Dairy

These placements are very popular  as they offer not only dairy as you are used to at home, but also a large amount of machinery operation.

Our Network of hosts include some of the best dairy placements in Australia.  Dairy farming gives you a mixture of jobs and activities every day.  Properties can be 150 hectares - 1,000 hectares depending on the farm business.  The number of cows may vary from 150 - 2000 cows.  A medium to high level of responsibility is required from an agricultural trainee and it differs from farm to farm.  

Some dairies are programmed with the latest technology and others are basic and manually operated.  Dairy sheds can be rotary dairies with up to 80 cows on the platform, others might be herringbones with rapid exit or basic herringbone, 45 or 90 degrees with Alfa Laval milk machines.

Some Australian dairy farms use centre pivot irrigators, some flood irrigate their paddocks and others are dry dairy farms so they don't put water on their paddocks.

Machinery and equipment may be a full range of dairy tractors, mower, tedder, rake, wrapper, seeder, telehandler, cultivator, disc planters, slashers, sprayers, excavator, manure spreaders, silage and hay feeding wagons, 2 wheel motorbikes and quads.

All aspects of dairy farming include milking, animal husbandry, calf rearing, assist with cows calving, vaccinating, drenching, castrating, tagging, feeding animals and mustering.  Tractor operations are making hay and silage, feeding out hay and silage with feed wagon, reseeding pastures, spreading fertilizer and manure.  Farm maintenance can be replacing and repairing fences, servicing machines, controlling weeds.  Many dairy farmers also have beef cattle.

A typical day consists of morning milking, feeding out silage and hay to cattle with tractor and feed wagon, farm maintenance duties, cattle work, afternoon milking.  Duties performed in between milking's will vary depending on time of year and weather conditions.