Owner involvement is still crucial, he says. If you really want to do a good job of dairying and animal husbandry, it's a lot of work. Each cow is an individual. Our top-20 list ranks dairies that have common management and ownership. Ties are broken by estimates of who's growing most.
Numbers are from the dairies, or multiple sources.
The list leaves out leading families in dairying that have strings of partnerships, often between parents and children. If those chains were one business, some would own 30,000 cows and up. Today, some children are buying out their parents. We welcome suggestions for additions or changes. Successful Farming , November, 1998.