Tri-State Neighbor: South Dakota Farm Newspaper

When the drought hit South Dakota pretty hard the summer of 2002, a Minnesota producer thought he could help some of his fellow South Dakota producers.

Jim Billmeier, a Morgan, Minn., sweet corn, peas and cow/calf producer, had the idea in 2002 to feed some cows for South Dakota cattle producers.

“I had a lot of feed left over,” he said. “We put an ad in the paper. Well, it hit the paper and the phone started ringing at 6 a.m., and the phone rang steady for almost a week.”

Billmeier estimates that he turned down 21,000 cows that first year. He started by taking cows from four producers. This year he is feeding cows for two South Dakota producers.

Billmeier, who farms with his son, Jimmy, commingle their cow herd with the cows that come from South Dakota. He makes sure that the cows entering his herd are vaccinated the same and he has not had any health problems so far.

“I knew in advance what they were vaccinated for and we vaccinated the same,” he said.

Billmeier does vaccinate for scours on his cows. The incoming cows have not been vaccinated for scours because they leave before it is time to calve.

“What the customers actually want is our cows to run with theirs. What it does is eliminates about four pages of a five-page contract because you can’t neglect theirs without neglecting your own and vice versa,” Billmeier said.

Cows get delivered to the Billmeier farm in the early fall and leave before spring tillage.

Billmeier keeps track of his cows by using ear tags. The cows from South Dakota come already branded. They put an ear tag in the incoming cows to sort them by age.

They run the cows on crop residue and have them set up in lots. They bunk feed twice a day.

The Billmeiers feed a lot of byproducts from canning factories, ethanol plants and sugarbeet processing plants in the area.

“We’re kind of unique in this area because we have so many byproducts to feed. We’re within a 40-minute drive of a huge sugarbeet plant at Renville and all the byproducts there,” he said.

They have three sweet corn canning factories within an hour of their place to get byproducts from. Byproducts are usually delivered once a week to the farm.

The winter diet for the cows consists of cornstalks, sweet corn silage, beet pulp, distillers grains and soybean meal. They do not feed any corn.

They had the sweet corn silage tested and found it to be a good energy source. Jimmy says the protein was not as high as corn, but the digestibility was high.

“The highest priced thing we’re feeding right now in the forages is cornstalks. It’ll cost you about $14 a ton to put up and these byproducts, the most we’ve paid for any of it is $8 a ton delivered,” Billmeier said.

Billmeier is pleased with the customers he has and the program he is running.

“I can’t say enough about our customers. They are just salt of the earth people. I wouldn’t be afraid to do business with any of them with just an oral agreement,” he said.

Billmeier, who has been farming in the area since 1975, sees this part of his business as a way to help his son stay on the farm. Jimmy bought the place across the field from his dad and they hope to be able to expand the overwintering program.

“You’ve got to make room and this is one way to do it without adding acres,” Billmeier said.