By Tamara Scully, NODPA News contributing writer
Goodell Family Farm, in Mantua, Ohio, is primarily an organic dairy farm, with an overall cow herd of approximately 80 head, with 53 cows currently being milked. Come mid-fall, when the current dry cows freshen, they’ll milk approximately 85 head, with no dry cows. This seventh generation family farm was founded 200 years ago as a diverse family homestead, raising crops and livestock - including at least a cow or two - and maintaining a sugarbush. Through the generations, it gradually became focused on two products: milk and maple syrup.
The sugarbush, located on the home farm, consists of 100 acres of maple trees with 5000 taps, and a newly updated sugarhouse. The dairy operates on 325 acres across two farm locations. The milking parlor, a compost bedded pack barn, calf housing and 85 acres of pasture for the milking herd are located one mile and a half from the home farm. The home farm has housing for the bred heifers and yearlings, 40 acres of pasture for their grazing, and 115 acres of hay. In addition, they rent an additional 85 acres also for hay production.
Nathan Goodell returned to the family farm in 2005, after graduating from The Ohio State University. At that time, his father, uncle and grandfather were running a conventional grazing dairy, milking 60 head, and growing corn for silage. Nathan’s father, Jay, remains involved in operating the farm alongside Nathan. Nathan’s mother, Barb, sells maple syrup at the farmers’ market and does the bookwork. Nathan’s wife Rebecca holds an off-farm job, while their children three children - Ryan, Evan and Natalie - help on the farm, primarily with some milking and tractor work. Nathan is the primary milker, along with one hired employee. In addition, Brian, a family friend, helps with hay making as well as in the sugarbush.
“Dad started intensive grazing in the early 90s,” Nathan said. Grazing was an economic decision “to help keep the farm afloat.” But the grazing did more than help with farm debt. The family found that they could successfully make milk from grass, and opted to continue to enhance their grazing focus, while still remaining a conventional dairy. They began to cross breed Holsteins to Jersey genetics.
In 2004, a swing-10 Dairymaster parlor was built, which was “a big transition point in how we managed,” Nathan said. Milking became much more efficient than it was in the 40-head tie-stall barn they had used previously.
After Nathan returned to help run the farm, it ultimately made sense to pursue organic certification. The land was certified in 2009, without much hassle as much of it had already been placed into pasture with the earlier switch to grazing. The family was meeting with HP Hood - literally in a meeting - to sign on as an organic dairy when the company announced it was no longer signing new organic producers. They did sign on with HP Hood, but the cows were not yet transitioned.
Before they finished transitioning the cows, HP Hood announced that they were getting out of the organic market and Organic Valley had agreed to take on a majority of the HP Hood organic farmers including the Goodells. By the time they had finished the transition they were full members of Organic Valley. They shipped out their first tank of certified organic milk in August of 2010 to Organic Valley, and remain with them today.
Goodell Family Farm is the only certified organic dairy in the county, and the remaining conventional dairies have dwindled in number rapidly. The next county over is home to several certified organic Amish dairy farms, making it viable for Organic Valley to keep the Goodell’s farm on their route. Although they are a bit isolated from a larger organic community, they do attend Organic Valley events and an annual grazing conference.
“We are happy that there is an organic market that keeps our small farm going,” Nathan said.
The biggest concern and change in mindset with the transition to certified organic dairy farming was the use of antibiotics. While the farm wasn’t relying on antibiotics to keep the herd healthy, the family did have some concerns, but “we were already entrenched and committed to grazing,” so with a little nudge from Rebecca, the final decision to transition was made.
“Not using antibiotics was as much of a different mindset for us as it was for our veterinarian,” Nathan said. Their vet “was willing to try to work with us” when they transitioned. He had no experience with organic dairy herds, but researched what was and was not allowed. Their veterinarian is now nearing full retirement, and they are still one of his only organic clients
They also decided to stop growing corn. While they were growing no-till corn for silage, they found that growing corn organically was a bit more complicated. The farm began growing only hay - both round dry bales and round wrapped baleage. They purchase certified organic grain locally, feeding a minimal amount year-round.
Other changes were also happening when Nathan returned to farm with his father. Nathan took responsibility for the breeding, and added in some Normande genetics to the Holstein and Jersey two-way crosses. The cows are all bred via artificial insemination. He began looking for health traits to favor a “low maintenance” animal, opting to remove the Holstein genetics from the herd, breeding instead with Norwegian Red. He is focusing on components, fertility and longevity, along with somatic cell count and breeding for a lower maintenance, hearty animal. “I am not looking as much at production,” Nathan said. Holsteins “were not the best fit for our farm.”
The milking herd grazes from the end of April through early November, and are put onto fresh pasture twice each day, after milking. Milking times are at 8am and 6pm. The 85 acres of pasture are permanently fenced into 16 paddocks, and temporary fencing using step-in posts and polywire are used as needed to further divide the paddocks for grazing. They do back fence the cows to prevent back grazing.
