UW course helps dairy farmer find small-farm success in a brutal market

Andy Jaworski’s herd is small enough to have names, not just numbers. Ziggy, as Jaworski observes, is an outgoing, curious type. DAVID TENENBAUM

Andy Jaworski is milking – as usual, as always. Though he only milks 65 cows at his farm just west of town, it’s almost 11 a.m., and cows are lining up at the milking stall.

For someone who is always milking, Jaworski seems pretty laid back. Some cows, lured by the relief of an empty udder – or the ration of grain they are offered upon entering the milking stall — visit the robotic milker three or more times a day.

Others visit less often, but either way is fine with Jaworski, who saw automation as a key to his plan to begin dairying on his parent’s farm about eight miles west of Green Bay.