you get.

And I think that's what also scares some of these other bigger prairie farms, or whatever, companies from getting on social media. You're a target. And I saw for the first time in years, it was right before the Olympics, I got milk commercial, and it came through my TikTok, and right away I opened the comment section, and what a circus that was. People on there just slamming milk.

And me and another guy, dairy muses, his TikTok hand, we were going to town in the comments. And that's what I want. I want people to open that comment section and see somebody say milk is pus and then see Iowa dairy farmer, say milk is full, is from, you know, who are abused, abused, and then see Iowa dairy farmer. But what really ticks me off is whoever runs that got milk can't turn off the comments.

It's like, you're doing it again. You're hiding. Let people see the discourse. Even if it's ugly in places, people are going to see their comment and then guess what? They're going to see mine. But when you just turn it all off, now you got something to hide. I hear where you're coming from about being a target, but I also feel like if someone did, let's say, come to your farm and try to, you know, I don't know, disrupt what you're doing,

you know, because that's ultimately the fear. Their goal. You know, their goal. They're our fear. But if they did that to our farm, they came and came to one of our hog barns and they made a video and they did all these bad, you know, tried to put us out of business. We have the other side. We have our platform. Yep. We will tell our story and pretty much. Let people decide.

You'll let people decide, you know. I feel like that's what's changed. And I feel like they're a little bit fearful. So I think they look at us as a target, but they're like, do we want to go after them? Because they have a platform, too. Do you notice where all their footage comes from? It comes from farms that don't have a platform. Right.

Oh, yes, definitely. And outdated equipment. Like, oh, I don't know. There's so much property. Well, yeah, some of those videos you see of cows being carried away. It's grainy footage that still has the VHS battery symbol in the corner. Like, how do I want to sneak a big lunky camera into those farms? But, too, like, yeah, they're old videos.

They recycle the same one. Yep, 100%. You asked earlier, and I keep thinking of more examples, like some of the most common comments I get, and it depends on the video and the theme of the video, but one of them here on TikTok just took off. It was me just making fun of different dairy mists. The overwhelming comment on that one was,

you're the 1%. And it's like, okay, yeah, but you're the exception. Over and over. And I think that's our, in the dairy industry, that's our biggest stigmas. You do it right, but 99% of them. It's the factory farm. We get the same thing.

We get the same thing. Man, the vegans and the activists have been incredibly successful. I mean, I, it's because we just, we just, we have not told the story. It's back to what we say. I respect their grind. Yeah, I respect their grind because they've had some tremendous success. They are. Something that you said is a lie will travel around the world faster than you even get dressed

in the morning. Yeah. Oh. Was it Churchill that said that? Somebody said that. Yeah. Yep. A lie will travel halfway around the world before I can even get, before the truth can

even get its pants on. Yep. And that's so true. I mean, whether it's in the mainstream media. today was something political or not. Yep. Totally. Yeah.

I mean, that ARM footage that was on Fair Oaks, that came from June of 2016. And this summer, I got bombarded with messages. Have you seen this footage? Have you seen this? They all thought it was new.

It just happened. They thought it just happened. It's old news. And they just, man, they're good. I mean, the factory farms was,

that's a pinnacle of their success that they got people to believe in such a thing as a factory farm. It's because we've been so quiet. We don't have any other. other footage to show people like the difference like that. What's the average age of a farmer? Old. 60 probably. Yeah. Yeah. My dad. My dad wasn't going to hop on. You know, there's this generation now that's coming on and those are the ones kind of grabbing the bull by the horns. And there's some older

farmers that are doing it too. But that's where I think like for Megan and myself, TikTok has been a successful platform just because it is a younger generation. And I plan on staying on there, even if that's not my primary focus, primary focus as, you know, like Facebook probably will be. But I mean, that's where I think the tide is kind of turning to is the generations in farming are starting to change hands to the younger ones. So we'll see where it goes. What's a key to the successful farm marriage? What would you say this is the biggest key? Ooh, I got to get a pat of paper.

I'm ready. I'm ready. Well, I think something unique for Dan and I. So right when we got married, we worked together side by side. And I think just for dairy with how time consuming. it can be just to be able to work together every day was really, really good for us. Because if I would have been working in town, we never would have seen each other. No, that's true.

And then once we had the kids, you know, I tried to do as much as I could on the farm still, but I would stay at home mom. I was home. He works from home. I'm home. So we're together. Right. I think that has been really good.

And also just like a shared, shared goals. I mean, his goals are my goals. like I want the farm to do well. Yeah. If I come in and I'm talking about something I want to do with the farm, you're not just, okay, that's your thing. Like, I'm genuinely interested.

