Wendlandt Farms uses technology to care for beef cattle

Ashley, Troy, Chase, Michael, Ava, Bill and Jennifer make up Wendlandt Farms, LLC. They just received the 2023 Outstanding Farm of the Year award from Paynesville Chamber of Commerce. Submitted photo.

Lely Vector feeds steers at Wendlandt Farms.

One Lely Vector automatic feeding system at Wendlandt Farms is designed to feed an entire finishing barn. Contributed.

A Stearns County farm uses technology to run their beef operation with limited manpower.

Wendlandt Farms, LLC, of Paynesville, Minn., operates with robotics, digitization, Bluetooth technology, a covered barn with slat flooring and much more.

The farm includes Troy and Ashley Wendlandt, Jennifer (Wendlandt) and Bill Albrecht, and Michael Wendlandt.

Their dad, Tom Wendlandt, was an agronomist for 30 years.

“We all grew up on our parents’ (Tom and Doris Wendlandt) hobby farm – 100 acres and 20 beef cow/calf pairs,” Michael said.

After graduation, everyone left and worked full-time off the farm.

Then Troy and Ashley purchased a hobby farm near the home farm. They next purchased the home farm.

Michael bought the farm next door.

“We figured we wanted to do something extra to have some fun and earn income, so we bought a few calves and raised them up to be cows. We started with cow/calf pairs at my house,” Michael said.

They soon got a few acres of farmland and some steers. Jennifer and Bill became involved, and the three families purchased another farm.

That’s where their main farm is now for feeding 700 head of dairy beef steers.

They were successful enough that the Wendlandts filed their LLC in 2018, and Michael began farming full-time. Everyone else continues to work off the farm.

“We started with all Holstein steers because that’s what we were set up to feed, and that’s what the local market was for with Holsteins in Stearns County,” he said. “Now, the market has been forcing us to dabble into some beef-cross animals – bred dairy cows to a beef bull.”

The farm today includes some baby bottle calves that are fed with an ID-TEK Auto Calf Feeder housed in a renovated tie-stall dairy barn.

Most cattle arrive at the farm as 400-pound feeders and are backgrounded at various barn sites. One custom grower also raises some of the cattle from 400 pounds to about 650 pounds.

At that point, the cattle enter the Wendlandts’ 105-foot wide by 290-foot long slat/pit finishing barn. The barn was built in 2022.

Cattle are fed a total mixed ration (TMR) of snaplage, whole corn, roughage, distillers grain and protein – either standard conventional pellets or QLF (Quality Liquid Feeds). Most of the feedstuffs are raised by the Wendlandts on 800-900 acres.

They primarily contract their finished cattle with JBS in Green Bay, Wis. They work with their local NFO (National Farmers) reps, who have helped them with contracts, scheduling, and trucking.

They purchase local cattle from auction houses or directly from dairies or beef cow/calf farms. They’ve also brought in cattle from as far away as New York, Nevada, and Montana.

The operation is built on Performance Beef cattle management software from Performance Livestock Analytics, part of Zoetis.

According to their website, “Accessing all features requires an iPad or iPhone and syncs with a POINT scale indicator. Enter health data using your smartphone or automate data capture at the chute with an additional POINT scale indicator, electronic ear tags, and a reader.”

The use of Performance Beef software allows all partners almost instantaneous access to raw and analytical data.

“Everyone has access on their phone, anywhere in the world, and we can check how the farm is doing,” Michael said. “They can still look in from their regular job and still be a part of everything. We can have a quick phone call and chat and have that without having an in-person meeting.”

Almost as important is the Lely Vector automatic feeding system. The TMR is fed throughout the finishing barn using it.

Based on formulations, a feed grabber bucket loads the Lely Vector. The Lely Vector mixes the feed and delivers it to the correct pen. The robot shoots out the feed onto the flat concrete bunk area aside each pen – very similar to feeding in a free stall dairy barn.

Data from the POINT scale is automatically entered in the Performance Beef software. It’s a complete inventory tracking device that works in “real time.”

Currently, Michael “copies and pastes” data from the Lely Vector to the Performance Beef software.

“One of our goals for this year is to get Performance Beef and Lely on the same page,” he said.

If the Wendlandts didn’t have the Lely Vector and feed grabber bucket, it would take Michael about four hours daily to do feeding chores in the large finishing barn. As it is set up, he spends about 45 minutes daily “loading the feed kitchen,” which is what the feed commodities room is called.

The extra time allows him to concentrate on the health of the cattle, computer work, and farm management.

“We can concentrate on ways to grow cattle more efficiently, and ultimately give the end user the best possible product for the best price on the cattle side,” he said.

The farm technology doesn’t end there.

They are adopting electronic identification (EID) tags for each animal. Currently, they have EIDs in about 70 percent of their cattle’s ears.

“I would say a year from now, we are going to have 100 percent growth of knowledge on those EID tags. It allows us to track not only intakes of feed and rate of gain, but also animal health and expenses per animal,” he said. “We’re going to have a lot more individual data. That may be a game-changer to be able to collect all that data in real time and to have it available via our fingertips.”

Even under the cattle, the Wendlandts have technology working for them. The new barn features a manure bubbler system that completely mixes the manure pit contents five times daily.

“That leads to better nutritional byproducts for our crop land,” he said.

They rely on variable rate application and fertilization of the crops, and a variety of crop technology tools, too.

In addition to gaining important efficiencies, the Wendlandts are using technology to reduce their need for labor. They want to spend time with their families and friends to have a life outside of farming. It’s difficult to find employees today and automation offers a workaround.

This family has been so passionate about farming over the past five years. They’ve set high goals for themselves and completed them. Last April, they set a goal to build and complete their new finishing barn by Sept. 1. The barn was completed on Sept. 1.

So far, three semi-loads of finished cattle have been shipped from the new barn. The feeding operation is going well.

“We reached out to a lot of companies and were advised from a lot of friends, and salespeople, and the internet. We received a lot of advice from neighbors and other cattle farmers,” he said. “As hard as the ag economy is and how hard it is to get in as a startup, the American Dream is still there. With hard work, connections, and passion, I think farming is still a dream that I think a lot of people can do. I really believe the ag community is only going to be stronger in the future.”

Wendlandt Farms just received the 2023 Outstanding Farm of the Year award from the Paynesville Chamber of Commerce.

Daily Ag News and Market information from across the midwest.

Reporter