October 5, 2007 (Madison, Wisconsin) – This morning we headed down to Brodhead, WI to visit Spring Grove Dairy, our final tour stop. Established in 1999 and located in the south-central part of the state, Spring Grove is owned and operated by Dan and Mary Monson. Spring Grove Dairy was one of the first herds to sign up with the Advantage® program and having been on it for so long, it’s hard to find a bigger advocate for the program than Dan Monson. “I’m completely confident in the data coming on the bulls through the Advantage® program,” he says, “at times I have had up to four or five daughters of a specific young sire in the herd and I can say those daughters truly represented what the bull data showed.”

Front the the Milk House at Spring Grove Dairy

Impressive AltaROLEX daughter group

Currently there are 1800 cows being milked at Spring Grove in a Double 25 parallel parlor. Spring Grove utilizes a “basement system” where all of the pipeline and milking meters are underground. When it comes to selecting for genetics, Dan believes that milk will come from good cow management so he selects for feet & legs, udders and type using AltaMate.

Following the tour of Spring Grove, Showcase guests were treated to a fabulous lunch prepared by Mary Monson, who did the majority of the cooking herself! After lunch we the group loaded the buses once more and headed for Madison and World Dairy Expo.

In Madison, Alta hosted a wrap-up reception for all tour guests and clients in the Exhibition Hall where guests were treated to food and great entertainment from a live band. Cees Hartmans, Alta CEO, officially closed the Showcase Event and expressed his enthusiasm for a great tour and a great turn out of guests, as well as inviting everyone to join the 4th Edition of Showcase Tour in the Spring, tentatively scheduled to take place in California.

Thank you to everyone who joined the Showcase III tour and to everyone who followed along with the blog if they couldn’t join us. Stay tuned for details on the website about Showcase IV, we look forward to having you on the bus!

Tour guests were treated to a delicious lunch prepared by Mary Monson