For 20 years, Lindsay Anderson has been providing calves to schools for Cows Create Careers. Celebrate the program’s 21st birthday on pages 4, 5 & 8.
BY SARAH O'BRIEN
RAIN HAS been very scarce throughout Gippsland the past few months.
Some parts of Gippsland are facing much worse conditions than others.
Dust, flies and feed budgets are top of everyone’s mind as we wait for the next solid rain event.
Reach out to GippsDairy if you need support, but also don’t forget your resources within your farm support team — consultants, nutritionists, agronomists and the like.
A cup of coffee with a friend is also great support through a tough time.
A new feature in GippsDairy’s eNews highlights grant opportunities available. Please have a look, there could be something available to you that may help.
If you haven’t registered to receive eNews please do so by contacting the office at: info@gippsdairy.com.au
It’s a great way to see up-and-coming events and information to support your farm business.
It continues to amaze me that a few states away, our Queensland and higher NSW farming friends are experiencing the effects of Tropical Cyclone Alfred and unprecedented amounts of water and destruction.
The full effects aren’t known yet on-farm, but as farmers we understand the physical and emotional work ahead.
The team at GippsDairy is currently in full planning mode to present to you our Muster for 2025.
The theme this year is Farming into the Future, Imagine | Inquire | Innovate, and will be held on Wednesday, April 30, at the Federation University’s Churchill campus.
A lot of great innovative ideas in our industry have started with a frustrated farmer imagining a better way of doing something, inquiring about how to make a change and leading to innovation that brings productivity and profitability gains or just plain relief.
In my opinion, bale twine might be the best innovation farmers have been given.
Just last week I was so impressed to read a farmer in New Zealand was frustrated with net wrap ending up in landfill that he imagined a more responsible way for use, inquired about his idea and has gone on to innovate a wrap that is palatable to cows and ultimately better for the environment.
I wonder if the next step is to replace bale twine with this same product. It proves the frustrations we sometimes experience on-farm can be the vehicle to positive change for our farms and our cows.
I encourage you to come along to the GippsDairy Muster.
You’ll be surrounded by farmers that have adopted new innovations and hear directly from them about their experiences.
Mark Billing from Dairy Farmers Victoria
will also give us an update on the legislations around virtual herding for Victoria.
You can access the program and register at: https://www.dairyaustralia.com.au/ gippsdairymuster
It’s a great day to catch up with friends we don’t always get a chance to see and an opportunity to meet new ones while hearing some great content. Hope to see you there.
The GippsDairy Board is currently working on the next three-year strategic plan for farmers in our region.
This process takes careful strategic consideration as we contemplate what we’ve heard are the collective needs of farmers now and into the near future.
If you feel strongly about contributing a thought to this process, please reach out to our regional manager/executive officer Karen McLennan or speak with a current board member in your area.
Hearing from you is always welcomed.
The Gippsland Dairy Industry Leadership Group is finalising a 10-year Gippsland Dairy Industry Strategy encompassing the whole industry, from pre- to post-farm gate.
The draft strategy is available for comment from the GippsDairy website until late April 2025.
To be emailed a copy of the draft strategy or to give feedback, please call Karen McLennan on 0409 179 706.
– Sarah O’Brien is the GippsDairy chair.
+ GST FROM 169,000
When they needed to replace their milk vat, Mark and Narelle Boardman decided to use their annual profit to build a new shed for their replacement vat and assorted equipment and machinery, a workshop, as well as storage.
BY JEANETTE SEVERS
NARELLE AND Mark Boardman, at Montgomery, in central Gippsland, have made some useful investments after earning the extra profit from the milk price they received from Bulla Dairy Foods.
“We had a bit of money to splash around,” Mark said.
Last year they increased the stocking rate on their farm, integrating surplus heifers they raised for the export market.
They fed silage to the milkers using hay rings in one paddock. Mark then added spoiled hay, solid waste from the feed pad and dairy platform, and spread the resulting home-made compost across the paddock, increasing its fertility.
