WATCH: Shoalhaven robotic dairy farm welcomes high school students for hands-on visit

But at this Shoalhaven operation, tech is transforming everything from milk collecting to animal welfare.

On Thursday (September 14), Chittick Dairy Farm at Pyree opened the gates to eager school students from Oak Flats High School, showing them how robots are an essential part of their work - the Register tagged along for the excursion.

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Chittick Farm has been welcoming, on average, one school group a week during school terms.

It's part of an initiative from the education department and Dairy NSW to showcase careers in agriculture, right here in students' own backyards.

Thursday's group from Oak Flats High included Year 10 Robotics students, and Year 11 primary industries students.

They had the chance to see, first hand, how a robotic dairy operates day-to-day.

The team at Chittick also explained to students, the important role which robots and computers play in keeping their cows happy and healthy.

Each of the cows in the Chittick herd wears a collar, equipped with sensors and transmitters.

The collars send real-time data about each cow's condition to the dairy's computer, which is useful for the team to spot any health issues quickly.

The collar is also the cow's 'pass' to enter the milking shed; up to three times a day, the cows can wander in to the milking shed whenever they please.

Being the kind of animals which like routines, staff have noted certain cows tend visit the milking shed around the same times each day

They step into the milking bay, start snacking on some grain, and the robot does the rest: automatically cleaning and milking their udder.

Once they're milked, the cow's udder and the milking cups are cleaned again by the robot, and she's on her way.

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For the Oak Flats students, the robotic dairy was a totally new and eye-opening experience.

At school, they have been raising beef cattle - and have even won several prizes at the local ag show. So their hands-on practice has been slightly different, compared to rearing dairy cows.

Matilda Forsyth shared some of her takeaways from the visit, and what she found most interesting

"[I liked] that the cows are able to bring themselves in whenever they need, and how the robots work - that's pretty cool," she said.

"I haven't seen anything like this before. It's really interesting."

In the Shoalhaven, there are two dairy farms which use robotic milking systems; others use more traditional herringbone or rotary dairies.

All of the milking systems need staff on farm - so it's not like the robots are taking away jobs, but there's certainly more technology and science being applied to farming today.

As Dairy NSW's Tania Ketteringham explained, using robots for milking is one of many ways the industry uses tech; there's much to be said also about genetics, and cow collars for health monitoring

She said that dairies still need people to work there, now more than ever.

"The dairy industry, like all industries, are experiencing shortages at the moment. So it's nothing unique about the industry," Ms Ketteringham said.

"What we want to show people is that there are different types of jobs. I don't think a lot of people realise there are different types of opportunities within the industry.

"The robots just change the type of job, rather than making us need less labour - it's just a change in the type of role that you're doing."

Having joined Chittick Farm for a university placement several years ago, farm hand and herd manager Tori Brindel-Mansell said the combination of ag and tech was an ideal fit for her.

Tori didn't grow up with a farming background, but took on agricultural studies at school and later at uni.

"I specialised in dairy automation at uni, because I thought it was really interesting," she said.

"I came down here for placement over the summer, and was attracted to Brett and Shannon's setup. They offered me a job and I've been here ever since."

Tori added that her day looks a bit different to the norm, for a dairy farmer.

"[Working] with the robots, it's more about lifestyle," she said.

"We're not getting up until eight o'clock in the morning; we don't bring the cows in and out to be milked, it's self-motivated and they get to come through when they'd like.

"Attracting people to the industry is getting increasingly harder... it is more attractive to come to robotics, rather than getting up early in the morning."

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