What a farm upbringing brings

/ dairymilkmaid / 4 Comments

I am a very proud mama. Zoe loves to run and while I was setting up a paddock for the cows, she galloped off along the track and challenged me to beat her to the next gate. I watched the little dot bob along the track and reckoned she might just win, too. Instead, I found her three-quarters of the way to the “finish line”, doing this:

Picking Up Rubbish

"Rotten rubbish"

Just being part of farm life teaches children responsibility, care for animals, respect for the environment and a sense of pride in their own work. We are very, very lucky.

How transparent should farmers be?

/ dairymilkmaid / 2 Comments

There is no counter argument out there. Could it be because there is no humane practice?

Can’t take your word for it. You need to explain your practices and where your product goes. What happens to your male calves? Etc.

Show me! Tell me! I would like to keep consuming dairy.

The campaign against you is growing.

Honestly. I’m very open to being educated. It was an FYI. “You” = “dairy industry”.

One of your biggest hurdles is that like the cattle industry, u appear secretive. Transparency might be too late.

These tweets from a journalist with a self-proclaimed “love for our living planet and my opposition to her corporate destruction” has made an understandable choice: to believe a charity dedicated to the welfare of animals rather than an “industry”. Yes, although 98 per cent of Australian dairy farms are family farms where cows roam free, the perception is that we act as an industry in perpetrating animal cruelty on factory farms in the name of profit.

Why do I say it’s understandable? Do a little test to see for yourself. Google “bobby calf”.

Animal welfare organisations dominate the results. The people who live and breathe animal care – farmers – are missing. Our voices are not being heard.

I don’t really believe that Animals Australia campaigns will cause a noticeable drop in milk consumption because Aussies love to drink milk but these activists and their followers have worked hard to win the attention of policy makers.

Some of their views are valid, some are ludicrous, and some of the policymakers may well be swayed to adopt them. If we want to be able to operate farms free from a tangle of compliance or, worse, mandatory practices that are actually bad for animal welfare, we must learn from our detractors.

Animals Australia knows that science and logic do not resonate when it comes to animal welfare. Emotions quite rightly do because animal welfare only triumphs when the custodians hold the care of their animals close to their hearts. And because everyone knows that politicians are quick to follow popular opinion, we cannot be satisfied with lobbying in Canberra. We’ve got to tell the story like it is to anyone who will listen.

Tonight, Twitter forum AgChatOz will host a discussion on bobby calf welfare and other dairy practices. I will be there (baby bedtime permitting) and I hope lots of other dairy farmers will be too.

Would I advise my kids to become farmers? Country Hour asks the question

/ dairymilkmaid / 5 Comments

Do farmers want their kids to be farmers? A Victorian parliamentary inquiry is looking at why young people don’t want to further their education in agricultural studies. Early submissions says farming parents are one of the greatest deterrents… Hear more on the Country Hour today, and tell us, would you advise your kids to get a career in farming?

In just a few minutes, ABC Radio’s Country Hour will ask the million-dollar question: if life is so good on the land, would you recommend farming to your children?

I would, so long as Zoe and Alex have a passion for animals and the land and don’t have expensive tastes. Farming is nothing if not exciting and challenging. On the other hand, it’s anything but lucrative, particularly if you’re still struggling with a large debt burden as many young farmers must.

Even if they decide to become farmers, I wouldn’t recommend ag studies. The tradition of many farming families is to “get another trade to fall back on first” and it’s wise, whether that trade is boiler making or journalism. It makes sense to learn from other workplaces, acquire fresh skills, make new circles of friends, establish an independent identity and to experience being an employee before you become a manager.

Perhaps even more importantly, second jobs for farmers are incredibly common and the average Australian dairy farming family makes about as much income off the farm as on it. Employment helps us survive the bad years and ride out cash flow droughts.

And, if the worst happens, there are always options.

Cows say “it’s not fair!”

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As you may already know from my post about the herd’s concern for OHS, cows do not stand any nonsense from farmers. They also have a strong sense of justice.

Cows say "It's not fair"!

Cows say "It's not fair"!

That sense of fair play was offended yesterday when the herd walked past those in the lush hospital paddock towards the dairy. Bellowing and pointed staring at the “cheats” still in their paddock ensued and I had to Unleash the Zoe to get the herd moving again.

