Renee Mugavin and Niesha Hunter grew up in regional Victorian cities, but dairy farming has given them the chance to see the world.
Renee and Niesha have returned from a three-week tour of Europe after Renee won a trip to the Netherlands, courtesy of sponsor Lely, at the annual Dairy Farmers’ Ball. Niesha was supported by the DemoDAIRY Foundation to join the study tour.
It gave them a chance to not only get a behind-the-scenes tour of Lely headquarters but to visit farms across the Netherlands.
Renee and Niesha both work for dairy farmer Anthony Eccles at Purnim, who also joined the party by supplying Purnim Holsteins work shirts, vests and jumpers for them to wear.
While they enjoy the open fields and cows grazing on the Eccles farm, Renee and Niesha enjoyed experiencing the more intensive European systems.
“It was crazy to see their different systems because virtually all their cows are barned,” Renee said.
“We were lucky when we went to one farm, the cows were outside.”
Farmers receive a benefit from the government if they have their cows outside for 122 days or more for the year.
Even housed in intensive systems, herds are much smaller than Australia.
“It’s totally different to Australia in terms of cow numbers,” Niesha said.
“Their usual herd size is 80 to 100. We went to one farm with 250 cows but that was a really big farm for The Netherlands.”
Most of the farms they visited had Lely robotic machines for milking and feeding.
“The feed is programmed and constantly fed out and there are machines that measure how much feed is left for the cows,” Niesha said.
“If it drops below a certain level, it tells another machine to add more.”
They said the cows seem to love the system.
“The cows just go and do their own thing,” Niesha said. “I like knowing that the cows are coming in on their own terms when they’re ready.”
“They eat when they’re ready and then just chill and lives their lives,” Renee adds.
Niesha said the cows seem content.
“They are on the fatter side because they don’t have to walk for their feed; it’s always there for them. They’re big, healthy and friendly cows.
“I think robots are worth money in the long haul. It is a lot of up-front money, but the ongoing benefits would cover it.”
Most of the farms are small in the densely populated country, with intensive cropping to keep up the feed.
“Generally, they have some grass allocated for when the cows go outside and then they have a small paddock and lease a small parcel of land to grow feed,” Renee said.
“At one farm we visited, they just cut the grass and brought it into the cows so they had fresh grass.”
They both returned thinking Australia is a lucky country for farming — but it could learn a few lessons from the Dutch.
“Australia is lucky with a lot of land and the ability to grow enough grass to circulate in a feeding rotation.
“They are very different things we can learn from the cows being barned in terms of their behaviour and how easy it is for them to learn how to go into the robots.
“They are also looking at genetics for cows to have a longer lifespan.”
Niesha completed her animal and veterinary bioscience degree at La Trobe University and had planned to continue studying vet medicine at Charles Sturt University but COVID-19 intervened.
“I finished my first-year exams and then the learning style changed,” she said.
“I’m a hands-on learner and couldn’t do it on the computer so that was tough and I deferred. I started working for Anthony five years ago and haven’t left.”
There are three full-time staff members, along with two casual milkers, to help Anthony. “Everyone helps everywhere on the farm,” Niesha said.
Niesha and Renee tend to focus on rearing the calves, making sure the herd is healthy, helping with pasture management and Niesha does a lot of the book work and record keeping.
They are milking about 350 but expect to close in on 500 after calving season.
Niesha grew up in Geelong but her father had land in Gippsland with horses, which sparked her interest in animals.
“I have no dairy background whatsoever but I knew from a young age that I wanted to work with animals.
“A vet was always the dream and I got close but I love my job and I love working with cows. I don’t have any plans to go back to study, though the opportunity is always there.”
Renee’s brother Nathan was working on the Eccles farm.
“I was coming out every few weeks because I was looking for something to do. Anthony offered me a job when I was still in school doing Year 9 so I did a school-based apprenticeship.”
Renee, who grew up in Warrnambool, became full-time after graduating in 2021.
“I love the calves because you see them progress from fresh out of the womb to becoming a milker,” she said.
“There’s a lot of satisfaction and it’s very rewarding.
“We’re pretty basic with calf rearing but it works for us. We don’t use powdered milk but use fresh milk from either the fresh cows or high cell count cows that are allocated to the bucket so we can use that milk to rear calves, which is good to keep the cell count down and help to rear the calves at the same time.
“Anthony is a big genetics man so a lot of our calves are starting off from a good position.”
DemoDAIRY Foundation covered Niesha’s flights and helped with a hire car to take them around Ireland to look at more dairy farms. They also added Paris and London to the Lely-sponsored trip, their first time overseas.