Numbaa dairy farmer Laura Burns clocks on at 10am, and knocks off at 3pm, courtesy of nifty and expensive machinery designed to automatically milk the cows.
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In honour of National Ag Day, Laura shared her love of farming with the South Coast Register.
Laura didn’t grow up on a farm – she chose the dairy industry, and has stuck with it for 12 years, for a reason many in hospitality and retail can understand.
“I don’t like people,” she said, laughing.
“I’d worked in hospitality and retail, and after a stint in the Snowys I realised I did not want to work with people again.”
She completed a dairy traineeship in Kangaroo Valley, has worked on conventional farms, and now spends most of her time attending to animal health, doing checks and insemination.
“I love being outside, I love the cows, getting to know their different personalities and attitude,” Laura said.
“My favourite is an absolute sooker, she’ll just stand there and let you scratch her.”
The milking machines, installed a year ago, have been a godsend.
“The hardest thing was breaking the herd mentality, they would come in all together, we don’t have the room for it,” she said.
“Trying to split them up was the hardest bit.”
The cows come in as they wish, and line up for the robots.
The machines monitor their weight, milk temperature, how much food they’ve been given, how much food they’ve been given.
“With that information we can make quicker health decisions, treat them quicker if they’re sick, and keep the girls a lot happier and a lot healthier,” Laura said.
“Our cows have calmed down a lot since being in the machines, it’s because we now move around them rather than being behind them and pushing and yelling when they don’t go the way you want them to.
“If there’s any problems, the robots call us in.”
With a family of her own, the shorter working hours give her a work/life balance that dairy farmers of yesteryear would have dreamed of.
Her son, 4, comes to work with Laura on Mondays, and he loves riding the quad bikes around and playing in the mud.
There are three workers at the farm, but when they need a holiday, the machines allow them to run the farm with just one person on deck.
The industry still presents its challenges, and farmers are unable to set the price of their own product.
To support dairy farmers, Laura has urged consumers to reject supermarket brands.
“If everyone was to start going to branded milk we might see an increase in the farm gate price,” Laura said.
“We need our product to be valued, the girls work hard for it.
“Social media is really helping us connect with the process that goes into milking.
“It opens their eyes to how much we love our animals.”
