Carter’s Corner

Greenville, Illinois

Tyler Carter developed his passion for breeding and developing Registered Holsteins working alongside his family at Carter’s Corner.

Tyler has had an exceptional, albeit young, career exhibiting Registered Holsteins at local, state and national levels. Opportunities to develop great individuals for the showring can come from different avenues. He enjoys evaluating the individual animal and tailoring a program to help her achieve her full potential. Tyler built a show barn with eight box stalls to cater to these individuals.

Beyond the show ring, Tyler enjoys developing cow families.

Tyler began utilizing IVF to facilitate the development of the next generation. In 2024, he constructed a satellite IVF facility on the farm. He recently partnered with TransOva Genetics, and they schedule donors to be collected every two weeks at Carter’s Corner. Not only does Tyler flush his own cattle, but it is also open to any dairy and beef farmers in the area.

Two notable cows with a heavy influence at Carter’s Corner are Ms Atwood Lacey and Uber-Haven Defiant Chrome-Red – both scored EX-95 on May 18, 2021. Two favorites Tyler is currently working with are Retso Sidekick Charlene EX-92 MAX and a high-genomic Homecoming daughter of S-S-I Doc Have Not 8783-ET EX-92 DOM.

Over the years, the Carters have also had success with high Cow Type Production Index (CTPI) cows and genomics. The farm currently has two exciting outcross bulls in A.I. – Carters-Corner FC HiHope and Carters-Corner Dazzle. Both hail from BGP Delta Harmony, who recently calved again.

When selecting service sires, Tyler is focused on creating well-balanced cows with longevity, especially as the show ring shifts its preference to a more moderate-sized, strong cow. Tyler selects sires with high type and udder composite, good strength and solid health and fitness traits. Heifers will get bred using sexed semen for the first two services before moving to conventional. Cows will get bred to either sexed, conventional or beef depending on their genetic potential and service number.

While Tyler’s passion for genetics and cow families has helped improve the farm’s herd, he has also taken the opportunity to market genetics. Tyler and his dad, Andy, maintain their 100-cow herd size by marketing cattle annually. The Carters will market cattle through both public and private sales.

Rolling Lawns Farm

Rolling Lawns Farm was established in 1910, and Michael’s great-grandfather, Samuel Schmollinger, became a member of the Holstein Association in 1920 – beginning the farm’s 115-year legacy with Registered Holsteins.

Rolling Lawns Farm milks 85-head of Registered Holsteins and operates with five employees at the dairy farm and ten employees at the processing plant. All of the milk produced at Rolling Lawns Farm is processed into Rolling Lawns products. The product line includes six flavors of milk, half and half, heavy cream and ice cream – with the core products being whole milk for coffee shops and chocolate milk for grocery retail sales.

Rolling Lawns Farms processes milk five days a week – fluid milk on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and ice cream on Tuesday and Thursday.

The Milk house

On May 30, 2018, the Turley family bottled their first milk. Michael says it felt natural to take the Rolling Lawns prefix, started by Michael’s father in 1952, and utilize it for the consumer-facing brand.

The family opened The Milk House in 2019, using it as a processing facility and retail location. The walls within The Milk House paint a picture of the rich history of Registered Holsteins at Rolling Lawns Farm. These cows that grace the store help visitors connect not only to the farm, but with the cows through their pedigrees

While roughly twenty-five percent of sales occur at The Milk House, the rest come from wholesale accounts, including more than 150 coffee shops, grocery stores, restaurants and bakeries. Michael and his team travel 45 minutes east every day to St. Louis and its metropolitan population of 2.8 million urban consumers to service these accounts and deliver Rolling Lawns products.

Michael enjoys seeing how the accounts utilize, feature and talk about the offering – either in its use as an ingredient or as a consumable product. He’ll see coffee shops create a specialty latte around a moment in time, a grocery store run a promotion, or a restaurant highlight on their menu how they make butter – all endorsing and validating Rolling Lawns products as high-quality.

Wilra Farms

Wilra Farms is owned and operated by the fourth and fifth generation of the Harre family including Doug and his brother Curt, along with Doug’s sons Clint and Nick and Doug’s nephews Matt and Lucas. Everyone has their specialty they focus on within the operation.

Doug and Curt’s parents, Wilmer and Vera, were married in 1956. That year, they purchased their first two Registered Holsteins and the couple combined their first names to create the Wilra prefix. Today, the herd boasts a combined fat and protein of 8.05 and 121 pounds of energy corrected milk.

Embracing genomics early on has been key in the family’s success to making and marketing high-genomic individuals. On average, the Harre family sends fifteen bulls into A.I. annually.

On the farm, the Harre family utilizes embryo transfer with the top eight percent of females in their herd. They rank females by adding their Net Merit Dollar (NM$) genomic value plus their Total Performance Index (TPI) genomic value and sort them from highest to lowest. The ranking is carried through the remainder of their breeding program where only breeding-age heifers with the highest values are bred using sexed semen for the first two services. The bottom forty percent of heifers are sold as weaned calves.

Approximately half of the 620-cow milking herd will carry an embryo, and the other half will be bred to a SimAngus or Angus sire – with the exception of a few high-end young cows that carry their own calf.

When it comes to sire selection, Harre looks at NM$ and TPI.

All calves born are identified using Holstein USA’s Basic ID program, and calves that are flushed are registered to enter them into the herdbook. The farm also utilizes Holstein USA tags for identification, and Sire Evaluations for Type (SETs) are conducted at the farm.