The future is cow

Despite being new to ownership, David Trimner of Miltrim Farms isn’t worried about putting on an event with the scale of Marathon County’s annual June Dairy Breakfast.

Every June, dairy farmers — and enjoyers — across Wisconsin celebrate National Dairy Month with cow print, dairy sales, awareness campaigns and the seemingly omnipresent dairy breakfast.

This year, Athens-based Miltrim Farms will host the Marathon County June Dairy Breakfast. In addition to its traditional breakfast of scrambled eggs, pancakes with maple syrup, sausage and cheese curds, this year’s dairy breakfast offers a tour of the host farm, a visit from Alice in Dairyland, a farm-themed bounce house for the kids and a children’s pedal pull. Oh, and did we mention that the cows are milked using robots?

“We’re very excited,” Trimner said. “The older generation is helping out with it… It’s kind of a tag team tackling this big thing.”

The ‘older generation’ in question includes the farm’s previous owners, Trimner’s mother and uncle, who Trimner and his business partner Andy Miller bought it from last year.

“[The farm] was started by my dad, uncle and grandpa,” Trimner explained. 

Although Miltrim Farms’ website dates its history back to Walter and Esther Miller in 1931, the family began building its farming legacy with the arrival of settlers in Athens at the tail end of the 19th century. 

Walter Mueller was the son of Herman Mueller, himself a farmer and carpenter and the son of German immigrants, who had originally moved to Athens for a job with the Milwaukee-based Rietbrock Land and Lumber Company, according to a family biography compiled by the Clark County History Buffs from official records. There, Herman Mueller met his wife, Wilhelmina Duenow, whose father “had been working at Rietbrock at the same time.”

When Duenow’s father passed, “Herman Miller and his wife then moved to his land, clearing it, and from then on devoted his life entirely to farming.”

The biography lists five children born to the couple, but we’ll focus on Walter. Born in 1889, Walter attended school in Athens and helped his father with work on their farm “until he was about 19 years of age.”

Afterward, he took up a career in carpentry, eventually moving to Fond du Lac, where he met his wife, Esther.

Walter’s siblings similarly moved out, making families of their own. When Herman retired at the age of 72, he sold his farm to his youngest son, Herbert, before moving with Wilhelmina to Milwaukee.

To say the least, the Muellers’ family line has gotten scattered over the years. Somehow, however, the family keeps winding up back in the same place.

Which leads us to the origin story on Miltrim Farms’ website. In 1931, Walter and Esther Mueller returned to Athens, where they bought a farm consisting of 80 acres of land, eight cows and 50 chickens.

Five more Muellers joined their family. 

In 1956, their son Martin purchased what Miltrims’ site refers to as the ‘Home Farm’ from his parents. He and his wife Elaine Polk had two children, Tom and Kathy.

We’re almost to the end, we promise.

In 1988, “a new partnership was established between Tom and Lorene Mueller, Martin and Elaine Mueller and Scott and Kathy Trimner,” according to the Miltrim Farms website. Yes, that Tom and Kathy. Noticing a trend?

“I would say one of the big things people need to remember is 90% of Wisconsin dairy farms are family-owned,” said David Trimner.

Pooling their resources, the three families purchased what is today Miltrim Farms, expanding it piece by piece over the next 30 years.

David Trimner purchased the farm alongside Miller, who has been working for the farm for about 20 years, and their wives last year.

Trimner himself has been involved with the farm since he was little and has always known he wanted to join the family business. After getting a bachelor’s degree from UW-River Falls, he returned to the farm in 2016 to work full-time.

“This was my goal for a long time,” said Trimner. “I’m right where I want to be.”

Last fall, the crew at Miltrim Farms built a pickleball court, formally named the Pickle Shed, on their property. Currently, the facility is undergoing a transformation for the dairy breakfast, where it will serve as a dining area for hungry visitors.

In 2019, the farm built the robotic milking facility it uses now, with the construction of a second phase in 2021 allowing its team of 50 full-time workers to milk a total of 3000 cows.

When pressed about how many cows a single person could feasibly milk in one day, David Trimner threw out an estimate of about 40. With the robotic milkers, that number shoots up to 300.

It’s a level of efficiency that Miltrim Farms prides itself on, not only for the burden it lifts from its farmers, but because it allows them time and energy to focus on the comfort and wellbeing of all 3000 of their cows.

“We’re really proud to be dairy farmers and we’re blessed for the great team on our farm,” said Trimner.

In addition to caring for a literal legion of cows, Miltrim Farms pushes for environmentally sustainable practices around the facility.

“We focus a lot on protecting the soil, using cover crops to protect the soil, using minimal or no till whenever possible,” explained Trimner. “Our hay is a blend of different grasses and clovers and alfalfa… We see our manure as an asset and not a waste and we want to make sure that the plants get those nutrients.”

In addition, while dairy production requires enormous amounts of water — daily hydration for a single cow requires about a bathtub’s worth of water alone — the team at Miltrim Farms tries to reduce waste where they can.

“Every gallon of water is used multiple times, whether for cooling milk, washing cows/walkways or cleaning up the flume system to wash out the sand,” said Trimner. “We try to provide a great environment on the dairy as well for the employees and also our cows.”

They also reclaim about 95% of the sand they use for the cows’ bedding, Trimner said.

“Sand is definitely the best bedding for cows,” he continued. “It’s more comfortable. It stays cooler. It’s kinda like a beach for cows.” 

And while sand can be hard on farm equipment, the cows’ comfort is key. Like the saying goes, happy cows = happy milk.

If that’s not enough to convince the kids to roll out of bed early during summer break, though, Trimner’s got a few suggestions.

“We could tell them that they get to see the cows get milked in robots,” suggested Trimner. “They get to play in the bounce house. It’s a big combine bounce house. If they want, they get to participate in their age group for the pedal pulls and potentially win a prize for that and see what a dairy farm looks like.”

The 2025 Marathon County June Dairy Breakfast will be held from 8 a.m. – noon this Sunday, June 29, at Miltrim Farms, located at 115315 Township Road, Athens. Tickets for the breakfast cost $10 for adults and $5 for children ages five–11. Kids four and under get in for free.

For more information about Miltrim Farms, visit https://miltrimfarms.com. In addition to the farm’s history, the website offers stats about the farm’s cows, venue rental information and video tours of the robotic milking facility.