Dairy Farming in Gore, New Zealand

Nov 15-25 – Jake – Gore, New Zealand

“You want to come milk the calves with me?” our host asked as she pulled up to where we were weeding her rose garden in a souped up golf cart. I get bored after thirty minutes of weeding and was thrilled at the prospect of getting out on the farm to do some real dairy farming work. They have almost 800 cows and over 150 calves. The calves live in four separate pastures spread over their 800 acres of farm land and get fed milk once a day. As you can imagine, it takes a lot of milk to feed that many hungry little ones. Here is a picture of the milk feeder that we hitch behind us in the 4×4 and fill up at the giant tank containing the morning’s milking.

The calves are still really young and get some feed as well to augment the milking. They are grouped by age, but otherwise are mixed together with future bulls and cows of different varieties. The Jersey’s are the brown ones. The Fresians are black and white. And there is a mixture of the two that they call a Kiwi Cross that is brown with white spots. Things on the farm run at a breakneck speed and have to be done quick or else everything won’t get done. So we drive with the pedal down completely, slamming through the brisk mid-morning air. It has been a cold patch our first few days here, starting out at around 6 degrees C in the morning, with cold rain on and off. Not quite the summer weather we expected.

As we make our way through the gate of a pasture full of calves, we whoop and holler and clap to get their attention. Most don’t need much coercing and rumble towards us, eyes on the prize. However, we need to make sure we get everyone and do a few loops to ensure they are all chasing the cart. The leaders of the pack stretch their necks trying to get a hold of the moving rubber nipple. Some even manage to suck milk while running full speed. These guys are really cute.

As we come to a halt the herd crowds around, everyone leaping in towards a free nipple. Many see a friend sucking away and are adamant that their nipple must be better and make a big lunge for it, slamming the other out of the way. A small battle ensues, usually with the original calf taking the fight to the next neighbor and stealing their nipple. A wave of theft rambles down the row of wagging butts and cow tails. Happy little devils. Frothing at the mouth with spit and creamy milk. In not too long they will be huge. Some will be sold off, others used as bulls to impregnate the cows, and the rest of the cows stay on to get milked when they are old enough.

This seems to be a long way from how nature intended it, with milk coming through a rubber nipple from a giant tank containing a mixture from hundreds of cows, but everyone seems to enjoy the system. You can tell that they are social creatures, enjoying the company of friends, just as a young school child enjoys their mates at boarding school. Right now they have a good life on the farm here in Gore with people that care for them.

Our hosts are incredibly nice people and super young. They are engaged to be married in a few months. Life on a farm of this size with a skeleton crew of help is not easy. Every eight days they have to take over the two milking shifts per day for two days. This consists of getting up at 4:30am and rounding up the cows. Milking all 800 of them in the rotary milking shed, cleaning out the shed which is then filled with cow excrement, having a short break, and then repeating the same thing over again. Oh, I forgot, also doing all the managerial tasks that you have to do on a regular basis as well. On the normal days they have two milkers who take over these jobs so that they can focus on calf development, artificial insemination (AI), checking cow health, etc. Lots of planning, organization, and overall just plain hard work.

I wanted a taste of this life and asked if I could help with the milking, since their shift was coming up. Happy to have the help, they said to meet them out in the milking shed around 6:30am. I suited up in overalls and a pair of borrowed gum boots and went on out to learn how to cup cows. What an experience. The teats come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. The cows all have markings to indicate if one of the teats is injured and should not be milked. All the cows get herded into a staging area feeding into the rotary milking platform which holds around 50 cows at a time. The machine spins and loads/unloads cows at a pretty brisk pace. One time around is the amount of time needed to finish milking each cow. So once they reach the end, the milking cups automatically fall off and the cow steps out, heading back to a pasture. This is a high-tech rig with each cow having an RF-ID tag, which wirelessly sends information to the main computer at the milking station as they step aboard. How old are they? Health history? AI date? Expected delivery date? Amazing. Also it tracks milk output each milking and whether they need to stay on or get off the platform. Some cows are stubborn and go around again when they should have gotten off, so you do not attach the cups to those cows.

I learned the handling motion for the four suction cups pretty quick. You have to make contact to each teat with the tip of your pointer finger to make sure the suction cup goes on properly. After awhile I was shoving on cups as fast as I could, trying to keep up with the platform spinning round and round. “You can skip that one, mate,” my boss chimed in every once in a while when I got carried away and tried to cup a cow we have already done who is going around again. It was such a thrilling experience. When a cow lifts its tail, look out! There is a mud pie coming your way. Luckily, most of the cows pee before getting on since it helps relieve pressure for their milking. Cow poo flew everywhere, though. We had a high pressure hose to help keep the area clean, but with 800 cows, you can imagine the battle. My overalls and plastic gloves would get filthy fast, and so I was unable to scratch any of my itches. Luckily, I had too much to do to worry about that.

My host knows everything about these cows. He is constantly feeling them, marking them in preparation for the night’s AI run, checking to see how the injured are coming along, lubricating some dry teats, etc. Years raised on dairy farms has provided him with an intimate knowledge of every portion of this life. His soon to be wife also astonishes me with her knowledge and skill as well, because she has only been living the dairy life for two years. I helped out with both shifts and the cleaning that follows. Man, was I tired afterward.

The next day Kendall and I were asked to come help out on another farm where some of their calves were staying. We both suited up in overalls and went out to learn what drenching and drafting meant. The calves needed some medicine shoved down their throats and we were there to help herd everyone around. The drafting is separating the different breeds and genders out to count and load on the trucks together. It was a lot of fun pushing and shoving these guys around to get them going in the right direction. Not the brightest animals around. They would smash together real tight in the pen while waiting for the medicine, sometimes pooping right in the face of another calf. Then when we went to grab them to direct them we found our hands full of crap. Lovely.

We had to herd these lazy bums down a long straightaway to get to the correct pasture. They went super slow unless we screamed at them and honked the horn of the truck. At one point a farmer who works on this farm came up with his trained dog and set her loose on the calves. What a sight! She rallied after them at lightening speed and got them moving right quick. A simple call from her owner and she was back in the back of his cart in no time, happy as can be. Sadly our hosts lost their dog only a couple months ago just after the two years it took them to train her. She got her collar caught in an electric fence while trying to cut through a pasture and couldn’t free herself in time. They are hoping to find another soon because herding all the cows in for milking can sometimes be a pain when they are not in the mood.

The house we stayed at is huge with two levels and several bedrooms. The parents had moved to another part of New Zealand and left the farm and all its jobs to our hosts. Three German girls were already there when we arrived and two American girls came midway through our stay. Lots of help for the plethora of jobs to be done. Anyway, with Thanksgiving fast approaching, we decided that a celebration was in order. The girls has brought pumpkin mix for a pie and we went shopping for a turkey and other good stuff. We found a nice 5.5 kilo turkey since it is a common Christmas day meal here. On the day before we left we had a giant feast cooked by the two girls and myself. Check out our delicious turkey.

I was proud to share this tradition with such wonderful people and it was a first Thanksgiving for our hosts and the German girls. Our last WWOOF location turned out to be a gem tucked away in the outskirts of Gore. I really felt like I got a little sampling of what life would be like on a large dairy farm. While it is a lot of work, there are definitely rewards to be had that can be found nowhere else. Plus, you get free milk and yogurt!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. Don’t forget dessert!

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