WELCOME TO LUCKWALDT AG
The Luckwaldt Farm was settled in January of 1884 when Theodore and Marie Luckwaldt immigrated
from Stettin Germany with their four children. After many generations of farming, what was once a multi-
species farm turned into solely a dairy farm. During the 1990’s the farm was purchased from Dan’s Uncle and Aunt Lloyd and Jeanette Luckwaldt (1993) and from Dan’s parents, Marv and Angie Luckwaldt (1999). Additionally in 1999, Dan and Mary got married and the farm expanded from 125 cows to 320 cows
As the farm gradually increased in size, the current freestall/parlor setup was built in 2012. Today, our
1600 cows are milked in a double 20 parallel parlor with a walkout basement underneath the milking
platform. The main freestall barn is a cross vent barn while the older freestall barn is naturally ventilated.
Numerous fans and sprinklers are in each barn to keep cows cool in the summer. All the cows are bedded with the gold standard in cow comfort- sand. Sand is added to the stalls 3 times every 2 weeks, and is recycled in a sand separation system. In 2025, about 450 genetically selected female calves will be kept and grown on the farm as replacements. At 5 months of age these calves will travel to Circle Bar Heifer Ranch in Santanta Kansas where they grow for another 17 months. Circle Bar has raised our heifers for over 10 years and the arrangement has served us well. When heifers are about 45 days from calving, they return to our farm.
To feed our cows, we crop around 2200 acres. While we own some of this land, we are very thankful for
over 40 landlords who allow us to rent their land. Like many dairy farms, a fair amount of our corn is
raised with some combination of nitrogen credits and manure with almost no commercial fertilizer.
Unfortunately space doesn’t allow us to name everyone, however, we would like to highlight a few
individuals who have been central to our success. We are blessed to work with our Herdsmen Patrick
Kusilek, and our Operations Manager Derek Fenner. We would also like to mention our former
Operations Manager, Bob Donahoe, who retired last August, but helped with our growth and success for
almost 25 years. Mike Dorwin and his team custom harvest our forages and grain. Dan Goodwin’s team
manages the majority of our organic plant nutrients. The health and productivity of our cows benefits
from our nutritionist, Kevin Lagerstrom and vet, Dr. Veronica Schommer. Tom Mahoney is our inseminator and the parlor continues to stay running thanks to Bill’s Dairy Supply. Compeer and Citizen State Bank have provided us with our financial needs. Finally, our milk is shipped by Oehlke Trucking to Saputo in Almena, WI. where various hard cheeses are manufactured including approximately two-thirds of our nation’s blue cheese.
High milk production will always be paramount, however at Luckwaldt Ag, we feel we have made
significant improvements over the years with cow comfort & health and have achieved above industry average metrics measuring health events and livability. This has been achieved by continually prioritizing all aspects of cattle husbandry and intense genetic selection for health traits aided by genomic testing. Not only do we believe this is the right approach, but consumers will increasingly be demanding this.
Thank you for coming and we hope you have a nice day!
Dan and Mary Luckwaldt Family