Jerry Letterman, of rural Webster County, and his brother, George, built five feed bays in 1985 to feed their own dairy cattle and within short order, almost without realizing it, Jerry discovered he was in the feed business.
“One neighbor and then another said, I’ll buy some of that off of you and before you knew it, we’d built 20 bays and now of course, barns and sheds. We haven’t added any buildings for the last 10 to 12 years, but there’s never enough storage for the feed,” he laughed as he answered the telephone again, a constant, day-long activity in his business.
“There’s a lot of product out there that can be fed to cattle,” he continued. “Ninety percent of what I do is by semi (truck) loads, buying and selling feed. I get 24-25 tons of feed that goes straight to the farmer. These days I do 95 percent of my business on the phone.”
Jerry is the first to say he has great help in getting the feed from wherever it is to where it needs to be. His son, J.R., works full time with him as do two grandsons, Andy and Robbie. His son, Bob, who works full time in construction, also joins them on weekends, while Jerry’s brother, George, has gone his own way in business with his own cattle.
“I haven’t milked since 1998,” Jerry continued, “but my son and grandson have gone back to milking and my grandson, Robbie has planted corn this year. There’s more corn planted in this area this year than I’ve seen here since the 1950’s. We’ve had a couple of good growing years. Soybeans are also doing all right this year. Robbie has 125 acres in corn and that’s the first corn that’s been planted on this land since 1966.”
Jerry has seen a number of changes come to the area in his years in agriculture. “There are not many 50-60 cow dairies left anymore. When I started this, there were a lot of them, but the majority now are 100 cows or better. We have more and more people buying their feed by the semi-load because they can save money buying it in the bigger loads. I enjoy trying to save people some money in their farm operations, helping them to make it.”
He thought for a moment. “The other change I’ve seen over the years is that most people feed outside now, where they used to all feed inside the barn.”
In addition to the feed and cattle work, Jerry and his grandson, Robbie cut walnut timber and Jerry makes walnut rocking chairs. “We cut somewhere between 1,000 and 1,200 walnut trees this past winter. I enjoy cutting timber, when I don’t have anything else to do,” he laughed, as he answered the telephone again.
“We have 500-600 acres on this farm, which includes the 187 and a half acres my great-grandad bought in 1906 when he started farming here,” Jerry added with a smile. “Farming is a hard living, there’s no doubt. I don’t have any great advice for the next generation except be prepared for a lot of hard work, but it is a satisfying existence, if you can keep your debt low.”
Jerry’s sons and grandsons have chosen to follow in his footsteps, deciding that “a satisfying existence” is worth the hard work involved.
