Lee Roy Kruse knew early on he was going to devote his life to dairy farming.
Growing up in the town of Gillett on the farm owned by his parents, Gail and Martha Kruse, he and eight siblings learned about crops and cows from the very beginning. By age 12 he owned his first calf.
Kruse’s wife, Diane, also grew up learning about farming. She was raised in the town of Lena on the farm of her parents, Harvey and Lorraine Wellens.
“I wanted to marry the farmer, but I didn’t want to marry the farm,” Diane said, laughing. “But they go together.”
When Lee Roy’s brother married a girl living across the road from the Wellens’ farm, Lee Roy and Diane stood in the wedding together, and the rest is history. The two were married in June 1983.
Two years later, they purchased a 120-acre farm from Melvin and Beatrice Schlorf in Morgan, and they never looked back.
The Kruses will host on Sunday will hold the annual Oconto County Breakfast on the Farm at their Triple C Dairy.
The original property came with house, barn, shed, chicken coop and, most importantly, 24 cows. The Kruses wasted no time remodeling the barn, milking the cows using a transfer system. They milked into a floor bucket then poured the milk into a receiver or tub. A vacuum system sucked the milk through a hose to the bulk tank in the milkhouse.
Lee Roy had expanded his herd at his parent’s farm from that first calf to nine cows. In 1986, those cows were brought to Lee Roy and Diane’s, and they began milking three times per day.
In 1988, the family began to grow with the addition of their son, Kevin. The Kruses added to their growing family in 1990 and 1992 with the births of daughters Katrina and Kayle, respectively.
Diane said raising a family on the farm provides more time together as a family.
“You work together and learn things together. The kids learn responsibility,” she said.
Lee Roy pushed forward with expansion in 1995, putting up a free-stall barn. The Kruses were now milking 70 cows, three times per day. The expansions continued at the farm over the years and included the 2004 addition of a Boumatic, 30-cow rotary parlor capable of milking 1,100 head three times daily.
“He’s not afraid to make changes,” Joe Zeitler, full-time herdsman on the farm, said of Lee Roy.
Today, Triple C Dairy milks 540 cows three times per day. Each cow produces an average of 97 pounds of milk per day, totaling 52,380 pounds of milk each day.
“The goal is 100 pounds per day per cow,” Zeitler said.
Kruses ship their milk through the Dairy Farmers of America Cooperative, providing milk for companies such as Saputo, Kemps and Dean Foods.
The Kruses farm 1,200 acres, producing corn, alfalfa and oatlage for feed and do most of their own field work.
Lee Roy said they never envisioned the farm would grow so large; they initially had a 50-cow goal.
“We just started expanding, saw how other people expanded and how it helped them,” he said.
The expansion has allowed for more time off for the family and employees.
“That has helped a lot,” he said.
Regarding future expansion, there is a limit.
“Our intentions are to get up to 800 milking,” Lee Roy said.
The farm employs one part-time worker and 13 full-time workers. Six seasonal drivers fill in during field-work months.
Diane provides lunch daily for all employees. During planting and harvesting, she also prepares supper. Lunchtime gives the Kruses and employees an opportunity for daily communication, and they eat together, if possible, to share information.
The Oconto County Breakfast on the Farm will begin this year with a polka Mass at 7 a.m. Music for the service will be provided by the Maroszek Brothers.
“This is a first for Oconto County,” Lee Roy said. “We want to give people who normally wouldn’t go to church a chance to see what it’s about,” Lee Roy said.
The family considered hosting Breakfast on the Farm about five years ago when their youngest daughter, Kayle, was in high school, but they decided to wait.
“We felt we weren’t ready yet,” Lee Roy said. “But we figured that if we don’t do it now, with getting older, we won’t be willing to do it later.”
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