(SANBORN, IA) - It's not everyday you hear about a farm family who moved to Siouxland from out west. The VanEss family did just that three years ago when they picked up their dairy farm in Idaho and moved to Sanborn, Iowa.
Milking cows is a way of life for the VanEss family taking care of 3,600 cows to be exact and their nearly 10-acre barn hasn't been around for long.
"We were just looking for a place to expand and milk more cows and thought this was the place to do it," said Jeremy VanEss, an owner of VanEss Dairy.
The five VanEss sons and their families were once milking cows near Boise, Idaho almost 1,400 miles away from Sanborn, Iowa. They decided to move and build a bigger milk farm in 2008.
"We looked around several other places in the country and we thought if we're gonna move, we're gonna move where there's lots of space and lots of feed and where they want milk. And Northwest Iowa was looking for milk and so we chose this area," said VanEss.
Although the weather's a change of scenery, the VanEss family found a loophole.
"That's the nice thing about the facility we built. Everything's enclosed so the snow really doesn't bother too much for us and we're able to work inside most of the time so it's pretty easy," explained VanEss.
With 30 additional employees to give them a hand, the VanEss family now has a place where they can milk the job to their advantage.
"This is the brains of the parlor where the cows get milked," VanEss showed in the basement. "The cows and the milkers are above us. The milk comes down through the floor in these hoses. This is a sensor right here. That senses when a cow's not giving anymore milk."
The milk eventually gets loaded onto the milk trucks: About five and a half loads a day or about 30,000 gallons of milk. With a few years under their belts in the Hawkeye state, VanEss said he's happier than ever.
"It's been going really good. We really can't complain at all. Iowa's been great. We're happy to be here and don't think we'd really want to be anywhere else to be honest with you," said VanEss.
VanEss also said his family loves working with each other. When they get together for Christmas, they talk about the farm and that's the way it's always been.
