Idaho Was A Breeze!
Alan Andersen, John Andersen, Greg Andersen and Jordan Leak.
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Idaho was a BREEZE!
Kathleen and I traveled to Idaho on Tuesday & Wednesday of Western Spring National week to visit with some breeders during our stay here. Our first stop on Tuesday was about 2.5 hours north of Salt Lake City at Seagull Bay Holsteins. When we got there, Alan Andersen and his sons Greg and John, along with Jordan Leak, were picturing with Frank Robinson. On the blocks were an O-Man, a Gibson and a Shottle, all of who have some contract interest. Greg Andersen runs Seagull Bay, while father Alan & brother Ben run Andersen Dairy just west of there. John and Jordan are in charge of Double A Ranch, a group of six farms near Twin Falls that runs 25,000 milk cows.
Wednesday morning, we awoke in Twin Falls to strong winds….really strong winds of 40 mph and higher. And when you’re in the Magic Valley of Idaho, there’s not much to stop the wind. We met John and Jordan just north of Twin Falls at the main Double A Dairy Ranch. Owned by the Aardema family, John and Jordan both came to the large commercial operation from Registered Holstein backgrounds. “We get the best of both worlds here,” John said. “We love the efficiency and the big business of a commercial setup, but we get to play with the Registered side as our hobby. Instead of playing the stock market, we do this!” John and Jordan want to keep having Registered cattle within the herd, and when they flush their own (Triple Crown Genetics) cows, they automatically have a large pool of recipients available. The other advantage they enjoy is working with the ABS young sire program and can see great numbers of young sire daughters at one time. “Triple Crown Genetics started here because we were really working with mid-range Holsteins and making mid-range returns,” explained Jordan. “We wanted to work with the top end Registered cattle. It’s been a lot of fun so far!”
The duo both stated they need to work with high profile cow families to have genetics that are marketable, and because of that, they were partners on the high selling lot at the Butlerview Sale, Applicious. They are also working with members of the Debutante Rae family. “We don’t need more cows to milk,” Jordan continued. “We need cows that will make us money.” They have partnered with Kingsmill on several cows and commented that they have very similar merchandising goals as the Kingsmill group. Besides Holsteins, they own D-C Imperial Ghost, a well-known Jersey on the show circuit, with Kingsmill.
There are 350 employees in the Aardema Group, and John comments that they, along with fellow dairyman Louie Bettencourt, are the biggest employers in the county. Since the pair came to Double A, they have added 5,000 cows and now milk in four, double-50 parlors on the main farm. They do vet checks every Monday and Thursday and have their own vet on staff. They also employ three, full-time hoof trimmers who work six days/week.
The herd is at a 79lb. average in the tank and all corn and hay silage is grown at the dairy. Dry hay is purchased.
John and his wife have four children, while Jordan and his wife have three children. “We have become more active in the showring since our kids are now getting older and it’s the one way we can let them be involved on the farm,” John said. “It’s too big of an operation to have them out in the corrals or parlors, but having some show heifers in a separate area allows them to work with them.”
The best of both worlds is what lays at the doorstep for these two pioneering young men. A little bit of commercial efficiency, a little bit of Registered blood, a lot of true love for the industry and great friends and business partners have made John Andersen and Jordan Leak very busy and very successful partners.
We then drove southwest from Double A in a wind so powerful you couldn’t see the road for the dust blowing. Stay tuned for our next stop – Buhl, ID, and Frontier Dairy, the home of Mark & Honor Tatarka.