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Swedish Mission Farm

The Haskins Family

River Falls, Wisconsin

Swedish Mission Farm is located just west of River Falls , Wisconsin and is approximately one-half mile from the UW-River Falls Mann Valley Farm. Our farm has been in the Haskins family since 1961 and is named after the Swedish Mission that existed near the site in the early 1800's. The farm comprises two adjacent farms and is a partnership between Paul & Sally Haskins and Paul's sister, Gina Haskins. We are currently farming about 90 owned and rented acres.

Our facilities include a 45' by 60' dairy barn that houses the parlor and milk room, a 30' by 120' open-sided barn for sheep housing, a 60 'by 60' office/machine storage shed, a 50' by 70' barn for horses, rams and lambs, and a 44' by 80' hoop structure for dry hay and machinery. The parlor is a double 12 high-line with a pit, six DeLaval milking units and cascading yoke headgates. Milk is stored in a 300 gallon bulk tank and a 9' by 16' walk-in freezer.

We will milked 130 ewes in 2009 including East Friesian, Lacaune, and crosses of the two. Our milking season will run from about March 1st until October. During this season, all milk is from ewes grazing rotationally on one of five pastures. The pastures range from cool season grass pasture to stands of pure alfalfa.

Our management practices and philosophy are best described as relatively high input with respect to feed,labor, and facilities. Our goal is to provide an environment where the ewes are fed well and are comfortable year around. This approach yields healthy lambs and high quality milk both in quantity and components (protein, butterfat, and solids). The ewes are fed alfalfa haylage and corn silage over the winter. We try to grow all our own feed to reduce costs. The ewes are then transitioned to pasture and fed whole grains and some very high quality dry hay while milking. Although we are not organic, our ewes are never fed hormones or antibiotics of any kind. Lambs are weaned 24-48 hours after birth and fed milk replacer.

Additional farm operations include raising pasture poultry, a small number of beef steers and pigs, and horses for pleasure riding. Time permitting, we also do custom baling and field work. Swedish Mission Farm runs smoothly year around due to our highly skilled and enthusiastic labor force consisting of our three boys: Paul-age 15, Max-age 12, and Jackson-age 9, and our border collie, Rex.

Planned improvements and expansion for 2010 include adding about 80 ewes to milking resulting in 200 ewes in the parlor. In 2010 we also plan on adding sorghum-sudan grass silage to our feeding program over the winter.