'We want people to see it'

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Members of the Chapman family will June 7 be hosting the Monroe County Dairy Breakfast in Wisconsin. From left are Sienna, Gail, David, John, Duane and Peter Chapman.

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Peter Chapman, great-grandson of the original Chapmans, lives in the original house. Frederick and Catherine Chapman were immigrants from England who settled the original farm.

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Tiling a low field on the Chapman Brothers Dairy farm is a new addition to the cropping this year.

LeeAnne Bulman/For Agri-View

The Chapman family sells their milk to Foremost Farms Dairy Co-op; it's shipped by tanker to nearby Richland Center or Reedsburg, Wisconsin.

LeeAnne Bulman/For Agri-View

Fourteen concrete bunkers for feed and 8 million gallons of manure storage sit on the Chapman Brothers farm. Because it's a concentrated animal feeding operation, part of Duane Chapman’s job is securing permitting from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources for the structures.

LeeAnne Bulman/For Agri-View

Duane Chapman checks weights from a milking. Water from the plate cooler is recycled for use by the dairy cows. Water from cleaning the milking equipment is used to wash down the parlor.

LeeAnne Bulman/For Agri-View

The Chapman cows are milked in a double-15 parallel parlor. The 1,100 cows make maximum use of the facility. Duane Chapman and Dewey view the parlor at the end of a morning milking shift.

LeeAnne Bulman/For Agri-View

Gail Chapman, 84, is the oldest of the family members to help on the farm. Duane Chapman says, 'No one is going to take him out of that tractor until he says it's time.'

LeeAnne Bulman/For Agri-View

Springing cows are housed in a loafing shed near the milking parlor.

LeeAnne Bulman/For Agri-View

Calves are housed in group pens of 25 and use radio-frequency-identification tags to access their milk replacer.

LeeAnne Bulman/For Agri-View

LeeAnne Bulman For Agri-View

TOMAH, Wis. – On the edge of the Driftless Area of Wisconsin lies an 1,100-cow dairy that June 7 will be the site of the Monroe County Dairy Breakfast. The Chapman brothers, Duane and Gail – and their sons David, Peter and John along with granddaughter Sienna – hope to make the breakfast a time to show non-farmers that it’s okay to have a large herd of cows.

LeeAnne Bulman new mug March 2025 — LeeAnne Bulman

LeeAnne Bulman writes about agriculture from her farm overlooking the beautiful Danuser Valley on Wisconsin’s west coast. Email genwim2@gmail.com to reach her.