Twin Spruce dairy expansion would grow herd to 2,346 cows

Twin Spruce Farm North moved ahead with a herd expansion plan that would raise the Perham-area dairy to 2,346 cows, up from the 1,668-head final capacity listed in its earlier Otter Tail County feedlot notice. The project also includes barn upgrades, more manure storage and larger milk shipments to Bongards in Perham, tying the farm’s growth directly to the region’s dairy-processing backbone.

Using the USDA’s 2024 national average of 24,178 pounds of milk per cow a year, the extra 678 cows would amount to about 16.4 million additional pounds of milk annually, or about 44,900 pounds a day on an annualized basis. At Cornell’s estimate of roughly 150 pounds of manure a day per lactating cow, the same herd increase would also add about 101,700 pounds of manure a day, or 50.9 tons, which is why storage capacity sits at the center of the expansion.

The earlier permit notice said the existing facility had confinement barns with solid concrete floors and stored manure in lined earthen pits, and it gave nearby property owners formal notice before a public meeting at the Otter Tail County Government Services Center in Fergus Falls on March 14, 2023. That process put the farm’s footprint in front of residents within 5,000 feet of the site, a reminder that big dairy projects in Gorman Township are watched closely even when they are framed as routine farm investments.

The economic logic runs through Bongards as much as Twin Spruce. Bongards says its Perham plant can now process 5.5 million pounds of milk a day after a $125 million expansion, about 30% more than before, giving regional dairies room to keep growing without sending milk far from home. For Otter Tail County, that means more agricultural activity, more hauling and more capital locked into barns, land and processing equipment, all while the manure and traffic load rises with the herd.