Right. Right. Like, even if you don't fully understand, you're at least excited. And I'm like, yeah, that sounds good. Like supportive. Like, I know that he just is good at what he does. And so I'm just excited. I know you're going to do great.

Yeah. And you both have to be on the same page. And I think what your dad said to you when we were firstly even looking at getting engaged was he hit the nail on the head. I mean, you have to know what you're marrying into. You can't hold you and you can't hold your spouse to expectations that they don't know they have. I feel like we were both guilty of that early on. I'd get mad at you because you did something and you didn't even know what I thought you were

supposed to do, you know, farm wise and that kind of stuff. Because I was new. I was learning. Right. And also not to compare yourself to other couples that work nine to fives, weekends off. True. Yes. 100% because your life's so much different than there. Absolutely so much different. So just I guess maybe it was a little easy for us because I've always just wanted to be a farmer's wife. Yep. It's always something you wanted.

Yeah. That's good. Teamwork. Teamworks makes a dream work. We try. That's right. That's it. Well, you got anything else you want to add?

You got any questions for us? You guys got anything else you want to discuss? Oh, the craziest comment. Crazyest comment. Yeah. What's the craziest comment you ever received? I'm a paid actor for the dairy industry. Really?

Yep. There was a couple of people. Wow, we've never got that. Yeah, I was a paid act. I'm like, boy, they're not paying me very damn much. That's crazy. Yeah, I wish. Oh, heck, if they want to start paying me.

Sponsor me. Yeah, I'll take a sponsorship. Yeah, right. What was the other one? We were talking about that in the way down. It was a whole email. It was like a novel. You were, uh, you were my trophy wife or something and I don't know what all it was.

It was pretty violent. Yeah. Has anyone ever told you you kind of look like Joanna Gaines? Yeah. I was waiting for that. I was, as soon as I saw you, I saw your tick. talk or your Instagram or whatever and I saw you on dance page. It's like, she kind of looks at familiar. My mom loves shoe head and games. We just got back from the silos. Oh, really?

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I need to take Jamie down there. We've often joked if we go down there. See, I can't pull off a Chip Gaines look per se. I mean, if I dye my hair, if your hair is black, somebody will ask me for an autograph. Yeah, like if I think you could get, I bet you would. Yeah. Yeah. You'd get a lot of double tapes for sure. It'd be fun to try. Well, that is, that's an inspiring deal because I'll tell you what, they have built a true machine to take small groups of women and they come through and when they leave, all their money stays. They just part them. Because, I mean, it is. It is amazing to see they have something for everyone. They have built something for everyone that they just go from little store to little store to little store and their purse gets lighter.

Well, the bags get heavier. The purse gets lighter. Your arms get heavier. When we went, it was pretty nice. We went in November and it was pretty nice down there. And we made through the whole trek and then, you know, Trish is like, well, I want to go back to this, this and this. And they have a lot of beautiful outdoor areas there. And I said, I'm going to channel my inner Lawrence, my dad, Lawrence, when any, the few times that he would ever go to

a shopping experience was very few. But if he did, his favorite thing to do was to sit in Von Marr or sit in the food court at a mall and just people watch. And the thing was, he wasn't very good at it because he talked out loud. And so he would just be like, if you were sitting there with him, he'd be like, a weirdo. Jeez, you see that, look at that guy. Or look at that, you know, and you're like, gosh, just be quiet.

Shut up. But anyway, yeah, I would highly recommend going because there. You'll come back and you'll be like, man, we got to figure out. We got to figure out a deal like that. How to streamline this? How do we do that? But kudos to them because they built that out of nothing. Oh, I know.

They got some very humble beginnings too. Yeah. Yeah. And they still seem like good people. Yeah. I think that's why people love them. They're just authentic. I think it's authentic.

I mean, it's authentic. Yeah. No, I think the trophy wife thing for you is the craziest comment. One of the craziest comments we had and then the paid actor for the dairy industry. He was trying to, like, insult you. Yeah. And I'm like, that's a compliment, isn't it? I think so.

Oh, you were out of his league? Yeah, basically. We had one person where it was like, we should kidnap his kids, see how he likes it. Like comparing like taking cab. I'm like, you're done. That's a little.

I saw, do you follow TDF on his farm? Oh yeah. Yeah, I mean, I just saw his post and it was something similar along those lines. And then he replied back to that comment and it got taken down.

Yep. And him reporting that comment that was on his video didn't get taken down. Because they saw no problem with it. TDF is honestly. And I was like, man. Yeah, TDF's one of the first guys, speaking of, like, authentic and being real. Honestly, he's the king of dairy social media. And it's because he was the first one to do that.

