Shawn Feikema
Appearances
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Not like it used to be 30 years ago. When you weren't in the house or in the office, you weren't connected. So you could just ignore it now. You're connected all the time. It doesn't matter. Your phone starts beeping at 6 a.m. and it don't shut off until 10, 30, 11 o'clock at night. And so I think it's just a matter of, there just comes a point where you do, you just have to put it down.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
But yeah, I mean, we do our own tiling, and I've completely bent the back framing of a Crary tile plow mounted on my 9RX. I mean, you hit them, it does not move. That doesn't sound like a good day.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
and uh really made a bad day yeah yep yep how long have you guys been doing your own tile 2008 so 15 years wow yeah i'm sure that has uh paid extreme dividends yep yep uh we always say we're paying you're gonna pay for tile whether you have it or not so that's how we look at it and uh Yeah, we're going to start a project. So a lot of times we'll try and tile behind our small grains.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
So Monday is kind of our go time. We've got a quarter section we're going to try and put. I think it's scheduled to have like 117,000 feet of tile put in it. Wow.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Yep. So our rotation, I mean, right now it's typically, I'd call it a corn soybean rotation that we're continuing to try and add more small grains to. So this year we had like 680 or 690 acres of different small grains, whether it was oats, triticale, hybrid rye, cereal rye. I think that covers it.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Yeah. Yep. So it's typically grown, from what I understand, we grow it on seed production. So I have some seed production contracts with Milbourne Seeds or Renovo out of Brookings. So that's what we grow it for. But I think the dairies are, they love that triticale because it elongates, don't quote me on this, but it elongates and makes for better feed quality, but still gets you the tonnage.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Whereas rye, when it elongates and gets its tonnage, it loses its feed quality. So a lot of dairies are putting it in, and then they'll chop it off in late May or something, and then they'll put their silage corn in. That's my understanding. A dairy guy would much better be able to just grow it for seed.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
We've been running like corn, soybeans, so we do a fair amount of corn on corn. So in my ideal world, I'd probably like to go corn, soy. And then go back, go to a small grain and then go two years corn back to soybeans. And I like to follow my favorite. Our favorite thing is to follow oats. We're kind of going to we're going to pull away from the rice and the triticales.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
And we're going to try and grow more oats just because we can grow oats really well here. So that's kind of what we're going to concentrate on. And we get a lot of we get a lot better symbiosis or synergies between oats and corn. When we grow corn behind oats, we'll get 20 bushel plus above and beyond what we normally would. Wow.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
The following after that, we'll pick up a few bushel on the beans as well. Nice. So just breaking up that regular corn-soy rotation has really helped push some of our yields.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Yep. Landon Plagg. And his wife. I have not met his wife, or I haven't met them. I just talked to him on the phone yesterday.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Yes, that's what we were on the phone about, yep. Because it's supposed to be a farmer-owned, I think it's called Green Acres Seed Co. Green Acres Seed Co. And they're based out of Latimer, Iowa, but I think the plant is going to go on Albert Lee, Minnesota.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
And I had not heard anything about it until I was at Striptail Conference a few weeks ago and ran into some people that were talking about it, so... Started doing some investigating. But, yeah, it's kind of going to be a farmer-owned deal. So you buy shares kind of like they used to do the ethanol plants, you know. So I don't know. I'm pretty intrigued by it.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Yep, $6.50 a bushel for three years, and then they'll have a – It'll be from after that, I think. I should really not probably say too much because I'm probably going to get it wrong. But if you're interested, you'll just have to call them. Green Acres, yep.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
But yeah, they'll have some sort of inflationary type scenario that they'll base off of the products coming out of the plant, whether it's the flower or the meal or whatever they're selling. So, yeah. So are you trying to...
