Plamann Farms

ther, Ed, and the two farms worked in conjunction. Today, the farm purchased by Art is the main barn. In the mid 1950s Art’s other son, Donny, got out of the service after the Korean War and started farming with the family. Together Merlin and Donny bought, what is known in the family as, “Barn Number Three,” just down the road. The two brothers bought out their father, Art, and farmed together for decades. With three barns and about 200 acres, the two men took what started with their father as a herd of 25 Guernsey and Holsteins to 40 cows in 1957 and 85 cows in 1976. Merlin and his wife, Adeline, raised four sons and one daughter on the farm. For decades Merlin farmed alongside his sons, Larry and Keith. Today the boys and Mary Jo, Larry’s wife, run the family farm. David, the oldest son, is retired and acts as a faithful sidekick to his brothers, helping with work on the land and any and all odd jobs. Today the family farms not only their own 200 acres but also an additional rented 250 acres. They grow corn, alfalfa, small grains and soybeans. In 1990 they added a heifer barn and manure pit. A new milking parlor was added in 2009. Over the years Mary Jo’s love of animals has added pigs, chickens, guinea hens, horses, rabbits, sheep, cats, dogs and an especially mean goat, named Snibbles, to the herd of cows at various times. Larry and Mary Jo’s children, Lara, Casey and Abby, spent many summer days riding their bikes as fast as they could to their grandmother’s house at the farm down the road to escape the evil-spirited Snibbles, and get a homemade treat! Mary Jo loves any and all animals and focuses her time on the farm to caring for the calves in their first months of life. Plamann Farms loves its cows, giving them full names, not just a number. Every year cows from their fully registered herd are shown at the Outagamie County Fair, and Plamann cows have been shown at the Wisconsin State Fair, Central Wisconsin State Fair and the World Dairy Expo. Lara, Casey and Abby all showed Plamann cows through 4-H as children. The Plamann family can’t imagine life on a factory farm because the farm is such a part of their family. Larry and David’s children grew up picking rocks out of fields with their grandpa, dad and uncles. Baling hay was and still is a family experience, with everyone who is available lending a helping hand. New spouses to the family learn what it means to be a Wisconsin farmer as they wipe sweat away with a hand covered with hay and dust. Everyone remembers the best part of these days in the past ending with a cookout at Grandma and Grandpa’s place...the original Plamann Farms.