And people, people just were drawn to it. Yep. You know, he's got 670,000 followers on Facebook. It's nuts. Yeah. It's nuts. We got to get him on here. Yeah.

That's a bit of a drive. Yeah, I know. A bit of a drive. Zoom. We'll have to do Zoom. He's a busy dude. I told Jamie, like, I mean, we could be on Facebook forever. We're at 200,000.

We'll never catch him. I mean, he's just, he's done a phenomenal job. I mean, he's the original. You know, so, and he's where I kind of, you know, try to, whenever I feel like, oh, am I doing it right, you know, people do appreciate that, that realness. And I think Derek was the first one to kind of grab the bull by the horns and do that. I feel like it's exciting times because within agriculture and within all of these industries,

there are multiple people just like you that are telling the story. And, you know, you don't have to go back. very far. I mean, you talk about 2015. There was there. The only story that was being told was those billboards we talked about. And I think a switch that all of our industries have seen or in the process of is as producers, traditionally we thought, well, that was the job of our industry associations. You know what, though? It is, though. It is, but they're not any good at it. I know. So, and we figured that out. we figured it out and enough people have said, you know what?

I just, we got it. Enough's enough. TdF is probably one of the most honest critics of the, he's the most honest critical supporter of the checkoff program. He talks about the good it does, but he says, for what we pay them, they don't do enough. They don't deliver. They appease the wolves while just handing us over to, I mean, or they just appease the wolves and then just kind of hand us over to them.

I mean, there's, there's, for all, the checkoff basically just plays defense. And we're guys like Derek and us and then you guys too. I mean, we're sitting here trying to go on the offense. Right. And we have to. We have to. And so I don't know if that is the checkoff's role to go on the offense. But, hey, do stuff to get, you know, maybe us a little bit more support.

You know, the creators. And I do think they do that, like with the deal program. So Midwest Derry, so every in the country, there's different checkoff programs. the Midwest Dairy Checkoff, which is what we're a part of, they started something called the Deal Program. So Dairy's engaging active leadership, that spells deal. Maybe that's it. They basically take, and so I actually,

I'm actually in the deal program now, and back in December I got to go speak at the deal program, so I did it backwards. But they basically take young dairy men and women, and they get them engaged in how to engage consumers, how to talk about different arguments, how to handle a vegan activist, how to get your page grown on social media,

how to, how to advocate. So I feel like them doing that stuff is good. The problem is a lot of dairy farmers don't know they're doing that stuff. That is probably more effective than a Got Milk campaign. But I still wish they ran commercials,

not because they're effective, but they at least show that we're here. Show the brand awareness. It's just that when the Got Milk disappeared, I think people started to think, disappeared. So at least if they could keep running, it doesn't need to be got milk anymore. But if they could run something, it just shows that we are still here and we are still fighting. It just, it kind of just, I felt like dairymen just feel like they gave up. Right. And so even if the ads

aren't effective, I still think they should be ran. Yep. But you got to give him a little bit of credit, because we did have a checkoff rep come out to the farm, wanted to meet him, basically say, we got your back. True. This is what to do if you have somebody like an activist come out, like we got you. True. And they said to you like they helped monitor my Facebook page for like bots trolls if there's like some kind of a scam thing or if there's like some just being very violent or if like activists show up they gave me a number to call to help do like a crisis control so i mean they are they are doing yeah so i shouldn't be as hard on them as i am but what i will be hard on them on is not engaging with their farmers on what they're doing because

before he stopped out i had no idea we had no idea and we're paying a lot of money 10 grand a year 10 grand years what our farm pays to check out of our milk check yeah and so i mean now i understand but they got to do a better job. I mean, and I mean, even in the old, and even in our own egg industry, we don't do a good enough job telling our story to other egg people. Right. So, I mean, that's,

give me a four-wheeler at least. If you're not going to do anything else, just give me a four-weiler, give me something, you know? Oh, man. Give me some merch. Yeah. I think we have enough, you know, struggles going on.

I don't want to attack them too much. But I think it's going to be important moving forward for us as an industry to understand what people in our own industry are doing. Well, guys, we really appreciate you coming on the show. It was absolute pleasure. I think there was a lot of value in this one, guys. Hope you guys had a lot of fun. Hope you guys got some value out of this. Learn something about dairy farming. Leave us a review. Get some merch if you want. Share it out with a friend, family, co-worker, pay that fee. And we'll see you guys back here next week. Thanks for watching.