The Rauschs are a bovine centered family.
Bill, Joyce and their son Brian Rausch have carried on their family’s 64-year dairy production tradition, and spend their days tending to their cows at their ‘R-Style Holsteins’ dairy farm in Edison.
In 1952, Joyce’s father bought the family’s first dairy cow for their farm. From there, the family’s operation has grown to a herd of 225 happy and healthy cows.
The Rauschs’ aim is “to keep their farm on smaller side, but still have it be big enough to make a living off of it.”
The family begins their morning at 5 a.m. for the day’s first milking shift. From there they continue, taking on the second milking shift at 1 p.m. and finally finishing their 16-hour day at 9 p.m.
The long hours yield roughly 18,000 lbs. of milk per day from R-Style’s herd.
“Consumers are sometimes mislead by the advertisements that they see on TV,” Joyce said. “When a commercial advertises that the milk they are selling is antibiotic free and cold shipped from local dairy farms, it gives the impression that not all milk is. When in reality all milk is antibiotic free and right after it comes from the cow, the milk goes through a cooling process and then sent to a cold tank.”
When the cows are not being milked, they spend their days on break at the farm’s clean sandy “beach” where they are given cool water to drink and fed as much homemade “casserole” as they can stomach Joyce explains.
The “casserole”, as the Rausch’s call it, is a total mixed ration of hay, corn silage and grain made right on the farm.
The in-house produced meal ensures that the Holstein herd’s food is fresh and each cow receives all of the nutrients that it needs.
Joyce finds that even though the sale prices for milk are sometimes unfavorable, getting to work with her family and raise her kids on the farm has always been worth the job.
R-Style Holsteins is located on State Route 95 in Edison.
