Day in the life: The Winemillers

MOUNT AYR – Craig Winemiller lowers hay into a field for cow-calf pairs Tuesday afternoon using his pickup with Annie, Australian shepherd mix, riding shotgun. Atop an all-terrain vehicle, Suz Winemiller watches on, smiling, as cows and calves run toward the food.

“It’s a way of life,” Suz said.

Essentially first-generation farmers, the couple launched a cattle operation from scratch – and later a trucking operation, too, with the purpose of diversifying.

Since, the operations have grown, but the majority of the work stays within the immediate family of the Winemillers: Craig, 46, Suz, 45, and their children, 19-year-old Tucker and 17-year-old Sara.

“We couldn’t do this without having a higher faith,” Suz said. “There’s a lot of days it’s like, ‘We don’t know if we can do this. God, help us out here.’”

“And, we couldn’t have done any of this without the people, the connections we’ve made,” Craig said.

Joining the cattle industry

Though Craig and Suz were both raised in farm lifestyles, their parents went through the 1980s farm crisis and got out of farming. By the time Craig and Suz each graduated high school, there were no operations or land for their parents to pass down.

So, for a while, the Winemillers worked in town. But often after work, they would go feed their neighbors’ cattle or help with calving.

“That’s kind of how it got started was just helping other people,” Suz said. “From there, we knew raising cattle was kind of in our blood.”

Cattle operation

It was then a gradual process of obtaining cattle and starting the operation, located north of Mount Ayr.

“It has changed a lot over time,” Craig said. “We used to do row crop, and we didn’t used to have this many cows. In ‘08 or ‘09, we started the feed lot.”

The Winemillers now have about 650 head in the feed lot and around 300 cow-calf pairs.

“We also rent a farm south of Highway 2, and there’s about 400 acres there that we rent, and that’s all pasture and hay ground,” Suz said. “We have about 100 head of cattle there that we calve out.”

The family also works 80 to 100 custom cows.

“There are people who want to own cows, but they don’t want to take care of them, so we take care of their cows for them,” Craig said.

Earlier Tuesday, Craig and Suz watched on as Tucker worked and Annie herded cattle into one of the cattle sheds. Without professional training, Annie learned to herd primarily by watching the Winemillers’ previous dog herd.

“She’s the real worker,” Suz said of Annie.

Later, Tucker would mix feed for the cattle – a job done twice a day. Using a skid loader, Tucker dumped portions of hay, hominy, corn and distillers into a feed mixer and then distributed feed to the cattle.

The cattle each eat about 40 pounds of feed per day. During the summer, the family makes about 2,500 bales of hay to last through the cold months.

“We all just team up and do everything,” Craig said. “Sara, she rakes hay in between softball games and everything she does. And, she helps us work cattle on the weekends.”

Tucker added: “Whatever there is to do, we just do it.”

Trucking operation

At first, the Winemillers hired someone to haul their feed, but it was suggested to them to purchase their own semi truck.

Knowing little about trucking at the time, the Winemillers decided to buy their first one just for personal use.

“That was six or seven years ago, and since then, it seems like we bought a semi a year. It just kind of kept growing,” Suz said. “Now, we have five full-time guys we keep busy every day hauling feed to local cattle producers.”

Using their six semis, the operation involves collecting feed from ethanol plants and hauling it to feed lots throughout Iowa and beyond.

“We’ve taken some clear to Oklahoma – chicken feed. It’s not all cattle, but mostly cattle,” Craig said.

It’s been a learning process to run the operation and also a challenge in terms of truck maintenance.

“Something’s broke every day on a truck, and the guys don’t get home till 5 or 6 o’clock, so you might spend half the night getting the truck ready,” Craig said. “We’re pretty much redneck mechanics, but when it gets deeper than we can handle, we have a kid that works in town who will come out and work on them. He’s really good, and he’ll stay here as long as it takes to fix them.”

Building the operations

While Suz said running a trucking operation is rather odd, as not many farmers run such an operation on the side, it’s one that has helped them financially through the trials and errors and the markets for the cattle operation.

“The markets right now are terrible. It’s challenging,” Craig said. “When you’re a little guy, you’ve got to diversify, and we decided to try something else to bring in some income.”

The Winemillers’ goal is to build up the operations and, eventually, have something to hand down to the next generation.

As Tucker bought his first 35 head of cattle his senior year of high school and works cattle daily, he’s the one most interested. Sara, on the other hand, wants to study kinesiology.

“We hope to build something for our kids,” Suz said.

As a small family operation, some days go smoothly, while others are trying. With this in mind, when the Winemillers built the cattle sheds, they inscribed the exterior of each shed with pieces of Biblical encouragement: one reads “Phil. 4:13” and the other “Ps. 37:4.”

“So, when we’re out here fighting the battle, it’s a little reminder,” Suz said.