“Feeding the cows in one paddock trashed the paddock,” Mark said.
It was an opportunity to renovate it. He sowed millet (for silage), followed by rye-grass.
“We grazed it a couple of times, then cut silage off it,” Mark said.
The paddock had previously been part of the calf-raising area, but is now consolidated into the milking platform.
“Because we’ve got extra land, we can use it for the cows and produce more milk,” Narelle said.
“On this farm, every little square inch of additional pasture helps.”
Their 68 hectare farm is flood irrigated, from the Lake Glenmaggie system, in the Macalister Irrigation District.
They have leased land more recently, which allows them to raise their heifers away from the home farm.
They harvested 600 rolls of pasture silage off that 53ha irrigated block, while running 90 heifers on it.
“So that’s also allowed us to milk 30 more cows here,” Narelle said.
Mark and Narelle’s 240-cow milking herd
is 50 per cent stud cows, mostly Holsteins, with one Jersey stud cow, and some Ayreshires, Red breeds and Brown Swiss, under their Shadyoak prefix. The balance of the milking herd are crossbred cows.
They milk in a 20-swingover herringbone dairy, with automatic cup removers. Production in the 2023-24 season was 106,000kg Milk Solids, based on their thenherd of 210 cows.
“We split-calve, partly for cash flow and partly to manage the stud cattle,” Narelle said.
They aim to harvest 740 rolls of pasture silage in spring each year, with up to 200 rolls of opportunistic millet silage harvested in autumn.
“The millet silage is fed to dry cows and the rye-grass silage to milking cows,” Mark said.
“We’ll buy maybe a load of oaten hay for the springers, and that’s it part from grain.”
A lightning strike on Boxing Day 2023 brought forward their plans to replace the milk vat.
The old vat was 4800 litres, which needed daily collection. They had a 2800 litre vat to help cope with peak spring season.
The lightning strike damaged the vat, which was originally slated for replacement in 2026.
Mark and Narelle brought forward that date to 2024, and decided to use their annual profit to invest in a larger, more usable, shed to house the newer second-hand vat and various equipment, give themselves a workshop area, and for much-needed storage.
“We either had to spend $5000 for a temporary fix for a year to two, or we needed to bring that project forward,” Mark said.
“We could also invest in a larger vat, and build the storage area we desperately needed.
“For us, it was a no-brainer. Replacing the vat and a bigger shed were in our 10-year strategic plan anyway.”
The 18x12 metre new shed was built and walls erected at the end where the vat has been installed.
“We did it as big as we could on the smallest budget we could, which is why only one end is enclosed,” Narelle said.
“It was a process getting it up, because we had to pull down three old sheds and keep the old vat functioning, before we switched over to the new vat. We milked the whole way through.
“So we just embraced the chaos for a bit.”
The new shed is built for multiple uses – in the larger area without walls it is currently housing machinery, it can also be used to store hay, or pens can be erected for use as a calf shed.
Narelle is also using part of the shed for storing her horse equipment.
In the walled area, it is being used as a wet area for milking equipment, the replacement vat, boots and aprons, and tools.
“We also took the opportunity to change over to a bigger milk pump and more efficient cooler,” Mark said.
“That’s saved us about $200 to $300 a month on power cost.
“Even though the new vat is 20 years old, it’s newer technology has been saving us about 25 per cent on power, compared to the old vat.
“We’re just trying to increase those efficiencies in the business.”
A future plan is to save the water off the shed roof, for washing machinery.
“Our plan is to put about 100,000 litres of water storage off the roof,” Narelle said.
“Most of our water supply is bore water and that’s quite harsh on machinery and equipment, so we want to replace that.
“It’s not ideal to run bore water through the hot water service.”
This year’s plans include renovating drainage at strategic points across the farm to reduce pugging that happens when it rains heavily.
“We’ve finished our five-year plan to renovate the whole farm, and we’re back at the start again,” Narelle said.
