In more than 30 years of running a dairy farm in Texas County, Richard and Shirley Best have seen a lot.
During that time, they’ve raised a family, bred cows that have produced millions of pounds of milk, and employed numerous people who are now familiar faces in the local business community. They’ve have had more than their share of success along the way, and have numerous awards to show for it recognizing the quality of their animals and products.
But all good things eventually come to an end, and this fall, the Bests will be hanging up their milk buckets and calling it a career. Their time as renowned figures in the dairy industry will conclude Oct. 19 when they conduct a complete herd dispersal sale at their farm near Houston, known as Best Sunrise Dairy.
“I guarantee we’re going to miss it,” Richard said. “We’ve both been around dairy cows all our lives, but we’re at a point when it’s time for us to stop.”
But while the Best’s retirement is imminent, it could be said that they’re going out with a bang. With only a few months remaining before their dairy’s last milking session, they played host last week to a large group of peers who were on a three-stop tour as part of the National Holstein Convention, which takes place each June and was being held this year in Springfield.
Put on by the Holstein Association USA, the event is staged at cities all around the United States, and is typically attended by well over 1,000 people. Last week’s convention (headquartered at Springfield’s John Q. Hammonds Arena) was the first hosted in Missouri in 28 years.
As part of the convention itinerary, participants take part in various tours of the surrounding area. On the second of three stops on the “Heart of the Ozarks” tour, two busses brought close to 100 dairy people to the Houston area Wednesday for a look at Best Sunrise (after a stop at the Dairy Farmers of America plant in Cabool and prior to a visit to the Laura Ingalls Wilder Home and Museum in Mansfield).
“It’s a great opportunity to show people how we dairy here in Missouri,” Shirley said.
Missouri is annually among the nation’s top states in production of dairy products, and Texas County is among the state’s top producing counties. Tour participants got to see a glimpse of why, as the Bests currently milk 100 registered Holsteins with deep pedigrees, many of which have world class genetics going back more than a dozen generations.
Best Sunrise currently sports a stellar BAA rating of 107.0, and many cows in the dairy’s herd have produced well over 200,000 pounds of milk in their lifetimes. The Best’s expertise has been well documented, and they were featured in a story and pictured on the cover page of Holstein World magazine in July of 2002.
Several years ago, Best Sunrise hosted a state-level field day, and many people important to the dairy industry in Missouri had a chance to see the operation.
The motto on the dairy’s web site reflects the Best’s lifelong goal: “A Passion For Breeding Good Cows.” The fruits of that passion end up being sold to Dairy Farmers of America (DFA), a Kansas city-based marketing cooperative that operates a plant in Cabool and produces consumer products including Borden Cheese and Keller’s Creamery Butter.
Richard said that being in the dairy industry has proven to be rewarding on several levels, but that people hoping to get rich quick may want to look elsewhere.
“It may not be the most profitable job there is,” he said, “but you have your own accomplishments and achievements and you can set your own goals. I guess you can make out of it whatever you want, but the main thing is to be honest with people and be proud of something.”
Richard and Shirley’s son, Mike Best, has a few cows in the dairy’s herd and has spent many an hour working around the facility since he was little. He said one of the reasons the Best herd has been so productive is that cows are treated like they matter.
“They’re pampered,” he said.
The pampering includes keeping barns, pens, and milking stations clean as a whistle, and providing cows effective shelter from extreme weather – both winter and summer. If it’s blazing hot outside, they can hang out in spaces outfitted with shade-providing fabric coverings and overhead sprinklers that spray water mist over them. If the temperature drops to single digits or in case of the occasional ice storm, they can escape to the comfort of clean indoor stalls.
Rather being fed a TMR (total mixed ration, an industry standard for larger herds), Best Sunrise cows dine in their barn on a special combination of grain and roughage, much or which is grown on the dairy’s 400-plus acre tract. They’re turned out onto grass as often as possible, and even get their hoofs trimmed regularly, something other cows might rarely – if ever – experience.
“When they walk right and feel good, they produce more milk,” Mike said. “It’s pretty simple really; you take care of them and they’ll take care of you.”
Best Sunrise cows are also not injected with BST, a production-enhancing synthetic hormone.
“DFA pays extra for us not to use it,” Shirley said, “but we really wouldn’t want to use it anyway. The closer you can keep it to natural, the better off you are.”
Not much is left to chance at Best Sunrise Dairy. Even the cattle’s waste is treated with special care. The material is gathered in a large, deep, lagoon and used as rich fertilizer on the dairy’s wheat, alfalfa and corn fields.
Shirley has historically been the family expert in cattle breeding and genetics, and has taken pride in painstakingly locating the right bulls to combine with her cows. The result has been several national show winners, All-Missouri winners, and recipients of the Distinguished Dairy Cattle Breeder Award, and Gold Star Dairy Award.
“We have several high quality animals,” Shirley said. “We’re kind of well known nationally for that.”
But dairy cows aren’t the only animals the Bests have dealt with over the years. Richard has raised border collies and taught them to respond to international signals so they can herd cattle anywhere. Dogs originating at Best Sunrise now perform duties on farms in numerous states as far away as both coasts, and even a foreign country or two.
During last week’s tour event, Richard and his female Freckles gave a demonstration in which the dog – following vocal commands – rounded up several calves and led them into a pen.
“I’ve enjoyed border collies and I couldn’t really do without them,” Richard said. “I don’t have a puppy factory, but my dogs are bred for working, and if they’re bred to work, they’re going to want to work.”
The Best’s upcoming dispersal sale has been advertised nationally.
“We’re hoping to attract several out-of-state buyers,” Shirley said. “Doing the convention tour thing should help, too.”
“It might not be the best time to disperse, with the dry weather and the economy the way it is,” Richard said. “But we just have to leave it in the Lord’s hands and see what comes out of it.”
Watching many animals leave that have been part of their lives for so long figures to be a bittersweet circumstance for the Bests.
“It should be quite a day,” Shirley said. “I’m sure there will be a few tears.”
For more information about Best Sunrise Dairy, the October dispersal sale, or specific cows in the facility’s herd, log onto http://www.holsteinworld.com/BestSunrise/, or call 417-967-2465.