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
We are putting a cover crop in. Typically we're putting a cover crop in. And the one that we're probably most interested in going to is probably seeding the oats with clover. So the clover will just hang out underneath the oats until you take the oats off. And then it just kind of greens and it, you know, produces some nitrogen and some of that stuff. But right now we're,
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Right now we're doing radishes, turnips, vetch. We seed that all in behind our small greens. Done a little bit of work with some local guys who have mother cows. We'll actually lease out our cover crop acres and they'll graze them through, you know, October through Christmas or something like that. We've done that, you know, done that. It works pretty good.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
But typically I'm just after getting a cover crop in there to break up some compaction and some of that kind of stuff. Yeah.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
I think we started playing with cover crops 10 years ago on a really small scale and just have kind of been building. Last year or the year before was where we really took it to where we're going to put it on as many acres as we can possibly. find the time to get it put on.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Uh, no, no, we've been doing it just because we really like what we're seeing in the soil from it.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Um, so we're just, uh, yeah. So a lot of our ground is, yes, it's got all this rock underneath, but it is heavy black clay dirt. And so we get compaction really easily. Um, and it's wet. I mean, uh, I, Most of my friends can't stand to listen to me because every time it rains, I bid about it.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Um, and they, most guys like to have rain here when it's a drought, we're sitting right where we want to be because that's, that's where our ground shines. So, um, Yeah. So we're trying to find ways, hence tiling, and then just trying to get more water infiltration to try and be able to have the soil healthier and not run away. Um, we don't have a lot of slope here, but we have enough.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
And if it rains three to five inches or like this past June, when we had 10 inches in one week, um, I don't like seeing that dirt run at wash away. It drives me insane. So we've been doing a lot of rye after soybeans and, uh, we, um, Yeah, we just seed rye after soybeans, and then after our small grains, we're running these blends. So that's kind of what we're doing.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Yes, yep. So we actually started covers the very first – Cover crops I tried were before we went strip-till because we did a couple of fields, and then I thought, oh, I'm going to go out and till it in the spring, right? What a train wreck that was. That was like I had tilled up a pasture. So that was not –
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
the greatest idea but you know you learn as you go and you figure things out and and now you know we plant green most almost all our corn is planted green which has worked fairly well up until this year um this year it didn't work i i was not super happy i'm not i shouldn't say it didn't work it just my corn looked like crap because we're in north in southern minnesota we're not supposed to be planting in three foot tall rye um that we don't have the equipment for that and and
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Just because of the way the weather was, when the rye came out of dormancy the first of March, it just had so much time to grow. And when we planted the third week of April, it worked great. But then we got, like everybody else, we got all that rain and we didn't get back in for two and a half, three weeks. And by the time we got there, it was three feet tall. Some of it was over four feet tall.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
And yeah, so that part I hope I never have to do again. But if I can plant green in foot tall or less, I love it.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Yeah, that's a big deal. You know, people ask me, like, how come you're willing to try all this stuff? I'm like, because if I screw up, I make my brother take it and feed it in the feed yard somehow. You know, do something. We can figure out some way to deal with it.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Goes into feed. Feed. Run it through the roller mill and feed it.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Yeah, I think there's a lot of people that don't, you know. Yeah, the people from the outside. So we get a lot of tour groups that come through and different things. And they're like, well, why don't you try different crops? Like, there's got to be a market, you know? I mean, it's hard to beat corn. Corn and soybeans have the markets. They do because they grow well where we grow them.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
And so it's hard to find something that can compete with that, you know? Yeah. Which is unfortunate, but it's the reality of the world we live in.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
the N unit or N row unit, they called it. We started with that because I was convinced I had to have a 24 row to match up with my 24 row planters, which turned out, you know, the machine worked fine, but we have since then
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
uh traded for a 16 row coulter machine which i i like for our situation a whole lot better um number one the rock um but uh also i just i like the strip it makes better i need a wide you know i need a nice 10 inch wide black berm here um and i felt that does it better than that mole knife did um but yeah we do most our strips in the fall
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Um, we, we put down a little potassium in the strip, maybe like 50, 60 pounds. And that's about it. Um, we do not hardly buy any, uh, DAP or MAP or anything because of all the manure. So we have our feedlot manure, and then we have, um, relationships with a bunch of, uh, large swine producers. So we pump, we pump about 10 to 12 million gallons of swine manure as well. Wow.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
So we don't, we don't buy hardly any PNK fertilizer other than a little bit of potassium in some strips here and there. Um, And so, yeah, we strip in the fall. Mainly we're just making a strip other than if we're putting down a little bit. Some of our cattle manure acres we'll put, we'll VRT them. So we grid sample and then, you know, how inconsistent cattle manure can be in a bedpack situation.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
So we just fill in them holes with a little bit of P and K and, you know, just little low spots. But for the most part, we maybe put, you know, fertilizer on 10 to 15% of the acres of the field, you know, just to even it out. Um, and then, uh, and then, yeah, we just roll in, in the spring and plant our corn on corn acres. We do freshen if we didn't bail the stocks off of it.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
So obviously we bailed a few acres of corn stocks for bedding and stuff. So we'll, uh, we'll, uh, yeah, so we'll have, when we do corn on corn air, we don't bail it. We don't run a freshener strip through, um, or trip, but, uh, if it isn't bailed off, then we'll, we'll freshen freshen that corn on corn strip in the spring.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
No, no. Hence the reason I have the Coulter machine, because that one don't plug. What we did when we had that machine, so we ran that machine for like four years, I think, chopping corn head, But the biggest problem was always on the end rows when you let that machine down and you almost have to stop on the end headlands, drop it down and then go because there was never...
