MOUNTAIN — Marienes Zwarts and his partners owned the largest Jersey herd in Canada. Not any more. Age caught up with them.

While the average age of an Ontario farm operator is 52, the average age among the partners on this farm, south of Winchester, is 68. With backs aching, knees creaking and no sons or daughters to take over the farm, the aging foursome scaled back.

They had 450 Jerseys and milked 200 cows until last summer when Blackstone Farm Financial bought shares in the company and sent most of the cows to a Quebec farm. "The price of corn went way up. It was the right time to do it," said Schwartz, who now milks 30 cows. "It’s just me now and my little herd."

He turned 60 last summer. His brother Bob, 55, has a beef herd and his father Henk, 78, keeps sheep, rabbits and laying hens. Bob’s son moved west and Zwarts’s step-son wasn’t interested in the farm.

Zwarts said he now works about five hours a day through the winter and will plant a lot of corn on his 550 acres in the spring.

Meantime, he’d like to find a buyer for his FX30 self-propelled New Holland harvester, only a few years old He is also selling 100 round bales mature cut hay at $15 a bale.

Call him at 613-989-1636 or 613-989-3132.