Small farm or large, Wisconsin or California, all dairy farmers are feeling a powerful pinch in their pocketbooks, but while some are choosing to say goodbye to their Guernsey’s, one area farmer says he is not giving up yet.

Ryan Prahl’s family has been dairy farming in the town of Wausau for the last 135 years. Over that time, they have seen their fair share of dipping milk prices, but this time Prahl says the dip is drastic.

"It's rough,” Prahl said. “It makes it really rough when once awhile you look at the checkbook and there was money in there but it's gone now."

The problem is right now the average price per hundred pounds of milk paid to farmers is not enough for them to break even, let alone make a profit.

"A good average break-even price is probably a $14 mark. That's with inputs being relatively low and where they should be. As of right now you need at least $15 or $16 a hundred just to break even,” Prahl said. "Last month was $9.56 a base, so this month I think the future was like $10.46 or something like that."

And only adding to the problem is the rising cost of everything else it takes to run a dairy farm.

"You look at fuel and fertilizer and those are the big ones that got extremely high,” Prahl said. "We buy a lot or protein. That's one of our inputs that we do buy. That price is a little astronomical right now."

Yet, he is finding ways to maintain his family farm. Prahl and his father do do other jobs to supplement their farm income. They do some logging during the winter months and trucking every now and then.

For Prahl, it is whatever it takes to keep doing the job he loves.

"For me to get out of dairying - it's not really an option,” he said. "All you can do is persevere and pray for the best."