They ease the animals onto pasture during the spring, and they then graze 24/7 until the weather warms. During spring flush, hay is taken off of the pastures if it gets ahead of the cows, but otherwise these pastures are dedicated for milking herd grazing. Grazing strategy is primarily based on visual observation of pasture growth, as well as the importance of an adequate resting period for the pastures prior to regrazing.
The cows do receive supplemental forage, either dry hay or baleage, generally returning to the bedded pack one hour prior to milking. This is used to “balance pasture needs,” Nathan said, ensuring that pasture gets a minimum of three weeks’ rest in early spring, and four to five weeks of regrowth in the summer and fall before regrazing.
“We try to avoid overgrazing,” and to “slow down grazing to leave enough residual” during the fall, Nathan said.
The cows are under the fans of the compost bedded pack barn during the day once the summer heat hits. Otherwise, “they just bunch up in the pasture” due to heat stress and flies. They will graze all night during the hottest parts of the summer. During the off-season, they have access to an outdoors barnyard area attached to the bedded pack, where they are housed.
Grains are fed in the parlor, at the rate of five pounds per head per day during the grazing season. In the off-season the cows receive slightly more grains while in the barn. The cows are fed farm-ground shelled corn and oats, purchased locally, along with minerals. In winter, rations include roasted soybeans to enhance protein intake. They do not work with a nutritionist.
The pastures are a mix of grasses and white and crimson clovers. They do reseed pastures, renovating every eight years on average. When seeding, the focus is on removing poorer performing grasses, particularly fields with Kentucky 31 tall fescue, and seeding with a mixture of Italian ryegrass, perennial rye, improved tall fescue, orchard grass and clovers.
Annual sorghum-Sudangrass is also used during the renovation of pastures, and is grazed. Following grazing of the annul grass, triticale is no-tilled into the stubble. The triticale is cut for baleage the following spring, which is feed in early fall as a high energy feed to balance the higher protein in the fall pasture. Latter in the summer the land is seeded back to pasture.
The farm grows all of its own forages. Hay fields are a mix of alfafla, orchard grass, improved fescue and ryegrass.
The composted bedded pack is cleaned out once per year, in April, and the compost is spread onto both the pastures and the hay fields. The composted bedded pack is sawdust, and is maintained via rototilling twice per day while the cows are in the holding pen at milking time, with sawdust added as needed. They also throw in some “bedding bales,” made with mature first cut hay, to help control moisture levels in the pack.
Manure from the milking parlor and holding pen is incorporated with that from the scrape alley of the compost bedded pack barn in a dry stack area, where they can hold it for one month. This allows them to “pick our days” for spreading, Nathan said, which they do year-round.
They are a bi-seasonal herd, freshening a group in the spring, and one in mid-September. At one time, it looked as if a seasonal herd would have fit the farm’s management, but once they opted to go organic, they realized they’d need to milk year-round.
“One motivation for being bi-seasonal was to take advantage of Organic Valley’s premiums,” Nathan said. “Organic Valley has never been really excited about seasonal dairying.”
The herd’s milk production averages 40 - 45 pounds of milk per cow, per day. Butterfat content is about four percent in the summer, and 4.5 percent in the winter. Protein is approximately 3.25 percent on average. Somatic cell count is higher than they’d like, and has been a challenge since transitioning to organic. The herd averages a SCC just below 300,000.
Things have improved as they’ve gotten more experienced with grazing rotations, and the soil health and forage nutrition has improved as a result. Somatic cell count has decreased as they’ve become better grazers. Nathan believes the bedded pack is contributing to some of the mastitis concerns, due to the challenge of keeping moisture levels low. The summer heat always causes a spike in SCC, he said.
“The composted bedded pack is a limiting factor to our milk quality,” Nathan said.
They culture cows to find mastitis and do factor that into their culling and breeding decisions. They will isolate milk to keep it out of the bulk tank, and will dry off quarters as necessary. They haven’t tried any tinctures or treatments/
“We have fought staphylococcus aureus for a number of years,” Nathan said. They routinely culture the bulk tank, and so far it hasn’t shown up recently, “but it always shows up once per year.”
Aside from mastitis, the other major health issue on the farm is the flies. They had significant fly problems when they first transitioned to organic as they had been using a pass through fly control while conventional. This had set back their dung beetle population which took several years to recover. Other steps used to control flies today include using fly predators and hauling manure more frequently in the summer months.
Calves are housed in the converted tie-stall barn, where the milking herd once resided. Bedding is purchased straw, along with their own over-mature “bedding bales” of hay. The calves are bottle-fed raw milk from the bulk tank, and at one week of age are switched to a group barrel feeder and are put into a group of three or four calves per pen. Grain and dry hay are fed in the group pens. Calves are weaned at 10 weeks.