It’s not just the herd that has been upset by the separation of the hospital group. The patients are reluctant to go into their paddock after milking, preferring instead to hang around on the track in the hope that they can rejoin the herd.

Cows hate being separated from their peers and, ironically, this does help when their calves are moved from the paddock to shelter. Many cows seem to prefer “adult” company.

Look at my sick dairy cows

/ dairymilkmaid / 10 Comments

Cows in hospital paddock

Cows in hospital paddock


These cows look fine but they’re in the hospital paddock because they have mastitis. It’s an infection of the udder that can be caused by bugs out on the farm, stress or some form of “mechanical damage”, like a bump or malfunctioning milking machines.

Sadly, it’s been a big problem for dairy farmers in southern Victoria this season. Very wet conditions are the perfect breeding ground for the bugs, which include e. coli and staph. Our cows have not been immune and the co-op’s milk testing showed up increased levels of white blood cells – a sign that the cows are fighting infections.

Our first step was to look for cows with the classic symptoms: hot, firm quarters and clots in the milk. We do this routinely but we stepped it up a notch, closely examining every single cow and her milk in one night. We found a couple of cases but not enough to explain our herd’s elevated cell counts, so there was nothing for it but to carry out a spot herd test.

To do this, we divert a little milk from each cow into sealed tubes for analysis at the lab. They tell us which cows have high cell counts but can’t identify the bugs. So, yet another sample was taken from each of the high cell count cows, frozen and couriered to yet another lab. Four days later, we have the results and vet Amy has created a treatment program for each of the cows!

They’ll stay in the hospital paddock, though, until their course of treatment is complete and the milk tests free of antibiotic residue.

Is it cruel to use bulls to get dairy cows in calf?

/ dairymilkmaid / 3 Comments
Bull waits for cows

Hello ladies!

A dairy farmer speaking with ABC Rural reporter Michael McKenzie the other day didn’t really get to explain himself after suggesting that using bulls rather than artificial insemination was linked with inductions.

For decades, it’s been pretty standard practice on Australian dairy farms to use straws of frozen sperm rather than natural matings. Artificial insemination (AI) doesn’t hurt and using frozen semen allows farmers to select traits from the best bulls around the world.

Each bull is given a numerical rating for the characteristics they pass on to their daughters. The scope is amazing – everything from teat length through to temperament is measured – and we can use that information to select sires that will correct problems in the herd. If, for example, we have quite a few cows with short teats, we can choose a mate whose daughters tend to have unusually long teats.

In this way, our cows get naturally healthier and stronger, generation after generation. Better legs and feet means less lameness, while better udders means less mastitis (oh, and susceptibility to mastitis itself is on the list, too!).

There is a drawback though. People are rarely as good as bulls are at detecting when a cow is fertile. Bulls curl back their lips to seemingly drink in the pheromones undetectable to humans while frozen semen may also be less potent than that of a bull.

For this reason, most farmers who aim to have the herd calve over just a few weeks use AI followed by a short period of natural matings with “mop up” bulls.

The farmer was trying to say that he used just the AI, effectively mating his cows over less time. That’s his choice but I can’t see how it has any impact on whether a farmer uses drugs to induce an early calving. If you want a lot of calves in a short time, feed the cows well, choose sires well ranked for fertility and pull the bulls out early.

As you can see from other Milk Maid Marian blog posts, I believe inductions for any reason other than the welfare of the mother cow should be banned. I am not alone – most dairy farmers detest it. The practice is already almost wiped out, with only 1.58 per cent of Australia’s dairy cows induced in 2010. Still too many but a long, long way off the epidemic suggested in media reports.

Farmers twice as likely to suicide

/ dairymilkmaid / 2 Comments

Farming is an addiction for many. Once you’re in it, you can hardly imagine another life. Sadly, it seems that is quite literally true for some. According to research reported in The Weekly Times, farmers are twice as likely to commit suicide than other Australians.

Research in 2010 showed farmers are among three occupations with significantly higher risk of male suicide, alongside transport and construction workers.

Between 1997 and 2002, suicide rates among Australian farmers were between 1.5 and 2.2 times higher than among the general population.

