Triangle Acres Farm - Freeport, Illinois

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We want to welcome you to Triangle Acres, still the Home of Blonde Haired Kids and Big Brown Cows. We are honored and excited to be one of the tours during the upcoming 2022 World Brown Swiss Conference. 

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We have been a family owned and operated dairy for over 75 years, milking 87 head of Registered Brown Swiss with a sprinkle of Holstein and Ayrshire now. Our rolling herd average is 24,370m 1029f 862p. We manage 200 acres of pasture and crop ground growing mainly corn, barley, and alfalfa. The farm was started by Russel and Eva Korth in 1942 milking registered Brown Swiss in a tie stall facility where we still milk our herd today. John and Wendy started transitioning into the operation in the early 80’s while raising their family on the farm - Rebecca (Becky), Elizabeth, Amanda, and Benjamin (Ben). Each of the children aided in the day to day chores. 

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Today, both the farm and the family have grown with the 3rd generation taking on a larger part in the dairy’s operation and management. We’re fortunate enough to be raising the 4th generation on the farm as well. Their love for the animals, tractor rides, and overall lifestyle is a valuable motivation to continue moving forward.  Triangle Acres is currently operated by John and Wendy Korth, their son Ben, daughter Becky, and lifelong employee Tim Ritschard. John and Wendy still do the majority of the milking twice a day. John manages the day to day operations and overall animal health. Wendy cares for all of the newborn to 2 month old calves and takes care of all the bookkeeping, registrations, and records. Ben is in charge of the crops and managing the fieldwork. He’s also taken on more responsibilities in the breeding program. Both Ben and Tim aid in the day to day activities and share the responsibility of mixing and feeding the milking herd’s daily ration. Becky handles the daily care of the youngstock from weaned calves to springing heifers, the show cattle, as well as the transitioning dry cows. 

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Nutrition, a sound breeding program, and herd health are just 3 of the things we focus on at Triangle Acres. We work closely with our nutritionist to maintain a diet that promotes production and herd health. The milking herd is fed a TMR ration on a daily basis including haylage, corn silage, gluten, whey, and dry hay. Seasonally our milking herd has access to pasture for grazing and exercise and additional dry hay is added as a direct feed in their diet. The philosophy of our breeding program is a balance of type and production. We look to use bulls that offer good components, a positive DPR, udder quality, and good feet and legs. Timed breeding has improved our program. We’ve also shifted towards using our breeding age heifers as recips more often to capitalize on offspring from our higher end cattle. We have regular herd checks to confirm pregnancies or open cattle faster. Some of our success in maintaining our herd health includes administering calfhood vaccinations, Bovishield Gold prior to breeding, and routine hoof care and maintenance.

Our main goal is to be as close to a self-sustaining operation as we possibly can. This has come with some challenges in the current economy and our growing herd, so finding different ways of bringing in income has been a vital play to the operation. Marketing young stock for sale has become a priority along with cross breeding to Angus which adds a premium value to our feeder calf program.  

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At the end of the day, we enjoy a healthy milk check but we still want to enjoy caring for a herd full of beauties. We look forward to sharing more about our operation and showing you around the farm this fall!

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Cows

Variety is the spice of life and that is no exception on the Triangle. Not only have we diversified a bit in our breed of cattle, we’re gradually exhibiting more of our ladies in the show ring including the big top- World Dairy Expo. You will have the opportunity to see several different milking daughters and youngstock here including Cadence, Biver, Richard, Get Lucky, Flash, All In, Silver, Juke, Doboy, Famous, and Trek -just to name a few. The majority of our herd stems from and is most well-known for the Collection Polly family.  Polly was a very profitable cow both in production and reproduction. Triangle Acres Payoff with Accelerated Genetics and Polo with Select Sires were 2 popular sons that have had an impact worldwide. Today, we have several branches of the Polly family, the most well-known being the Prelude Zeus Peace and the Vigor Peach lines. These 2 families have produced several of our current herd favorites including Richard Pandora EX93-4X Nominated All American (granddaughter of Prelude Zeus Peace) and Seaman Peadazzle EX92 (daughter of Vigor Peach). Both of these exceptional cows and several of their family members have produced multiple records over 30,000lbs of milk. Triangle Acres Fact Prosper with NGG is a Fact X Brookings Poplar (daughter of Vigor Peach). He boasts super health traits. A few years ago, we invested in a very special young heifer from the Cozy Nook Twylight family-Brookings Terrific-2E91. Terrific is still with us and we’ve been fortunate enough to see this family grow within our herd as well. She has daughters by Kannon, Falco, and Daredevil and granddaughters by Juke and Dynamite. All super dairy, stylish cattle with the will to put it in the tank! Another Triangle family that has grown in recent popularity is the Jupiter (Dirk X Pursue X Powerplay) family. Although we’ve sadly lost Jupiter-EX94, her son Juke (New Generation Genetics) is carrying on in a big way. We’re seeing a lot of Jupiter’s qualities in the Juke offspring so we know she transmits! We have a daughter by Doboy which looks to be very promising, a son X Phantom that we will be using and ETs by Daredevil that we look forward to.