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
the the the coulter comes out of the ground as you lift that machine before the knife does and then that knife just acts like a dump rake yep you know so that's that's you know we some of the things we learned was like literally you stop on the end rows like the you know like you used to do way back in the day with a planter you know so you didn't overlap that's how you had to do it to keep it from plugging yep i do that but then even then is it that's not even foolproof
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Yeah. No, no, you're absolutely right. Yeah. All of a sudden you look back and you've got a Volkswagen plugged up underneath that thing, basically, you know, and you're dragging it along.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Yep. Yeah. You get real pissed. Yep. I hear you. And it doesn't clean out the best. Yeah. So that's part of the reason we've gone to the Colter machine as well, because that, that thing will fly right through that stuff. No problem.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Yeah, you did. You're one of the few. Mostly it's fecuma or some crazy thing like that. You nailed it.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
No heavens. No, no, no. Uh, we got a, a custom outfit, a sample tank services. Um, they, they do an amazing job. They run all RTK, um, They're running those big noon trains or whatever. Yeah. And they pump all of our manure for us.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
So they put everything in a, so all of our swine manure, they take all of our guidance lines and they have the, the, the, I think, I don't know if they call them VTIs or whatever bar. So they run 16 row bars and then they, they put it right where my strip is, where my strip will be. So they lay the hog manure there.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
We come back a week later with our soil warrior and freshen it and just make a nice strip out of it. And we plant right on top of the hog manure. So if you want good corn, that's the way to do it. We love that principle. It works awesome.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Yeah. I'm amazed. I mean, we were a little concerned about how do you keep, I mean, these things are 17,000 gallon tanks. Yeah. And I'm there. So there, there's trains. I'm like, ha, I don't know if that's going to stay on the strip very well where I need it very well. But yeah, And these guys are meticulously fussy. They do an amazing job.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
And they get my guidance line coordinates, and we give them our field boundaries. They'll just do auto whatever John Deere has, the auto boundary or whatever boundary track. And they get them set up, and they let it rip, and we just come back and freshen that right behind it. And it does an awesome job. Works great.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Well, our local school society just grilled like 40 loins Wednesday night. And we got rid of every single one of them. So we used a whole bunch of pork.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
It is crazy. And that's what amazes me about the beef market is how is the consumer really – I mean, Tanner, you can probably agree. When you just put it in your freezer because you have it – You don't think about it. You eat beef all the time. But, man, when you compare beef to pork or something like that, it's like, man, it is expensive.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Well, we're running Estes. We actually are running one Estes. So we've been running Estes concaves for, oh boy, six, eight years, something like that. And that was part of the reason why we went was because of the different crops we dabbled with. I mean, we dabble with more now than we did then.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
But back then, as I told some John Deere engineers, one time when they were out, they were asking some of these questions. And I said, well, I said, in my opinion, John Deere with the STS combine built the greatest soybean combine ever. They also made the greatest feed grinder for corn. And So that was really our real reason for switching to Estes.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
I was so sick of the fines, so sick of the cob in the tank, stuff like that. And so that's what led us down to the path of Estes, which then turned out to be great for all of the other grains we did too, because we didn't have to switch conkeys. So we ran down that path for quite a while.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
And then when I kind of stuck my foot in my mouth and said what I said to these John Deere engineers, they decided, hey, we can come up with something just as good. So that year, Todd hooked us up with a set of XPR2s, and we put them in a brand new 780. And we had the other combine just set up with regular round bars.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
And the engineers came out and watched us, spent a whole week with us, combine and corn. And by the end of the week, they had torn out a whole pile of parts in that one combine. So basically, I ran the Estes machine.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
And they, they, my uncle and the engineers were comparing all, you know, all week and they just kept taking parts out, putting different parts in, trying to get it to do the same thing. They did get it there. Um, ended up with a mostly convex set of concaves in that other machine. Um, and they got it very close grain sample wise.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
I would call them right on par with the Estes, not quite the capacity I can get out of an Estes. Um, I can get a little more capacity in corn out of the Estes. But both of them, we've been running two 780s now for three or four years, one with Condex, one with Estes, and we just continually keep comparing. And so both of them run with no, never changing a concave.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
