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Ask Randy Bearden about his life and he’ll most likely launch into tales about his wife, Carol, and their four kids or the men who came before him in the dairy farming business. A fourth generation dairy farmer, Bearden says the legacy of dairymen in the family business is hard work and family life through good times and bad, values and insights passed on by his father, grandfather and the great grandfather who started it all.

Ask him about dairy farming and the first thing he says is, “Watch your step. We have cows here.” Carefully watching their steps through the years, brothers Randy and Wayne Bearden are successfully operating a business in a state that has seen dairy farms dwindle from 3500 in 1955 to 101 today.

The Bearden dairy farm story began in Helena in

Randy Bearden is a fourth generation dairy farmer who values the dairy legacy of hard work and family values in both good times and bad.

Randy houses 50-60 bottle fed calves in "calf-condos."

Randy Bearden said it’s sad to see dairy farming in such decline. Today statewide, 18,000 cows give seven gallons of milk a day. That’s not nearly enough for Alabama’s needs. “It’s economics that’s driving Alabama dairy farmers out of business,” Bearden said. “Less than 30 percent of the milk needs in Alabama are produced in the state. Much of the state’s milk comes in from Texas, Louisiana and several others.”

The last two years were the roughest Bearden personally has seen. “If you had talked to me last year, you would have three pages of whining. Prices were way, way down, comparable to the ’60s. We borrowed money and then we borrowed more money. But just in the last month, things are looking up. Currently milk is

At the 1000-acre Shel-Clair Farms, 220 cows per day are milked by machine with another 160 heifers being grown to milk. As cows ambled in from holding pens to be hooked to the machines, dairy farm worker James Mason commented that the cows like to be treated nice. He said working at Shel-Clair for seven months has been enough time to learn that the cows have likes and dislikes. They’re all black and white, but no two Holstein cows are identical in looks or actions. “They have personalities and you get to know them one by one. I treat them nice and they cooperate,” he said.

Milk straight out of the cow is 101 degrees and must be cooled to no more than 38 degrees in the tanks where it waits to be picked up by “Dairy Fresh” company trucks. Each cow consumes about 60 gallons of water per day plus 100 pounds of feed and silage to produce about 64 pounds of milk. That converts to 8.6 gallons or 90 glasses of milk per day. It’s enough to make about six pounds of cheese or 2.6 pounds of butter.

A short distance from the milking barn, 50-60 calves are housed in what are known as ‘Calf Condos,’ a community assortment of igloo-type huts. These bottle-fed babies are weaned at eight weeks, then moved to a series of pastures until they reach 24 months and 1200 pounds to become part of the milking herd. They’re bred at 15 months.

A slender man with a quick smile and close-cropped hair topped by a “Got Milk?” logo cap, Bearden says he is the public relations, willing-to-talk-to-the-media part of the Bearden brother team. “Wayne took off as soon as he saw you coming,” he chuckled, and ticked off on his fingers the positive things about dairy farming.

“It’s a good way to raise kids,” he began. “Agriculture in general is a satisfying contribution to the world; I have no time clock to punch; my commute to work is only 100 yards; and I’m my own boss. How can you not like this? We produce a valued product that gives a person his daily dose of calcium, eight essential vitamins and minerals and we get to wear these cool hats,” he laughed.

As for the down side, he continued, “Dairy farming, like all agricultural endeavors, is dependent on the weather, fluctuating prices, and you’re never finished, with always something else to do, seven days a week.”

Quirky weather may be the worst thing dairy farmers have to contend with. Last year’s torrential rains wreaked havoc in the Bearden fields where corn and silage are grown for the cows. “My family said I looked like Moses trying to part the sea when I was wading around out there,” he said. This year’s newly planted corn is about as high as a gnat’s eye so far, but it hasn’t been drowned out either. “It’s a good life and we can make a living. I have no complaints right now,” he admitted.

The Beardens raise corn and sorghum silage for feed, but buy alfalfa hay, coastal hay, cotton seed (the fat in cotton seed converts to energy), and a grain mix from operations as near as Georgia and as far away as Oregon. The two confer with a nutritionist to coordinate feed for best milk production and good health for cattle. Winter grazing is on rye, wheat and rye grass.

Yes, it is time consuming and vacations have to be carefully choreographed so somebody is minding the milk, but help is willing and available. Computer files keep up with production,

expenses, and bloodlines (cows, not relatives) and the Mid-State Farmers Cooperative is on fast dial, too.

“Mike (Clelland, manager of Mid-State Farmers Co-op in Columbiana) is a good man who goes above and beyond. We get feed and chemicals from him, and when we’re in a pinch and the weather is changing, he’ll come out on a moment’s notice and spread or spray until dark with the headlights on the truck.”

Bearden is a member of Alfa Farmers Dairy Committee, and SUDIA (Southeastern United Dairy Association), a promotion agency which collects 15 cents for every 100 pounds of milk collected. “That’s what pays for the ‘Got Milk’ promotion,” Bearden said, tipping his hat.

Fran Sharp is a freelance writer from Alabaster.

Shel-Clair Farms milks 220 cows per day by machine.