Larimer County 4-H Dairy Sponsors
Thank you to our dairy sponsors who provide help and support to our 4-H members.
Colorado has approximately 110 Dairy Farms that are home to approximately 203,000 milk cows. Within the United States, Colorado ranks 13th in the number of milk cows, 13th in milk production and 2nd in milk output per cow.
MOUNTAIN VIEW FARM – LOVELAND
Shelly Dickinson isn’t sure what her great-grandfather would think of a woman running the family farm, but she knows she’s qualified. Since coming back to the farm after college and a few years of working off-farm jobs, Shelly has worked every job on the farm – from the bottom up.
“I begged my dad to let me come back to the farm,” Shelly says. “He put me in the lowest position on the dairy and I worked my way up.”
Shelly’s dad, Mike Dickinson, was a nationwide leader in the industry and a former chairman of the board for Western Dairy Association. He was an early innovator and loved to travel the world to learn about dairy and other farmers’ methods. Everyone in dairy knew Mike well and misses his leadership.
“I think his sense of humor is what I like remembering about him best,” said Shelly. “We really clicked and have the same sense of humor. He was hard, but he taught me a lot and making me work my way up on the farm, well, I think it made me a better dairy owner because I’ve been in everybody’s shoes and I know what’s fair to ask of everyone.”
Growing up on the family dairy was fun for Shelly, who remembers it being in the middle of nowhere. Going to Fort Collins was an amazing trip for her as a young child. She remembers being free to roam the property, swim in lakes, ride bikes and horses and just have fun.
“We didn’t like dairying much back then because it was chores,” says Shelly.
Today, Shelly’s children still have 150 acres to run around and play, but the farm is now in the middle of town in Loveland, Colorado.
“Probably 15 or 20 percent of my time now is spent explaining to neighbors, visitors and callers what it is we do here on the farm,” Shelly explains. “I wish people were more connected with agriculture, but I’m glad to educate them when I can.”
And the Dickinson family is well-suited to explaining dairy farming – the family started farming this land in 1917, almost 100 years ago. Shelly is the fourth generation to dairy and her children will be the fifth. They have gone from milking just a few cows to over 2,500 in that time.
SOMEWHERE IN LAMANCHA – FORT COLLINS
Here on our community farm, we all learn to take care of each other. Each one does their part to make the whole successful. The animals take care of us as much as we do of them. For us, food is not something on a store shelf, but a living connection that we get to nurture and that nurtures us.
learn more about LaMancha
SAS/TAFT HILL DAIRY – FORT COLLINS (CLOSED)
Lugene Sas quietly works his corner of creation as an organic dairy farmer. So he was as surprised as anyone when Odell’s Brewery named a beer after him. “Why me? I didn’t want to offend anybody,” he said. “The only thing that matters is God be praised.
Lugene’s Chocolate Milk Stout was released on January 6 2013.
Sas’s rusty blue Chevy pick-up is a familiar sight at the brewery. For 15 years, Sas, a member of Immanuel Christian Reformed Church, Fort Collins, Colo., has picked up spent hops from the brewery to feed the 18 Guernsey, Holstein, and Brown Swiss cows that he calls his “girls.” Sas owns Taft Hill, a raw milk dairy that sells only to people who buy shares of a particular cow and its milk.
Taft Hill Dairy and Odell’s Brewery both benefit from the relationship. The brewery is happy to have its spent grain taken away; Sas is delighted at a source of high-protein grain to mix into the feed for his cows. It’s a win-win situation.
Recently an employee at Odell’s followed Sas for a day to document the process the hops follow from beer to cow feed to milk. “Lugene has been an extended part of our brewery family for over a decade. His smiling face and kind spirit permeates our walls. We have a great appreciation for his work and role in the cycle of our business,” said Amanda Johnson-King, marketing and branding manager at Odell’s.
Odell Brewery describes Lugene’s Chocolate Milk Stout as “a full-bodied stout . . . reminiscent of a glass of chocolate milk.”
DOCHEFF/BLUE SKY DAIRY – LONGMONT
There have been cows milked under the name Docheff for over 80 years, whether the cows belonged to Jim Docheff Sr., his father or grandfather.
“We didn’t just hand down the cows from one generation to the next, we all had to buy our own individual cows,” explained Jim Sr. “Even when my granddad had sold out, my dad was milking under the Docheff name, then myself and now my boys – that’s why we still call it Docheff Dairy.”
Jim Sr.’s grandad started dairying in 1934 and sold all of his cows in 1965, but there was never a break in production because Jim Sr.’s father, Metro James, started milking on his own dairy in 1945 and continued to milk until 1973.
Following in his father’s footsteps, Jim Sr. started his own dairy in Broomfield, Colorado, in 1971, then relocated to a new farm in 1979. As Jim Sr.’s boys graduated from college, they started dairying with him on his farm. And just like his father, they bought their own cows and paid their own feed costs.
Three of his boys – Joe, Justin and Jay – are now partners on the dairy with Jim Sr., and the oldest son, Jim Jr., currently owns and operates Blue Sky Dairy in Colorado. After earning their degrees, grandsons Joshua and Chisum continue the family tradition as the fifth generation of Docheff dairy farmers.