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"CELEBRATING OVER 150 YEARS IN BUSINESS"
THE MASHEKS
Hilltop Acres Farm is a sixth generation family farm located 2 miles west of Calmar, IA. The farm was founded in 1854. It is one of the oldest homesteads still in the family name west of the Mississippi River.
John, Dennis's dad and the fifth generation, started identifying his 34 Brown Swiss cows through the Brown Swiss Association's I.E. program in 1968. Hilltop Acres Farm got its prefix around 1964.
In 1981, Dennis came back to the farm, after a short course at college (ISU) and started farming with his parents on a percentage of the milk check. In 1984, he married his wife Barb(Vrba). Dennis & Barb purchased a mobile home and moved it on the farm just east of the house. They lived in the mobile home until December of 1992, when John & Dorothy retired and moved to town. They then moved into the house on the farm. The mobile home was then used for housing for employees. The mobile home was removed from the farm in April of 2000, and this became Barb's beautiful rock garden. Dennis & Barb have 3 children: Joshua (17), Kylie (15) and Tanner (12), and are the seventh generation at Hilltop Acres.
On January 1, 1989, John & Dorothy and Dennis & Barb joined into a 50/50 partnership by Dennis & Barb purchasing 1/2 the feed, livestock and machinery on a lease/purchase agreement, and cash renting the land. On January 1, 1994, Dennis & Barb purchased the 2nd half of the feed, livestock and machinery and continued to cash rent the land. On January 1, 1999, Dennis & Barb purchased the 470 acres of land.
Currently, Hilltop Acres Farm consists of 470 acres - 320 tillable (growing corn and alfalfa) and the rest pasture. Hilltop Acres Farm currently has 400 Registered Brown Swiss with 165 milk cows. The milk cows are housed in a 120 cow free-stall barn and are milked in a double 6 parallel parlor three times a day. The cows are fed a TMR ration that consists of haylage, corn silage, high moisture corn, dry hay, cottonseed and a mineral mix. We also raise all of our heifers and bulls.
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