BY JEANETTE SEVERS
THE COWS Create Careers program turns 21 years old in 2025 and it inspires students to aim to be dairy farmers, veterinarians, animal nutritionists and reproductive scientists.
Cows Create Careers started as a local pilot project in South Gippsland, Victoria, initiated by the dairy farmers who were members of the Strzelecki Lions Club.
“The Cows Create Careers program started in 2004 and was initiated through the South Gippsland Dairy Expo,” co-ordinator, Deanne Kennedy said.
“The Strzelecki Lions Club organises the dairy expo and with all of them are dairy farmers, they wanted to share their love of agriculture in the dairy industry with secondary school students.
“They wanted to be able to share what great career pathways were out there for them, and the opportunities in the dairy industry.
“They wanted to excite some students to think about careers that they might not have thought about before.”
A curriculum was developed to deliver a short program locally, with the help of Sylvia Vagg, Michelle Axford, Deanne Kennedy, John Hutchison and Graeme Lacey from the Lions Club, and Rod Cameron. Rod was appointed the curriculum writer.
“Rod wrote some terrific curriculum,” Deanne said.
“We were all as green as green, we put together a three-year plan, and we were all volunteering to deliver the program in schools.
“In that first year, we had nine schools in Gippsland.
“Then the following year, more schools came to us, from Mornington Peninsula and other dairy regions, and they wanted to expand the program.”
An appeal to the Gardiner Foundation at the time delivered seed funding to take the program into more schools in Gippsland and in south-west and northern Victoria.
A few years after inception, Cows Create Careers was being offered as a national in-schools program supported by funding from Dairy Australia and Gardiner Foundation.
“It’s the longest-standing agricultural program in schools that’s right across Australia, and it’s been delivered every single year since 2004,” Deanne said.
“It’s in about 240 schools across 23 dairy regions each year.”
In 2022, the project received recognition from the Victoria Curriculum and Assessment Authority, and is now embedded within the Design and Technologies, Food and Fibre Production module.
The purpose of Cows Create Careers is to introduce primary and secondary students, Year 5 to Year 11, to potential vocational and professional careers in the dairy industry.
“We use dairy calves as a net to capture their interest and provide a fun way for them to understand the science in agriculture,” Deanne said.
“It doesn’t matter what school I go into, I can stand in front of a class of students in a country school and ask them to name some careers in the dairy industry, and I’ll hear dairy farmer, and I might get a cheesemaker.
“Number one, students don’t understand what a dairy farmer has to do to be successful in the year 2025.
“Number two, you know, we talk about the city-country divide, but many of our
country students don’t really know anything about where their food comes from either.”
Data is collected each year from schools to measure the success of the program. This has proven increased understanding of career pathways among students and teachers.
Often, students’ top choices for work experience are veterinary science and dairy farming.
The majority of students also demonstrate a significantly increased understanding of the breadth of career choices in the dairy industry.
After two decades, the passion that ignited Cows Create Careers can be seen in the many employees working in government and private industry.
“Some of those students that were the first to do Cows Create Careers in primary or secondary school are now working in agriculture,” Deanne said.
“Some of them teach Cows Create Careers in schools.
“Daniel Bacon from Reid Stockfeeds was a student.
“I see them pop up in roles. You can’t
track how it’s gone because you can’t track every university entrance form, or apprenticeship.
“I just happen to meet them in my life.
“Somebody will say they did Cows Create Careers and they’re now working for an agricultural company.”
Deanne is starting to develop case studies around some of the students she knows.
The other success story is the dairy farmers who have been involved.
Lindsay Anderson, from Athlone, has been providing calves each year for 20 years to several urban and metropolitan schools involved in Cows Create Careers. (see separate story).
Bradley Richardson, a dairy farmer from the Lower Hunter, spoke to NSW students participating in Cows Create Careers in 2011. Bradley spoke about his role in the family dairy farm and career opportunities.
He spoke about the different skills required in the management of a farm, from pasture establishment through to herd management.
Bradley completed his traineeship on the farm while studying a Certificate IV in
Agriculture at Tocal College.
