Some of the earliest and fondest childhood memories held by Kiarna and Taleah Murfett revolve around the playroom in the family’s old dairy at Framlingham.
This year their parents upgraded to a new rotary dairy, but the playroom lives on in a new guise.
The old dairy is in the process of being demolished but one bit was saved and repurposed — the playroom.
In the new structure it will serve as an office while Kiarna, 20, and Taleah, 17, are now branching out and working on different dairy farms.
Dairy farming runs in the veins of the Murfett family and, when Kiarna and Taleah’s parents encouraged them to look outside the home farm for their first work opportunities, they both looked at dairy.
The family milks 240 crossbred cows, having moved from Tasmania about 20 years ago where their father Alistair worked in beef and sheep and mother Renee worked for a local vet.
The farm did have an employee but it’s now Alistair and Renee running the business, with help from their daughters when they’re around.
The hectic life of dairy farming is nothing new to Kiarna and Taleah, and their 15-year-old sister Nikaiah.
“From babies, we had a room next to the dairy,” Kiarna recalls.
“We were over there while Mum and Dad did the milking. We had heaps of toys and stuff and it was fun but we also learnt about farming.
“We started feeding calves when we were young, and pretty soon we were helping with the milking.”
When the sisters decided they wanted to leave school, their parents were keen for them to get different work experiences.
Kiarna has been working with Danielle and Tom Wright in nearby Panmure for the past two years, and in August this year, Taleah joined Paul and Christine Moloney about 25 minutes away at Terang.
As a general farmhand, Kiarna is honing her experience in most facets of dairy farming.
“I’m the only worker so I pretty much do everything,” she said.
“What I like is that you do something different every day so it’s never the same. I love being around the animals and you’re always learning new things.”
Kiarna is nearing completion of her Diploma in Agriculture through RIST and has no doubt that farming is her working future.
Taleah made the big move this year to leave school and pursue a career that she knows she will love, along with starting a Certificate III in Agriculture also through RIST.
DemoDAIRY Foundation has provided scholarships to both sisters.
“We’re both still studying and the scholarships support us with school fees, work clothes and tools,” Taleah said. “It has been very helpful.”
Earlier this year Kiarna was sponsored by DemoDAIRY Foundation to join a New Zealand Dairy Study Tour, supported by the Livestock Improvement Corporation (LIC).
She found a lot to appreciate.
“I quite liked the Halter collars and could see them being a game-changer with the virtual fencing,” she said.
“I also liked the Kiwi crossbreed, being a smaller cow with good high milk solids per cow and is a more feed-efficient cow.”
While both sisters are in full-time jobs, they live at home with their parents and are happy to help out when needed, as are their parents when it comes to driving Taleah to work.
This will include running the farm for a few days while their parents take an upcoming short holiday.
However, they don’t often swap notes about their blossoming careers.
“We don’t really talk that much about work, but we’re still interested,” Kiarna said.
They haven’t yet discussed succession planning with their parents, but they have shown interest in returning to the family farm at some stage.
“Our parents didn’t want us coming home straight home, they wanted us to go and learn off other people,” Kiarna said.
“It was up to us what we wanted to do and we both chose dairy,” Taleah added. “They’re happy to see us continue in the dairy industry.”
Nikaiah is still at school but also keen on farming, though it might be more centred on big beef stations.
Both Kiarna and Taleah plan long-term careers in dairy, although they worry about the viability of smaller 200-cow farms.
In the meantime, they want to keep learning to be ready for any opportunities that arise.
“I like learning new things,” Taleah said.
“If you do something wrong, you learn how to do it the right way. I think being able to look after the animals is the most important thing.”
Kiarna agrees, saying that caring for the animals and making sure you have the right pastures to feed them properly is the key to being a good farmer.