But the Estes, in my opinion, still got an edge on capacity. Um, I have not tried the XPR threes yet, but yeah, so that's, that's kind of what, where we ended up with the, with the, that's kind of how we, the story of how we ended up where we did.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
So we will throw some covers in, uh, on some hard, like our trit. When I combine that trit, that's a little, it's kind of, the trit was kind of like combine. And I don't know if you guys have ever combined spring wheat. Uh, spring wheat is a bear cat to thresh. Um, and so that I did, it threshed a little bit like spring wheat.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
So I threw covers in on that one, but once we got done with that, I pulled the covers out and I never, I never ran any covers. So, yeah.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Well, and the way I look at OEM is, you know, deer's got to do what they got to do to make it for the masses, right? They can't customize a combine for everybody's unique situation. And, you know, if you're somebody that... Yeah, it just depends on your operation. If you're not pushing your combines hard, you can get a good sample out of them.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
But if you want to get max capacity out of these combines, and for us, we need to keep them combines rolling, I push them things to the point where, you know, the little power meter's right in the red. You know, the beeper should be going off telling you you need to slow down. Yep. And that's when we just could not keep a decent grain sample in an OEM concave. And the Estes, we can. So...
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Okay. Yep. I would agree. And then I think that's when we were that week, those, the John Deere engineers were running with us. That was the one comment they made. Like, like they, cause they had one guy riding with me and one guy in the, in the other machine. And he's like, like literally you made three passes across the field and the thing was set.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
I said, yeah, because they're so easy to set compared to, in my opinion, compared to OEM. You're dicked at all the time on a freaking OEM concave. Like, oh, it's cracking the kernels. Oh, I got a little too much cob. But you just set them Estus and let her rip.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Yeah. And I, you know, I, I, I don't, I don't want to bash John Deere cause I, John Deere has been great to us and, and,
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
I wish it had my guns in it. Unfortunately, it's just paperwork. Oh, no. The one that's not on camera is the one that has all the guns in it.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Uh, well, uh, right now guys are picking up bales and, uh, getting straw moved off the fields and seeding some cover crop. And, uh, Monday we're getting ready to start tiling. Uh, I think next week I got, uh, two Delta airlines tour groups coming in. So waiting for that. So really from where, uh, they come in from Atlanta from headquarters or, um, um, they come from,
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Minneapolis, wherever they're, it's their corporate customer. So it has to do with SAF, sustainable aviation fuel. It's kind of going down that. So we kind of got involved with that a couple of years ago through Jivo. So Jivo is a company looking to build a plant in Lake Preston, South Dakota to produce sustainable aviation fuel.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
They bought our old farmer-owned ethanol plant several years ago for their testing. It was an old ethanol plant that had kind of outlived its efficiency, but it made a great test site for them. So that plant is here in Laverne. And got to know them pretty well. And because we're strip-till and all that stuff, got hooked up with them. So we did some promotional marketing with them.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
And then next thing I know, we ended up doing a whole documentary about That kind of came out of that. So we got a documentary that we did on strip-till and different things. And then, yeah, so they bring out their corporate customers. So we've had Google, Nike, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. I don't know.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
We've had probably 300 people come through here, most of them who have never been on a farm. And we just show them what farming is and how sustainable aviation fuel works.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
would be would be made you know how it would be made from corn and and the whole cycle so we got two groups coming uh yeah next week tuesday and wednesday i think so getting ready for that because the only plant right now making saff is in georgia yes yep
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Unfortunately, I have gotten no gift baskets. It would be nice, but no.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Yeah, it's fun. telling people about agriculture. I mean, that's really, that's why we ended up doing our, you know, the documentary we did and different things. It's like, we just want people to understand what's going on in agriculture.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
We're the first generation that really has had to deal with teaching people about where their food comes from, because in the past, you know, we didn't have this many people living in urban areas. Everybody knew about agriculture. Now nobody does. So that's kind of the I don't know. It's interesting. It's fun. People don't, yeah. People just, I've had, I had one lady I'll never forget.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
