Contact Us | Links

Junior Annual Meeting

Annual Meeting Minutes 2009

Click here to read the meeting minutes.

The Juniors would like to give a special thanks to Pauline Erbsen who donated two hand-quilited items for the Junior Silent Auction held at the Senior Convention held in December.

Sauder's Jersey Farm

After the Junior Annual Meeting was finished, we went to Sauder’s Jersey Farm in Trenton. Mr. Sauder has five kids. The farm was pretty muddy so we didn’t get to see the farm’s feed shed, but we did get to see the show cattle barn, milking parlor, and a flat barn. The farm started with six to eight head in a flat barn. Now they are up to approximately 100 Jerseys with a few replacement Holstiens. The farm is currently under construction to build a seperate dry cow barn.

In the show barn there was around 20 tie stalls and approximately 20 box stalls. As soon as you walk in the barn you come to an office for the farm. Walking out of the office you come to the stalls. The building was in the shape of a T. In the back was the tie stalls and in the front was the box stalls. There was four or five cows tied in the tie stalls. In each box stall there was one or two cows. In each box stall there is two levels. The top level was the place the cattle laid down. There was a nice bed made for them. The two oldest boys told us the names and some information about each cow. In one of the corners of the barn there is a wash rack.The family cleans each stall around three times a day. In the upstairs part of this barn you had the hay loft on one half and a appartment in the other half. In the flat barn he has his calves, milking cows, and dry cows. Every day he has to turn over the saw dust in the barn.

We really appreciated Mr. Sauder allowing us to come to the farm, and now we all have a better understanding of at least one Jersey farm in Illinois!

Dakota Grayling, Reporter