They keep 18 spring-born calves each year. The fall-born calves are from cows bred to beef, and are sold as calves at auction. Spring calves stay in the barn, with access to the barnyard. The last group is weaned in August. The next spring, the calves are brought down to the home farm, and provided with pasture, along with the bred heifers. The grazing here is not as intensive, with one group rotating through several paddocks, and new pasture provided every two or three days. The animals are out on pasture 24/7 during the grazing season.
Scours can be an issue in the late summer and early fall, when the calf barn is filled up. They thoroughly clean each pen in preparation for newborns, but they do have some episodic scours. It is not a significant concern. They will push electrolytes and keep the calf on milk. Keeping the bedding as clean as possible for newborns is their best defense.
They do not utilize many vaccinations. Calves are not vaccinated, as they simply have had no issues and “haven’t seen the need for it,” Nathan said. They do vaccinate fresh cows with Bovi-shield and also use a mastitis vaccine, J-Vac, to protect against coliform type mastitis. Otherwise, health issues are not much of a concern in the herd. They do use their veterinarian for pregnancy checks, and occasional emergency help.
“Dairy is the bigger operation,” Nathan said. But maple sugaring is a celebration of the farm’s history, passed down through each generation. In 2008, Goodell Family Farm’s maple syrup was certified organic, prior to the dairy being certified.
Today, Nathan proudly fills the role of sugarmaster, doing all of the boiling of the sap. Brian, the family friend, helps in the sugarbush, overseeing the vacuum tubing system. The trees are all in the same sugarbush, and all the tubing runs into the same collection point. They do have other woods on the farm, but are not tapping those trees. In the past, those trees had been bucket tapped.
When it’s time to boil the sap, Jay assumes the milking duties, and Nathan focuses on making the syrup. The farm’s 5000 taps produce about 1800 gallons of syrup each season. The goal is to increase this every year, primarily by replacing old tubing incrementally, and by thinning out the sugarbush to help the tapped maples grow stronger, with the intent of making 2000+ gallons of syrup per season from the same number of taps. Tapping typically starts in early February and runs through the end of March, weather depending, of course.
The sugarhouse has an oil-fired evaporator and they utilize reverse osmosis before they boil down the sap. With the reverse osmosis, they will remove up to 80% of the water from the sap prior to boiling. Last year, a new sugarhouse was built, and is a “big improvement” over the previous one, offering a lot more space in a layout providing increased efficiency.
“It makes more sense in how it operates, and there is extra space,” Nathan said.
The syrup and maple value added products are sold via the farm’s website and shipped or available for on farm pick-up, and is also sold locally at two farmers’ markets. Nathan’s mother, Barb, is the maple syrup salesperson. She also has a table at the County Fair each year. One unique tradition that was started by Nathan’s grandmother was the Maple Syrup Pancake Breakfasts, which were held for several Sundays each year at the local town hall, beginning in the 1980s. The Covid-19 pandemic caused changes to be made. Today, their church youth group hosts a one-day pancake breakfast, raising money for youth group trips. The Goodell children are involved in working the breakfast with their youth group, keeping the spirit of his grandmother’s community pancake breakfast tradition alive.
The land and the farm operation are under separate ownership contracts. All owners are family members, but they don’t all share equal ownership across both entities. Nathan and Barb have ownership in the LLC that controls the farm operation - the dairy, the maple sugaring business and all livestock and equipment. Nathan, Jay, Barb and Nathan’s grandmother have ownership in the land.
Nathan’s grandfather put this succession plan in place, keeping the land and the business separated, to make it easier to pass on ownership shares, and to do so incrementally, while allowing for the potential of ownership to family members who chose not to farm. This flexibility and ease of the shares will allow family members to participate in the family’s legacy in different forms as their own needs change. Nathan has three siblings who do not farm, and his father can pass-through parts of his own land ownership shares to them without having them involved in day to day decisions of the farm operation.
The advantage, said Nathan, is that “you can get in or out of either of those shares without a great deal of difficulty,” and the arrangement is conducive to passing the farm to future generations, as well as for “multi-generational ownership.”
The Goodell Family Farm has seven generations of heritage behind it, and plenty more to come. With a successful organic dairy, plus the value-added maple sugaring enterprise, along with an innovative succession strategy to sweeten the deal, the Goodell family looks forward to continued farming success on the family homestead for another 200 years, or more. Goodell Family Farm was established in 1825 and is currently celebrating its bicentennial year!
The Goodell’s can be reached at Goodell Family Farm, 10220 Peck Road, Mantua, Ohio 44255, United States, (330) 322-3725 Email us: maple@goodellfamilyfarm.com. Follow us on Facebook @goodellfamilyfarm
Posted: to Featured Farms on Fri, Sep 5, 2025
Updated: Fri, Sep 5, 2025