“Local dairy farmers are the face of the industry and the program and they give up their time, go into the schools and chat to the students about career pathways,” Deanne said.
“Or an industry person, like a processor or feed company, go into the schools and talk to the students about their career pathway and their background, and how they came to be working for that organisation.
“They’re the reason this program’s strong all these years later.”
Victoria Alexander studied the Cows Create Careers elective in Year 9 at Finley High School, NSW.
Victoria assumed she would work on her family’s dairy farm, but after participating in the Cows Create Careers program and exposure to other ideas, she now works in reproductive science in south-west Victoria.
See pages 5 and 8 and online at www.dairynewsaustralia.com.au for more stories as Cows Create Careers celebrates 21 years.
BY JEANETTE SEVERS
REID STOCKFEEDS is a founding supporter of Cows Create Careers, and what Ian and Rosli Reid began, their son, Nick, continues today.
Reid Stockfeeds began as a business when Ian and Rosli Reid recognised dairy farmers wanted to improve milk production in their herds, while maintaining animal health.
Reid Stockfeeds’ involvement with the Cows Create Careers pilot program began from their relationship as a sponsor of the South Gippsland Dairy Expo.
Both the expo and Cows Create Careers were founded by members of the Strzelecki Lions Club.
Reid Stockfeeds is a long-term major sponsor of the expo.
“The relationship between the Lions Club’s programs and Reid Stockfeeds was a natural fit,” Reid Stockfeeds CEO Nick Reid said.
“Ian, my Dad, initiated our involvement with Cows Create Careers, and we’ve continued to sponsor the program throughout the 21 years.
“Personally, it’s a passion of mine.
“We supply calf feed to the program, for the calves that are supplied to the schools across Victoria.”
Staff from Reid Stockfeeds go into the schools to explain the importance of good nutrition for the calves, and talk about their roles in the dairy industry.
“We talk about how livestock welfare and production results from good management,” Nick said.
“We talk about elements of quality control and how, with the best of intentions, we are dependent on the weather, and how byproducts of food production are livestock feed.
“Many of our account managers have been involved with going into schools and talking about the stockfeed and how and why it’s fed to calves and cows.
“They also talk about opportunities for employment, whether it’s about chemistry or nutrition. My team members have loved doing that, because it’s a bit of fun and the students ask good, direct questions.
“I’ve always loved the idea of educating our young generations, and that the dairy industry is about more than milking cows — there’s a whole ecosystem of suppliers who are involved in the industry.”
In 2023, Reid Stockfeeds celebrated the 19th year of Cows Create Careers by creating digital content around the program. Students at Aitken College, at Greenvale (in Victoria), were involved.
The students explained how they were involved with caring for the calves over several weeks, and what they understood about the dairy industry and milk products.
Aitken College supplies a broad agricultural experience for students, involving horticulture, growing vegetable seedlings, calf raising, and managing a sheep flock, chickens, bees and an alpaca herd.
“When you live around populous metropolitan and regional urban areas, you get a real understanding of people’s disconnect about where our food comes from, and how livestock are bred and raised and managed,” Nick said.
“One of our business’s focus areas is to help contribute to the wider public’s appreciation and understanding of livestock agriculture, so Cows Create Careers is a perfect fit for this, especially with engaging our younger generations.”
Staff from Reid Stockfeeds, including Nick, are also involved in the end-of-year presentations from schools.
“We get involved with the fun activities and games the program leaders put on for the kids,” Nick said.
“Congratulations to the team at Jaydee Events
and the many supporters of the Cows Create Careers program over the journey, particularly those farmers who have contributed their calves or time to the program, educating people about how much care goes into animal husbandry.”
BY JEANETTE SEVERS
FEBRUARY 13 this year was the anniversary of a tornado hitting the Mirboo North community.
For Fiona Baker, it was the first anniversary of the death of her husband, Bruce Manintveld, a man who was always meant to be a dairy farmer.