She stood at the end of our driveway and she says, I can't believe people live like this. And I said, what do you mean? She's like, I never imagined that there's just this much open space and that this is how you live.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
I feel like I've seen this. Yeah, From the Heartland. It's on YouTube, and it's on any Delta airline in-flight movie entertainment.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
I wouldn't push it that far, but... We're going to.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Just remember, it's I or E before... Well, how do they say it? It's I before E except after C and in Fickema.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Yeah, we do have our own YouTube channel. Yeah, I'm not, you know, I'm not Zach Johnson. I don't carry a camera around everywhere I go or anything like that. That's just not my thing. And that's a lot of where all of this started was so like 2008, 2009, after TPAP, I got to be good friends with several guys from all over the country. And we decided that we were going to keep getting together.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
That was my dog. He was sitting nicely, but somebody apparently has walked in the office in the conference room over there, so he just... He doesn't like it when somebody else shows up. On point. I thought he'd lay there quietly. Hopefully he will from now on.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
And so we got together in Las Vegas with our wives. And it turns out our wives all get along great. But we said, hey, take some pictures or something of your farm so we can all share a little video or a little presentation of your farm. So we put this video together and then we're like, God, you know, I bet you we have a lot of landowners who'd like to see this type of thing.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
So since 2008, we've been building a video every year of a recap of the season that we send out. So we got to a point we were sending out like 100 and some DVDs. And then, of course, when YouTube came out, we started went down that path. So I think we got all the way back to like 2012 on YouTube, our YouTube channel right now. But, yeah, we still put together a film every year.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
um doing that or a film but uh yeah video of kind of the recap of the season and send that out so that's kind of how all of this started people started seeing that and then it just kind of it just blew up from there man that's pretty cool what's the channel's name uh it's just under ficama farms okay do you do much for any other social medias no i'm actually like I don't do social media at all.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
It's just not my thing. I don't know. I don't have Facebook. I do have a little Snapchat, but I don't take videos of myself very often. I don't know. It's just not my thing.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
I just research it, yeah. So, you know, all of a sudden I'll hear about Farm for Profit podcast, right? So I'll look at it and, you know, then that's where I start researching it. So I start watching it online if I need to. I don't know. I guess that's how... Yeah, I don't know. I'm really old school. I tell my wife all the time, I'm like, I'm really like two generations wrong.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Okay, fair point. You're right. I don't know. I'm just not a super social guy, I guess. I don't know. I just kind of do my own thing. I just do a lot of research before I do new things. I don't know. I just like to try new things all the time. Social media is just not one of them. That's pretty cool. For whatever reason, I don't have an answer for that.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
So if you want to get in touch with me, you almost got to send me an email or put it in a magazine.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
I'm one of the only guys that still says, no, I want my media in a magazine. In print, yes.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Yeah. Yep. There's room for it. I'm doing my part.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Absolutely. I wish I could have made it work during Farm Progress and gone down there and done it live. That would have been a great time.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Actually, I didn't listen to the end because I got interrupted and I had to leave, so I didn't get a chance to finish.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
You know... I, I, yeah, I don't do it real well probably, but guess what we've done? My wife and I, um, probably the best thing we did is we bought a place out in the black Hills that gives us a chance to just, I have to get away because otherwise I'm one of those guys that from the time I wake up to the time I go to bed, I'm working right.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Okay. So, um, yeah, you mentioned anything that we're a third generation on under this location.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Whether I'm sitting in my chair, I'm researching, I'm reading, I'm doing something. So, um, that's been a good one for us, but just, just, uh, enjoying the moment I got, you know, we didn't talk about it, but I got two, two daughters. One's a senior in high school and one's a sophomore in high school, both playing volleyball. So trying to get to most of that.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Um, the other thing that helps probably is, um, as we've, we've grown our operation, we have employees. So we try and we try and to be very family friendly. So, you know, if people have places they need to be, to be with family, that always comes first. Not that it's, you know, makes it any easier to leave. Right.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
