The Northern Country Feeds, Limited Liability Corporation was formed Aug. 1, 1999. It is a joint venture with Northern Country Coop and Land O'Lakes. The Stacyville/Adams Feed Mill and Elevator are a part of this corporation.

It is a busy place in Adams on a Monday morning with truck after truck getting loaded with feed for commercial hog operations. Northern Country Feed, LLC supplies feed for six counties. The manager for the last three years in Adams has been Kevin Hansen. He is from Stacyville, Iowa and has worked with the elevator for 10 years.

"I run two feed mills, this one in Adams and one in Oakland, Minn. We supply feed for producers in a 60-mile radius. The Oakland Feed Mill and Elevator supplies feed for dairy and beef operations. There are nine feed mills in this corporation. Our busiest days are Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays," Hansen said.

The feed mill keeps track of all the feed that goes out to producers. Each load that goes out, a sample is kept in a plastic baggie, labeled and stored in a separate warehouse.

"We do lots of documentation of everything coming in and going out. I spend most of my time in the office. I go back and forth between the feed mills and the office. I do everything; change is good, working in both places," Hansen said.

The Stacyville/Adams Feed Mill and Elevator has two full-time workers and one part-time. There are two full time workers at the Oakland Feed Mill and Elevator. There are eight trucks on the road delivering feed to producers during the week. There is one semi-trailer truck, two eighteen tonners, four 15-tonners, and one 12-tonner.

Jim Krebsbach has been with the feed mill for 29 years. He takes care of maintenance and loads and unloads feed. Lance Davis takes orders for feed, does data entry and billing. There are two salesmen who visit producers. The workers are dusty with all the feed but they say it is clean dust and they blow themselves off before they go home. They are constantly sweeping up ground feed and keeping the place in order.

The feed mill has an excellent safety record.

"We're open Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. until 5 p.m. We are always busy during the holidays because we have to do the same amount of work with one less day. All the corn we sell to producers comes from this area. We sell 90,000 tonnage of feed each year," Hansen

said.

Raw ingredients to make the feed are received each day. They purchase soybean meal to add to the feed and stillers, which is dried roasted corn with the oil removed. The corn oil is used for ethanol. Stillers give off a nutty, cooked aroma. The mixer that the feed is ground in does four tons of feed at a time. A roller mill is going almost constantly grinding down corn.

"It's a team effort here," Hansen said.

Sheila Donnelly can be reached at 434-2233 or by e-mail at :mailto:newsroom@austindailyherald.com