“Manintveld means man in the green field, the man on the farm, a farmer,” Fiona said.
“Bruce could grow grass in his sleep.
“Bruce always wanted to be a farmer, and he took a lot of pride looking after his cows and the land.”
Soon after Fiona arrived home from work on February 13, 2024, Bruce said he would bring the cows up to the dairy before the storm worsened.
“When I got home from work, I said to him, have you seen what’s coming?”, Fiona recalls.
“He said, if I go get the cows now, I should be back at the [dairy] shed before the storm hits.”
Bruce was following the tail-enders along the laneway when he sent his last communication, a tweet at 4.07pm containing a short video of the incoming storm and a screenshot of the weather bureau’s recording of 128km/h wind.
Fiona was waiting at home, but became concerned as the weather worsened so she went looking for him.
In the time between, a shed roof had lifted and flown through the air, tumbled by the wind along the laneway, killing Bruce and a few of his cows. They were just up the laneway from the dairy shed.
That was how Fiona found him, and she entered a very traumatising situation involving ambulance, police, WorkCover inspectors and the coroner.
She also had a dairy farm and business to make decisions about.
The cows weren’t milked that night, but the next morning dairy farmers Brian Corr from Moyarra and Jason Lee from Yinnar arrived to help her.
“They said, what do you want to do? And I’m like, get rid of the cows; and they’re like, whoa, and I’m like, nah, I’ve got to sell them all, this is too hard. I know what I want to do,” Fiona said.
“They said, just slow down, you’ve got to slow down a bit.
“So we put the cows on once-a-day milking, because Brian and Jason wanted to come and help, but they also had their own farms to run.”
That decision took some of the pressure off Fiona, while she dealt with a very traumatic situation, her grief and anger. She even had to wait to hold Bruce’s funeral, because his body wasn’t released quickly by the coroner.
“Once-a-day milking every morning also meant Brian and Jason didn’t have to be there both ends of the day,” Fiona said.
The cows hadn’t been milked for 24 hours at that point. When Brian arrived at 6am, the first thing he had to do was connect the PTO generator to the dairy – grid power was disconnected by the storm.
“We had to get the bloody equipment off the back of the tractor that was still hooked up from the day before,” Fiona said.
“Then Brian hooked the tractor up to the generator and between us, we worked out how everything connected. But we didn’t know what damage had been done in the storm.
“The shed roof that got pulled off by the storm had flown over the dairy and tumbled up the laneway, and we didn’t know if it had damaged the dairy roof.
“As it was, we turned on the generator and Brian said, does it normally make that noise?
A water pipe protruding from the roof was clipped by the other shed roof as it flew over
the afternoon before; and the pipe split.
“So we had to fix that before we started milking.”
There was a lot of work to be done clearing up after the storm.
Fortunately, there was money in the bank, so Fiona just approved what needed to be done.
Fiona told Dairy News Australia about contingency plans that Bruce and her had made, based on his health. Bruce was on warfarin, was a type one diabetic, and had already had heart surgery.
“Because he had type one diabetes, you’ve got all the complications that go with that,”
Fiona said.
“And often as you get older, the complications become more severe and affect you more. And he had the artificial heart valve put in. And the warfarin he was on for life, well, you get tired a lot easier because it thins your blood out, there’s less oxygen going around your body, he felt the heat and cold a lot.
“We always had a couple of contingency plans for when farming would get too much for him.”
Those contingency plans included buying a house off the farm, for them to either retire to, or for a farm worker or sharefarmer if or when Bruce needed to step back from farming on his own.
“We didn’t actually employ any labour. We used contractors for hay and silage, but Bruce did most of the work on the farm himself,”
Fiona said.
“But it was getting to the point where we’d either have to employ someone or I was going to have to step away from my off-farm job and do more work on farm, or we’d start working with a sharefarmer.
“We saw employing someone or working with a sharefarmer as an opportunity to give someone else a crack at getting into the industry.”