I mean, I always feel guilty every time I leave, but there comes a point you just have to, you just, you just got to get away from it. We live in a world where you know, we're connected at every moment. And so you can't just set the phone. It's not like, not like it used to be 30 years ago. When you weren't in the house or in the office, you weren't connected. So you could just ignore it.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
My family's been farming for as long back as I can recall, but so yeah, we, my brother, it's my brother and I that own it and our wives, my uncle, I have two uncles that work with us here yet that they, you know, that generation, as you guys probably are well aware of, they just can't quit because it's really farming is what they do. And yeah, what they do.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Now you're connected all the time. It doesn't matter. Your phone starts beeping at 6am and it don't shut off until 10, 30, 11 o'clock at night. And so I think it's just a matter of, there just comes a point where you do, you just have to put it down. But I don't know. I always say I do it poorly because I struggle with that. Because I love what I do.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
I am super passionate about my career in agriculture. And so it's really hard to just not do it, right? It's who I am. Yeah, you're not alone. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think that's most farmers. And so you just... I guess some of the most fun with my family is just bring them into it, right? My daughters run grain carts.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
My daughters help me on the farm, and my wife is heavily involved in the farm. So our entire family revolves around the farm, right, wrong, or indifferent.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
No, it isn't. But you know what? At the end of the day, I'm sure you guys agree, there's no better way to raise a family. I mean, it is just the life lessons that are learned are invaluable for kids. What I learned, what my kids learn, I think is invaluable, and you can't replace that with really anything else.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Yeah. That'd be great. I had a great time. I had a great time. Love to sit down and have a few beers with you guys. Yeah, that'd be good. Do that. So that'd be great.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Yeah, I thought of that. I'm like, I'm not going to haul out beer now. It's just a little too early for that.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Yeah, I know. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, we just had our safety meeting last week Thursday, so I can't haul out the beer just yet.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
So, um, we got, uh, six full-time employees. Um, So, yeah, we crop farm. We do corn, soybeans, and we do quite a few small grains, strip-till, no-till. Yeah, dabbling a little bit in a lot of different things. We have a feedlot, so we market 5,000 to 6,000 head of fat cattle a year. Yeah, we row crop a little over 7,000 acres.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Yes, finally. Yes, yes. Yep, yeah. Finally, we feel like the cattle market is... is rewarding us for the years and years of just
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
eking by it's like oh well at least we got some manure out of the deal there you go that's when you start talking about the value of manure which it is a big value but it's like it is it is yep yep so so yeah that's a little bit of uh kind of what we what we do um trying to think if there's anything else you said wives do you have a couple of them or just just one wives yeah uh you know i i have one official wife okay yeah
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Yeah, so no, it's my wife and my brother's wife are pretty heavily involved as well. So we do monthly board meetings. We meet with our CFO, our tax people, and all that stuff. So everybody's in the room and going through financials and all of that stuff too. So that's how everybody gets a little involved and gets a way for us to keep communicating. And so we're all on the same page.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Yeah, fractional. Yep, yep. Actually, we hire their firm to do all of our tax stuff, and then they also offer CFO service. So he does it for a few other operations and not necessarily all ag. Most of them somehow related to ag, I think, but I don't know all of the other operations he does it for, but...
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Yes, absolutely. I would never, ever. I, you know, when I, when I went, I went to a two year college, Ridgewater college in Wilmer, um, came back to the farm thinking, you know, farming was, you know, we're going to haul manure. I'm going to combine and I'm going to plant. And, uh, it didn't take me long into it to realize that, you know, there was more to farming than just pulling planters.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
And, you know, it was a business, right. And, and my, my dad and my uncle already had the operation at a sizable spot. I think they had 2,500 at a cattle on feed and stuff like that, but hog business, different things like that. But, uh, Kind of started realizing I needed to focus on some business stuff and ended up going to TPAP. I don't know if you guys are familiar with TPAP out of Texas A&M.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
It's called the Executive Program for Agricultural Producers. It was started by Danny Kleinfelter. And it's a one-week, it's a two-year program. You go there for a week of intense business stuff. And I went down there the first year, decided it was something neat and kind of, I guess opened my eyes to the agriculture business world. And so that's when I went, you know what?
