A sixth-generation dairy farmer is raising her four daughters to appreciate and enjoy their heritage, even if change is on the horizon.
Sarah Kelly is the sixth generation of her family to be a dairy farmer. She is also the third generation of her family to farm in Melbourne.
Yes, that’s right, Melbourne, the capital city of Victoria, in Australia. Sarah, her daughters, and her parents, Gerry and Joan Kelly, live on the family dairy farm at Skye, within Melbourne’s south-east suburbia.
Gerry’s parents, Joseph and Mary Kelly, owned a dairy farm closer to Melbourne, at Cheltenham.
“The DFO is now where that farm was,” Sarah said.
“Dad was brought up there. Joseph and Mary were our first generation of dairy farmers in Australia, when they came out from Ireland.
“Joseph and Mary sold their dairy farm at Cheltenham in the early 1970s, then they bought the Skye farm.
“We moved here in 1990 when mum and dad took over.”
Sarah and her siblings were brought up on the Skye dairy farm.
“Milking was in a herringbone dairy, but dad did a whole lot of upgrades when he arrived,” Sarah said.
That included replacing the herringbone setup with a 32-unit rotary dairy in a one-person milking setup, which still works today.
The dryland farm is 200 acres, supplemented by a 100-acre leased block. Normal capacity is to graze and milk 280 cows in a spring-calving, predominantly Holstein herd.
Suburban sprawl has seen significant subdevelopment around the farm in the past decade. Two boundaries abut residential houses, with industrial blocks on other boundaries.
That brings its own challenges, not least daily visits by real estate agents touting for business.
“At least one turns up every day, saying they have a guaranteed buyer,” Sarah said.
Gerry and Joan would sell the farm to the right offer, and are actively looking for another dairy farm to buy, which Sarah and Gerry would also operate together.
Advantages of the suburban sprawl include access to utilities, with the farm reliant on town water and the electricity grid.
“Town power is pretty reliable here,” Sarah said.
“We have had a few sticky moments, but it always gets fixed up quickly here because so many people are relying on it.”
Town water and a dam provide reticulated drinking water for the herd.
A bore provides washdown water for the dairy.
The food miles to their dairy processor are also reduced.
“We sell our milk to ADFC, and it goes directly to the Chobani factory in Dandenong, which is only 10 minutes from the farm,” Sarah said.
“It feels good to supply to a local milk processor.”
Sarah has been the farm manager for the past six years, working alongside Gerry.
“Dad’s the bossman,” Sarah said.
“I enjoy working with Dad. He’s an amazing dairy farmer; I’m always impressed with his skills and learning.”
Sarah is responsible for the office work, herd health management and choosing the genetics for the herd’s development.
“The herd is 80 per cent Holstein. The balance is predominantly Jersey and some mixed breeds,” she said.
“For a month, we AI everything that’s on heat, and whatever doesn’t get in-calf, the mop-up bull gets a chance to join.”
Sexed semen is used with the higher production cows, and conventional AI on the rest of the herd.
“We’re targeting the good stuff — using sexed semen for mastitis resistance, milk production and maintaining moderate size so the cows continue to fit in the rotary dairy,” Sarah said.
The AI program is followed by a mop-up dairy bull, then a mop-up beef bull.
Excess calves are sold to regular small landholding customers in the local district.
Gerry is responsible for pasture development and feeding the herd.
He spreads urea and effluent and relies on a naturally occurring average annual rainfall of 678mm, or 56mm monthly, to encourage pasture growth.
Effluent is spread across the property, using popup sprinklers, to support pasture growth.
Sarah and Gerry share milking and calf raising.
The last couple of dry years have seen Gerry and Sarah reduce the herd to 200 cows.
Production now peaks at 11,000 litres every two days.
Two failed consecutive spring seasons mean the normally reliable farm has not had a feed wedge for a couple of years, so no hay nor silage has been harvested.
Gerry and Sarah have reduced their grazing capacity by about a third, and purchased all the hay needed for the remaining herd. Silage is non-existent.
“We’re usually self-sufficient with our hay and silage production,” Sarah said.
“The rainfall deficit in the last couple of years has meant we have to buy in all our feed.
“Last year’s hay and silage prices were pretty rough, and the supply and prices got sticky to manage. We ended up getting hay from WA.
“I think a lot of people bought in bulk and that wasn’t leaving much fodder for the smaller farmer.”
Sarah has been able to source hay from northern Victoria for the season ahead.
With the birth of her fourth daughter earlier this year, Sarah is on maternity leave but still doing the office work for the farm business. By the end of March, she expects to return to milking two days a week.
While the farm normally doesn’t employ additional labour, during this transition period, Josh Kelly, Sarah’s cousin, has stepped into her on-farm role.