The farm had been paid off 12 months previously; and the couple had always planned to have enough money set aside that if they suddenly had to move off the farm, probably because of Bruce’s health, they would be able to buy a house.
That financial cushion helped after Bruce’s untimely death.
“Brian and Jason wanted to get an excavator in to clear up the dead cows, the trees that were blown over, to clear the laneways and fix the broken fences,” Fiona said.
“I knew there was some money in the bank — I didn’t know how much — and I just told
them to sort it out.
“They were making a lot of decisions for me initially, they were awesome.
“They said do you want us to get an excavator in because there’s so many trees down, most of the laneways were blocked, and fences needed repairing.
“I just said, do what you need to do to clean this place up.”
The milking herd was kept close to the dairy, almost in a containment feeding situation, because so much damage had occurred across the farm.
It meant they had to be fed silage every day as a maintenance feed.
Fiona admits that in her grief, with the cows being milked once a day, she miscalculated the grain they needed, which saw production drop off.
The herd wears collars, but with the power grid down for an unknown lengthy period, Brian arranged pregnancy testing, so empty cows could be sold.
“I talked to my stock agent, Dane Perczyk, and we discussed options for selling the farm, selling the cows and the young stock,” Fiona said.
“He was fantastic, like, what do I need to do to help?
“I told him I was open to all options going forward — selling the cows and farm, or leasing the farm — and I said that to Brian and Jason too, and anyone who drove up the driveway.
“I told them all that I just wanted out.
“Sharefarming was probably my lowest option, because sharefarming would involve me having to semi-manage the farm, and I don’t think I could work with someone who didn’t farm like Bruce did.”
Dane suggested a couple who owned another farm in Gippsland who were looking to expand their holdings.
Justin and Janelle Richards were not strangers to Fiona, because she and Bruce had bought bulls from them.
They are also Jersey breeders, and wanted to buy the herd, including the empty cows, because they knew the genetics.
Meanwhile, Brian and Jason were gently encouraging Fiona to take up more of the decision making and she was reluctant and pushing back.
Jason provided one of his workers to help ongoing with milking and feeding — the herd was still being milked once a day.
Fiona and Justin and Janelle entered into a lease-to-buy arrangement for the farm. They
have installed managers and are leasing the farm for four years, with settlement to purchase at the end of that term.
Justin and Janelle also bought the young stock, which was a relief for Fiona, as she wanted to walk away from the farm with no obligations.
“The cattle sale actually paid for the house I bought,” Fiona said.
Dane organised a clearing sale for the machinery and equipment that wasn’t part of the deal with Justin and Janelle.
By the start of April, the deal to lease the farm was finalised, Justin and Janelle had been milking the herd for a fortnight; and Fiona had purchased a house with a one-month settlement in a nearby town, where she moved on May 1.
“We included an option that I can sell the farm to Justin and Janelle at any time along the four years, if I want to,” Fiona said.
“Leasing to them, to buy, was an immediate thing I could do to get off the farm.”
If she wants to sell the farm sooner, and the lessees are unable to buy, the contract includes that Fiona has to give them three months’ notice.
Her ongoing involvement with the farm has included discussion about necessary infrastructure improvements.
For example, a pump that breaks down, or improving the gravity-fed reticulated trough system.
There are days when she can cope with those discussions, and other days when the stress of having a potential conversation defeats her.
“Some days I just sit there and wish I had sold it all straight out,” she said.
“I left a lot of the decisions about the farm to Bruce. I don’t like organising things and he was good at it.
“There are days when I think I can’t deal with it, I honestly can’t deal with it.
“And those are the days I just wish I’d sold the place, so it was off my hands.”
Fiona has slowly returned to work, and in February this year was looking to increase her workdays.
She experiences post-traumatic stress, triggered by storms, and sometimes by hearing other people’s experiences of trauma.
Fiona she has learned some self-help techniques, including trying to avoid situations that will increase her trauma-related stress and feelings, but it is a daily challenge monitoring this.
More on page 7.
