Holstein World: What are the current stats at Premium Farms? Number of animals, acres farmed, location, type of facilities? Sires being used? Major cow families that are being developed?

Mark & Stephanie Miranda: Premium-Farms is an 83 acre farm on the Oregon Coast. We currently milk 200 Holsteins - 60% are registered with a few registered Brown Swiss thrown in. We are a freestall operation that feeds TMR and pastures about five months of the year. Our herd average is 23,700M 4.1F 3.4P with 123 SCC. We are currently using and flushing with bulls like Durham, Advent, Dundee, Damion, Lou and Fortune. We also use a lot of Young Sires from strong cow families. Marks Emory Ally is a strong cow family that we are working a lot with. Ally’s daughter, Marks Ally Rubens Alanis, is currently being flushed and is really transmitting. Premium-Farms Encore Jumbo and her offspring are a large part of our purebred herd as well as Premium-Farms Leader Jello.

Holstein World: Share with our readers a little bit about your backgrounds. What led to both of you being Registered Holstein breeders? What keeps you active in the business today? What does the breed need to do to maintain its success and ensure the livelihood of fellow Holstein breeders?

Mark & Stephanie: Mark was born and raised in Stanislaus County California on a commercial dairy. FFA led him to the world of purebreds where working sales and clipping gave him money to buy his first few registered cattle. Stephanie is the third generation on Premium-Farms. Her family was very involved in registered Holsteins and her sister, Melanie Nifong, dairies in Wisconsin. We have only owned Premium-Farms for six years but genetics and great cow families are the reasons for staying motivated and active in the dairy business. We believe that the breed needs to focus on strength and openness to ensure a long productive life. In a time of increasing grain costs, these strong cattle can succeed on a more diverse ration.

Holstein World: To learn more about Premium Farms during our blog conversation this week, visit them online at www.premiumfarms.net!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 6th, 2007 at 9:50 am by sschmidt and is filed under Guest Blogger Series. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.