08/28/2026
Determined to Dairy in McHenry County
By Mike Orso
The Ziller farm family of rural Huntley remembers when just about the only people traveling up and down Ernesti Rd., named after Carol (Ernesti) Ziller’s parents who first farmed there, were farming neighbors, farm supply truck drivers and occasional visitors. Now it’s a thoroughfare west of Route 47 for the hundreds of subdivision dwellers in cookie-cutter houses where cows once grazed, hay was raised, and corn, soybeans and other crops grown.
“Houses are the big thing. They just keep pushing closer all the time,” said Dan Ziller Jr., who, with his wife Carol, raised their family of four on the Ernesti Rd. farm. “There are more proposed. Now we have a solar farm going in across the street. There’s not a lot room left for us here anymore.”
Dan Ziller, 62, believes only two dairy farms remain in Huntley, one which his family operates. Once the farm family’s move further north and west in McHenry County will be complete, there will only be one.
“We used to marvel at all the silo tops around the countryside,” said Ziller, a former president of the McHenry County Farm Bureau. “Now we look at water towers.”
The Ziller dairy farm remains a family-run operation, with Dan focusing on crop production and daughter Meredith, 31, managing the family’s approximately 60 head herd of dairy cattle. Son David, 33, helps with both. Oldest son Kevin, who also pitched in, was killed in an auto accident in 2010. He was 21. Wife Carol, who was raised on the Huntley farm and played a critical role in caring for and milking cows, passed away in 2024 due to a neurological disease. She was 60, yet had also recognized that creeping development, traffic congestion and aging barns merited a big change if the entire family could continue to farm. Prior to her death, the family found a farm for sale southwest of Harvard.
“Before she passed, she told us that she wanted that project done and for us to move the operation up there and keep the farm going,” said Dan. “So, that’s what we’re doing.”
The family repaired existing buildings and added a new one that includes a milk house where the nutrient-rich fluid is cooled and stored, an office, and mechanized robots that can push and place animal feed and even milk the cows.
“Hopefully, it will cut my chore time down to like half,” said David. “I can just come in the morning, run feed out, do a little scraping and get out to the field and do some field work, maintenance or whatever. Just free up time to do some other stuff that’s just kind of been kind of getting put off.”
The family moved the dairy cattle from Huntley to the Harvard-area farm in late July.
“I just really wish she could be here to see this,” said David, who asserts everything he learned about dairy farming came from his mom. “She is definitely the one got us this far to do something like this, with her work and knowledge and everything she has done for our family and our farm.”
It’s not the first time the Ziller’s, who sell their milk to the Prairie Farms milk processing plant in Rockford, have moved their dairy farm.
“When I started my career over on Algonquin Rd. I figured that’s where I was going to finish it,” said Dan. “Lake in the Hills was the first one that went on the big building boom. It just continued from there.”
The new farm will allow the family to grow the dairy herd. Each cow now wears a monitor that acts similar to a Fitbit. The Ziller’s can see exactly how much each one eats, rests and is milked. The cows can relax and roam when they want to in what’s known as a free stall dairy barn. The robots keep the dairy herd well-fed and milked when each cow chooses to do so.
“We lost my wife a couple of years ago and she was a big part of the operation,” said Dan. “We needed to find a way to simplify things so we can keep going.”
Still, daughter Meredith can often be found in the barn monitoring the cows, getting used to the new equipment and on a computer in the office reviewing all of the milk production data the new technology is generating. Most of it can even be viewed on her mobile phone when she wants to use it to make decisions.
“There are days where you walk in the barn like, ‘This is definitely what I need to be doing, this is where I belong,” she said. “Then there are other days you scratch your head and go, ‘Whew, man, what a day.’”
Walking into the old Huntley dairy barn often reminded her of the brother and mother now gone, while she sees the new one, located a mile or so from the McHenry County and Boone County border, not for what has been lost, but for what can now be gained.
“In a way it’s passing the baton,” said Meredith. “There are days I wonder if I’m able to shoulder it and there are other days where I remind myself I was raised by a very strong lady. She taught me how to get through the hard days and to always remember, ‘Tomorrow is a new day.’”
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