BY JEANETTE SEVERS
BRUCE MANINTVELD was raised on a dairy farm, but encouraged by his parents to seek a career outside the industry.
He started working in an off-farm role, but after a few years, Bruce decided to pursue his passion.
He gained a role as a dairy farm manager, then progressed, with his wife, Fiona Baker, to sharefarming.
“We got a good start in the industry, and the people we were sharefarming for were fantastic,” Fiona said.
When he was 30 years old, Bruce and Fiona purchased their own dairy farm, of 365 acres of undulating to steep country at Mirboo North. The dairy shed was a 28-a-side herringbone.
Drinking water for the cattle is gravity fed from a large dam to troughs across the farm. The system had some problems, with airlocks occasionally affecting supply.
Bruce devised a system using the firefighting unit to pump airlocks out. He also installed new two-inch pipe around the farm.
“He came up with this system, but the dairy would thieve the water first, so when the cows got back to the paddock, the dairy would still be using the water, and the trough would run dry,” Fiona said.
“So then he put in a separate line to the dairy, and that seemed to fix the problem.”
Fiona said she thought Bruce [before he died] had agreed to install a header tank at the dam, to also improve the system.
Meanwhile, they also expanded their farm, first by leasing additional country, before finding an appropriate block.
“I think in the third year we were able to lease the next door farm which was 140 acres,” Fiona said.
“We farmed with that block for some years, and when it went on the market, we had a crack at buying it.”
The farm sold four days after it went on the market, and Fiona and Bruce continued to lease the property, from the new owner.
A few years ago, another neighbouring farm of 85 acres came on the market, at a time when it was timely for Fiona and Bruce to purchase it.
The two farms are dryland, and the now-total 450 acres was purchased and paid off well before Bruce turned 50.
“Our goal was to pay off the home farm in 10 years, and he did it in just shy of eight years,” Fiona said.
“He paid off the second farm in a year.”
Bruce’s focus was to grow most of the feed, and his pasture plan was to harvest 85 per cent of the farm’s fodder needs each year.
A contractor was used to harvest hay and silage.
“Bruce could grow grass in his sleep,” Fiona said.
“He was a big believer in using fertiliser, to keep the fertility high, so the grass had potential, and then using a lot of urea to push that extra growth.
“Anyone can grow feed in spring, but to get the production and the amount of grass we needed to support the number of cows we wanted to milk, Bruce had to physically be able to grow grass in summer, autumn and winter.
“We tried to do at least 85 per cent of homegrown feed.
“I think only twice we’ve had to buy in hay. One was, like, the first year we were here and somewhere in the middle of 20 years when it went really dry and we had to buy in a bit of hay.
“Otherwise, we only bought in grain. We tried to keep under a tonne of grain per cow per year.
“Bruce was always balancing growing grass with producing milk for a profit.
“Growing grass was a large component of earning the biggest amount of money in our pocket at the end of the day.”
The milking herd was predominantly Jersey.
“We were up to 355 milkers when Bruce died last year,” Fiona said.
“He was looking to put someone on for three or four days a week, so he decided to run more cows – increasing production to pay that person’s wage.
“We usually kept about 85 heifer calves each year, so that was 160-170 young stock running
on the place.
“He was really pushing the place to support that number of cattle.”
The farm was also part of the Dairy Farm Monitor Project in Gippsland.
A collaboration between Agriculture Victoria and Dairy Australia, the Dairy Farm Monitor Project, in its 20th year in 2025, provides industry and government with farm-level data from the three dairy regions in Victoria.
That data is used to inform targeted strategy and decision-making.
“Our herd produced 750 kg/cow/year,” Fiona said.
“I reckon the cows averaged around 22-23 litres/day across the year.
“We tried as much as possible to run a grassbased system.
“If it looked like the autumn break was late, we’d dry off cows early. We calve in July, and normally start drying off in May, so we’d just dry them off a month or two earlier than normal. Give them a bigger break from milk production.
“And we spring-calved, trying to match production and animal health to the feed on offer in our region.”
