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Bob and Sherry Gates farm in Waushara County.
The Gateway Acres homestead has been owned and operated by Bob since he
purchased the farm from his parents in 1978. The original barn was 50 feet
long, held 25 stalls, and did not have a barn cleaner. Following the
purchase of the farm, Bob gutted the barn and renovated it to house 40 cows.
Since then, he has done numerous renovation projects, replaced old
buildings, and built a free stall type building for heifers. The milking
barn now holds a total of 74 stalls, 1 pen and 15 additional stalls for dry
cows. The herd of Holsteins consists of 88 milk cows and 90 young stock.
The herd is 99% registered and we merchandise quite a few cows a year. The
cows are milked twice a day, and our current herd RHA is 23,000M, with 816F
and 698P. Our BAA is 109 with 18 Excellent, 35 -Very Good, and 27-Good Plus.
The cows are fed TMR, and the majority of feed is custom made. All high
moisture corn is purchased, and the corn and hay grown on the farm is used
for silage. The cows in the barn are bedded with straw and canary grass and
the heifer freestall barn with sand. Sherry is responsible for raising the
young heifer calves. In Bob's breeding program he focuses on bulls with
high type. Bulls that Bob is using include Rubens, Advent, Kite, Terrason,
Linjet, Outside and Goldwyn. The highest scoring daughters from this group
of sires for Bob have been from Terrason and Outside. |