The researchers want to know why and so do I. My suspicion is that part of the cause may lie in one of the legendary strengths of the farmer psyche: resilience. We deal with drought, floods, price collapses and huge workloads by just getting on with it. I’ve often heard people refer to these stressful events by saying, “Ah, but that’s just part of farming”.

But what happens when they all happen at once, coincide with a tragedy or simply become too much? Does that mean we’re “not made of the right stuff to cut it”? Absolutely not. The flip side of the resilient farmer is the whinger. Maybe we ought to value those “whinges” more than we do. They might just save lives.

Farming with a baby in the summer sun

/ dairymilkmaid / 2 Comments

Keeping a baby safe, cool and protected from the sun while doing farm work is something of a challenge. And we all know how farmers rise to a challenge, equipped with hay band, tape and either WD40 or silicone!

In my case, it was half a dozen paper lunch bags taped onto the top of the baby carrier to form a “verandah” of sorts that got the fashionistas talking. I’ve since moved on and think I have achieved perfection.

Peeping out of a baby carrier

Peeping out

Some of Wayne’s old XXL cotton shirts have been seconded for a noble mission and you can see the result in the pic above. I just put one of these oversize shirts on over my singlet and the carrier and do up the bottom few buttons. Little man can be nudie rudie under the shirt and safe from the stinging sun.

Sun protection is equally as important for Zoe, who has just got a new hat and sunnies for summer (yes, I know it’s not strictly summer quite yet but it sure feels like it!).

Zoe in new farm hat and sunnies

Slip, slop, slap and splash with the yard hose makes for a cool farm girl

A young cow and a young girl

/ dairymilkmaid / 2 Comments
Zoe and Pearlie Girly the Cow

Zoe and Pearlie Girly have a unique relationship

Meet Pearlie Girly. Just like her equally cheeky mate, cow 33, Pearlie Girly is a young crossbred cow with an extra dose of personality. Since she is always one of the last in the herd to come into the shed, we get to spend a lot of time with her and Zoe has struck up a curious relationship with the little cow.

Pearlie likes Zoe. Zoe likes Pearlie. Pearlie lets Zoe pat her on the shoulder. Pearlie says “Enough!” and that’s it for the rest of the trip to the dairy. Oh, to be queen of one’s domain…
 

Unless we learn to work together, the animals will be the losers

/ dairymilkmaid / 9 Comments
You know, something diabolical has happened to our sensibilities as we use animals to feed ourselves. We have lost something in the process. It’s called CONSCIENCE.
I don’t know how dairy farmers can lie straight in bed, when they kill the babies … just as the baby seals are killed for their fur, these poor little animals don’t even get a chance to grow a pelt, let alone have time to be alive!!!! Where are we going as a species, to use other creatures in such callous, cruel ways? I am beyond disgusted, I’m appalled and ashamed. GET A CONSCIENCE FOR GODS SAKE, ALL THOSE IN THE DAIRY INDUSTRY.
Friday at 18:19

I don’t blame Sally Hook for that comment posted on the Bush Telegraph Facebook page. Her response to the reported dairy practices was very typical and I’d feel the same way if I wasn’t better informed. Sally and every other Australian has a right to know her food is ethically produced and if we dairy farmers feel slighted by the comments that misinformation brings, we only have ourselves to blame.

Farmers are understandably wary of the vitriol that drips from the tongues of many animal activists.  But that is no excuse to keep people in the dark. Nor can we leave it to our “leaders” to communicate with the rest of the world because it is impossible to delegate telling your own story. Sally needs to hear it from the horse’s mouth, no matter how scary that might be for us.

At the same time, I’m hoping the animal activists will also take a step closer to the table. Sally did. After two days of online “talks” with real farmers, as distinct from agripoliticians, she posted this comment:

I urge the good people of the dairy industry to keep pushing.
Sunday 2 hours ago

We can and must build bridges with Australians who share our passion for animals. Defending the indefensible minority, as industry people caught like rabbits in the spotlight tried and failed miserably to do on national radio, is not only morally bankrupt but counterproductive in the extreme.

Sally is right. The good people of the dairy industry must keep pushing.