If the season continued tight, Bruce would start to cull from the older cows, looking at their production figures and any health problems he had on record.
“But he didn’t like to sell cows if he could help it,” Fiona said.
“If cows were empty and they were drying themselves off, he’d sell them. But if they were milking through, he’d milk them through.
“But if they did skip another calving, he’d turf them out.
“But there were also times he knew he held on to cows for longer than he should have.”
Unfortunately, Bruce passed away, aged 50 years old, on February 13, 2024, during a storm at Mirboo North. He was bringing the cows to the dairy when he was killed.
Fiona has since sold the milking herd and replacement heifers and has struck a deal for selling the farm that involves a four-year leaseto-buy arrangement.
More on page 6.
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BY JEANETTE SEVERS
DAIRY FARMER Lindsay Anderson has fielded questions about renewable energy and animal welfare through his involvement with the Cows Create Careers program.
Lindsay, of Kings Vista Jerseys at Athlone, Victoria, has been involved in Cows Create Careers from the second year after its inception.
“The Cows Create Careers program opens students’ minds to possible careers within the industry, not just on farm but in the wider industry,” Lindsay said. “It’s very satisfying to cross paths with a student in later years and be told that the career they are in now is because of having calves at the school.”
Lindsay has chosen to provide Jersey calves to primary schools in urban areas.
“My calves go to schools on the Mornington Peninsula and in inner Melbourne,” he said.
“Trains drive past the fence on the other side of the pen the calves are in, which is something very different to the quiet hills of home.”
Schools are located in Mount Waverley, Brighton, Baxter, Langwarrin and Pakenham, among others.
He provides Jersey calves that are at least four weeks old.
“By that age, each of the calves has their own personalities, and once they’re past the four-week-old stage, the calves are more robust,” Lindsay said.
“The normal quota is two calves per school, for three weeks, but some schools have asked for six calves,” Lindsay said.
“Some schools have asked for bull calves rather than heifers. Then they’ve kept the calves and reared them for other reasons.
“I think at one time I was doing multiple schools and had about a dozen calves out.
“When the calves come back, their personalities are different to their mates that were left on the farm. They miss being mollycoddled.”
But the calves don’t just get dropped off at the school.
Every year, Lindsay visits the schools that want to be involved and looks at the conditions available for the calves, and talks to the teachers supporting the program.
“I contact the school to assess the agriculture teacher’s previous experience, which gives me information that determines the level of support I may have to supply.
“I assess the housing for the calves, and we agree on when they’ll have the calves.
“For about two weeks before delivery, I prepare the calves, so they are trained to halter leading, and are fed using
Photo: Jeanette Severs
milk powder.
“Halter leading makes the calves easier for the students to handle them, and enables them to take the calves outside the calf housing confines.
“When I deliver the calves, I instruct the teachers and students about feeding routines, what problems they should keep an eye out for, and every day I make myself available to answer questions –face-to-face, on the phone, or by email.
“I also prepare and provide an emergency pack, that will help them look after a sick calf until I can get to the school. Handling sick calves is for professionals,
so we do everything we can to avoid calves getting sick.
“You’re basically on call to support each cohort, because you want them to have a good experience.”
Lindsay also hosts students for on-farm visits to his Jersey stud.
He has one of the earliest robot milking dairies in Victoria, and since 2008, Lindsay has installed solar panels, windmills and batteries to access as much renewable energy as possible.
“Questions lead to other questions,” he said.
“I’ve been asked about differences between breeds – Jerseys, Holsteins, Friesians and other breeds. Why we have to mix the milk to the same consistency every day.
“Students are fascinated to see the cows walking in to the robot bays to be milked.
“I’ve been asked about what we are doing for best practice animal welfare.
“Some questions are about global warming and environmental issues and what are we doing on the farm.”
Lindsay will also sit down every evening and respond to emails from the students involved in the Cows Create Careers program.
“Even after 20 years, I’m still learning from the kids.”
See www.dairynewsaustralia.com.au for a longer version of this story.
