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Harrisville is a small town about an hour south-west of Brisbane, Australia. I had the opportunity to do a documentary photojournalism at Roderick's Dairy, a family-run dairy farm with an area of 220 hectares owned and operated by Paul Roderick with Linda (wife), David (father), Gwen (mother) and sons, Thomas & Logan.
April 2020: “We’ve faced droughts, floods, feed shortages and now a pandemic… but we’re still producing high-quality milk for Queenslanders.” Paul Roderick, Dairy Farmer.
THE YOUNG CALVES
Calves and heifers are housed in separate pens from the mummy cows because their schedules and diets are much different. They are grouped by age so their diets can be customised to the stage of life they are in. Just like young children, young calves are more prone to getting colds and need to be monitored closely. They need their warm fresh milk.
Older calves drinking milk from the trough. Younger calves are bottle fed in bulk. They need their warm milk from mummy. The blue segmented bin ensures that each calf gets the right amount of milk. And if a calf is not drinking, the staff will clearly know.
FEEDING
A fully grown cow eats roughly 20 kg of food per day. Paul works with nutritionists to create a specially formulated diet. The diet is different in summer and in winter. The objective is to provide a diet to achieve the best possible milk.
Paul is seen driving the vertical mixer. The vertical mixer is filling the trough with the daily feed.
The bobcat pushes the feed nearer the cows.
The cows needed a push as they were afraid to move because I was beside the gate.
MILKING THE COWS
The cows are milked in a 14-a-side double-up parlour built in 2007 that has been upgraded with ID recognition. The farmer has to sanitised the milking equipment and setup to be ready for the herd. Cows are habitual animals and thrive on routines. In this case, a farmer has to go around to usher the cows towards the milking parlour. (If the cows were in the pastures, one would use the buggy.) Once in the parlour, the backing gate pushes the cows towards the pit. The cows are willing to proceed as there will be food waiting in bins. As the cows are busy eating on the front end, the milking process happens at the back end. Concurrently, the farmer in the pit has to be alert as the cows will not give warning when she is going to poop in the farmer’s face; so it helps to be tall.
The backing gate. Notice the floor? Most of it is poop.
The farmer has to clean the cow’s udders and stimulate the teats before placing the 4 suction cups on the teats. When the milking is done (based on time and volume – whichever comes first), the cluster of 4 suction cups automatically drops down. Before the cows leave the pit, their teats are sprayed with iodine; this prevents bacteria, yeasts, spores and fungi. Once the cows exit, the farmer uses a high pressure hose to wash the clusters, the floor and the surrounding area. Next the backing gate pushes the cows and another 14 cows walks towards the pit. 14 cows on both sides of the pit which works out to 28 cows back to back which took about 16 minutes to complete. The time also depends on the number of staff working. Ideally 2 staff in the pit and one to push the cows in, especially when you have 350 cows.
This would repeat until every cow is milked. At Roderick's Dairy, cows are milked twice a day. I believe it is around 4am and 3pm daily, both rain or shine. Roderick's Dairy produces around 2.6 million litres of milk per year. When the milk truck arrives, the milk is loaded onto the truck and taken to the dairy plant for processing and packaging before you find it in the supermarket.
Here is the owner, Paul, working on a holiday when many workers took a break.
Milk from cows on antibiotics are disposed of so it never enters the food supply, hence there is milk on the floor.
The farmer is sending buckets of fresh milk to feed the calves. On this day, I heard 7 buckets were needed.
Notice the floor, it is poop.
Dairy farmers keep a close eye on their cows to make sure they are healthy. If a cow gets sick and the veterinarian decides she needs antibiotics, her milk is disposed of so it never enters the food supply. While at the pit, if a cow has an issue, she is tagged in the system and when all the cows leave the parlour, the automatic gates redirect the ‘ailing’ cow to a separate area for the necessary attention. When dairy cows are not eating, sleeping or being milked, they are busy pooping. One cow produces about 60 litres of manure a day. Dairy farming is certainly not for the faint hearted. It is a shit job but someone has to do it to put milk on your table. It is long hours in the most uncomfortable conditions and holidays are a luxury. Roderick Dairy works closely with vet students from University of Queensland providing the practical experience during work internship.
PS.
No two dairy farms are alike.
During my visit, Roderick's Dairy was doing a research sanctioned by Queensland Agriculture to test and compare 3 different types of feeds to see the quality of milk produced from 3 batches of cows within a duration of 18 months. Hence the 3 test groups of cows had to be kept apart during grazing in the pastures, feeding time and getting milked; extra electric fencing had to be installed. As such, this project would have deviated from the normal operations.
April 2022
Venue: Roderick's Dairy, Tredegar Park
Wilsons Plains, Harrisville, Queensland, Australia
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