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
I don't have the brains needed to run my operation where it needs to be from the financial perspective. So, and that all worked together with us going through our transition from one generation to the next. And that's how we kind of ended up where we did just because we started down the transition path. And then as we did that, I'm like, Hey,
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
We need somebody who understands financials really, really well and how to really set us up well for the future. And so that's kind of how it started. And that was probably 14, 15 years ago. So, yeah, because I think I went to TPAP in 2006 and 2007. Yeah, kind of just been doing that since then. Yeah.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Yeah. I don't think Danny Kleinfelter – oh, don't quote me on this. I know he had some health issues, so I'm not sure. He's not involved anymore. They've kind of taken it over, but it's like Dick Whitman, several university-type people are all involved with it. I know Mike Bolche from Purdue used to be involved. I'm not sure he is anymore. It's an amazing program when it comes to just –
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
dialing in it doesn't talk about production it doesn't talk about any of that so it's all about business and managing businesses for the next generation and beyond hell it sounds like a mini series yeah there's probably enough content yeah there yeah you'd have plenty of content there's a lot of uh a lot of great people involved with that or if that with that organization so so you said third generation at this location where were you guys before that
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Well, so my grandpa, my grandpa actually grew up in Hayward, Iowa. That's where he started where that's where he was born. So what is now considered Oak Grove state park in Iowa was their farm. Um, and it's right on the Sioux river there, I believe. And, uh, yeah, when he left the farm to go out on his own, then he moved to, uh, South Dakota actually by renter. That's where he met my grandma.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Um, and farm there for a little while, always just rented the farm. And then his first farm that he purchased was this one here. So he left those other two because he said, I don't want to live. I'm sick of living near a river. I am don't, I'm tired of flooding. So I'm moving away from a river. So that's what he did. Unfortunately, he found a lot of, you know, rock.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
Yeah. Right. Well, I remember my, you know, my dad and my uncle talking about too, like every March, just because farmers back then were more, more likely to rent the entire farm place. Every March, you had new people in church with you. Every March, there was a parade of farm equipment moving from one place to another because they lost their rented farm here, so they had to find another one.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
I agree. I can't hardly imagine what that would be like, but they do it all the time, I guess.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
We don't struggle so much with your field stones. As much as we have solid ledge rock, we call it, it's solid granite. So, I mean, we have granite outcroppings that we literally will cover them up because you can't... The only way to get them out of the ground is to dynamite them out of the ground.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
So you either just cover them up with dirt and farm over them so you don't have to go around them, or you dig out what you can, but most of the time you can't. So our ledge is basically from surface to... I don't know how deep it goes. We got a 400 and some foot well, and we never ran out of solid rock. Oh no. So it's solid rock underneath. It's great dirt on top. I mean, it's really great dirt.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
It takes a lot of tile, but yeah, it's somewhere between, you know, zero and, 40 feet, you're going to hit solid granite rock.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
No, no, no, no, no. I'm talking solid. Like we mine it here. We have two mines here that mine this granite out of. It's this red, that red quartzite type rock or whatever you want to call it. Yeah.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
No, it's actually put in asphalt. And a lot of our roads now, they crush it. So they'll dynamite it and then crush it, run it through crushers. And they use it for roads. And a lot of it's going into concrete and asphalt now.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
It makes awesome roads. The only downer is that the stuff is so jagged and sharp, it can be a little hard on tires. But we like it because it doesn't have no clay, so therefore when it rains, our roads are nice and hard, and I can still drive my pickup over it and not make it a muddy, sloppy mess versus regular clay gravel. Right.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Shawn Feikema - Feikema Farms
It can be, depending where you're at. Because like I said, some places the rock is at the surface and you aren't tiling. It is what it is. But most of the ground has got a minimum of probably six feet of dirt over the top of it. And it might come up in places in your field, but you can still tile.