OUR STORY
Blue Star Dairy Farms has been family owned and operated for several generations. The farm was first
established by William and Dorothy Meinholz in 1946. They later sold the farm to the next two generations.
Currently, Blue Star Dairy Farms is a family partnership between two third generation brothers, Craig and
Brian Meinholz, along with Jim Hahn, who started working for the farm 22 years ago at the age of 14 and recently became a partner. The fourth generation is showing interest in the farm industry as well, with one already
completing college and returning to the farm.
THE COWS
Blue Star Dairy Farms has two locations and milks around 2,100 holstein cows. The DeForest farm milks 900 cows
and the Arlington farm milks 1,200 cows.Calving and raising of replacement young stock for both farms is done at the DeForest location. All cows are
housed in free stall barns with sand bedded stalls. The heifer calves are housed in naturally ventilated calf
barns until they are moved to open front bedding pack barns at 2-3 months of age. The remaining heifers
are in free stall barns until entering the cow herd.
THE PARLOR
Cows are milked three times a day in Germania Herringbone style parlors. DeForest is a Double-16 and
Arlington is a Double-18 parlor. The DeForest and Arlington parlors are equipped with AfiMilk Weighing
System which monitors each cow’s daily milk weights, activity, and conductivity along with numerous other
functions. Average production per cow is 97# of milk per day.
