In Charge of the Farm

Illustration by Andy Dubbin

This weekend, my host farmer went to Melbourne for a night, leaving me in charge of the farm. This meant, rather stressfully, that this plucky Brit would have to handle two milkings and feed the animals completely unsupervised. I'm sure right now you're amusing yourself by imagining a series of disasters occurring while I was in charge: cows escaping and plodding off towards Melbourne, the dairy exploding, or as illustrated by my college roommate Andy, a cow's udder falling off.

It felt like my three weeks on the farm had been leading up this moment, with everything up until now being preparation for being in charge. In that way, it was a lot like studying for exams, preparing for interviews, or practicing for a big tennis match. Indeed, the night before I lay down to sleep with thoughts of the next day, as I would before those events. Whereas in the past it has been 'is my second serve ready?', it was now 'can I remember how to wash the vat?' and instead of going through the changes to economic graphs that result from an increase in the money supply, I was contemplating the series of gate openings and closings that would guide the cows from the paddock to the dairy and then out to the feeding area.

I wasn't completely alone, as a Novak Djokovic resembling French helper had recently arrived. He is a willing worker and is always desperate to help, but he only milked for the first time on Friday and then he made the catastrophic error of failing to direct the milk of a cow spray painted red into a separate bucket. Luckily, on this occasion the marked cow was not on antibiotics so the entire vat of milk did not have to be thrown away. My new partner wasn't filling me with confidence, but I was pleased to have him alongside me nonetheless.

The farmer left around lunchtime on Saturday, so we all milked together in the morning, then for the  afternoon session it was just the Anglo-French duo. The first task was to fetch the cows. Although they were grazing in one of the closer paddocks, we took a quad bike out. The gate was opened and the cows soon traipsed off on their pilgrimage to the dairy. One animal was a little slow to get moving, but a toot of the bike horn and she was off to join her long line of companions. So far so good.
Next, I had to adjust the right combination of switches and levers to prepare for the milking and send the dairy mechanism chugging into action. Minutes later we were ready; sporting gloves, aprons, and focussed expressions, we fist pumped and first row of cows entered the dairy.

It is important that the milking process is carried out as quickly as possible. With 140 cows to get through twice a day, going slowly would take up all your time. However, the real reason is that the machinery consumes large amounts of electricity, and electricity is one of a dairy farmer's biggest expenses. We started off at great speed and rattled through the first few rows of cows with no hiccups. It was almost going too well, as next I made a small error with closing a gate that led to one cow failing to be milked. It wasn't a big deal, but I was frustrated with myself as it was an easily avoidable mistake and I wanted the process to go as smoothly as the white stuff we were obtaining. Focus was quickly regained and there was no further incident.

After the milking was over and the pumps washed, the Frenchman hosed the dairy while I went to feed milk to the calves. I was beginning to relax after the stress of the milking when I discovered that the two male calves had disappeared. I stared into the pen where the pair of one-day-olds had been in the morning and found only the brown ground. The gate was still locked and tied, but the calves had vanished. I carefully examined the pen again, my eyes searching for hiding places that didn't exist. I turned away, put hands on hips and looked out across the farm, expecting the calves to somehow be there when I turned back. My eyes were telling me that the pen was completely empty, but my brain refused to believe them, although there was no two ways about it: the calves had escaped.

At this point, I should explain that dairy farmers seldom hold onto their male calves and instead sell them for veal five or six days into their life. Furthermore, the current veal market is very weak so male calves can be worth as little as $10. Nonetheless, the two escapees would have to be found. I decided to feed the other calves and the sheep before sending out the search party and thankfully they were fairly well behaved, although I did have to offer my fingers for one calf to suck on to stop her from stealing her pal's milk once she had finished her ration. 

We soon spotted three calves: two were lounging amongst the calving cows and one was sitting alone at the end of the ponies' paddock. Therefore it reasoned that the lone calf was one of the escapees, the other being one of the two with the cows, and that the remaining youngster was the female calf that was born on Friday. So we led the calf from the ponies back to its pen and marched off to grab the other rebel. Now I can't quickly tell whether a calf is male or female, but it didn't take long to realise that both the young whippersnappers in the calving cow's paddock had dicks. The Frenchman and I looked at eachother with the sort of 'What the...?' expressions that cross language barriers. This discovery meant that all three calves had escaped during my tenure. We reunited the female with her mother and hustled the lads back to their pen. I still had to teach the brats how to drink milk. This involved mounting the animal, shoving a feeding bottle in its salivary gob and raising and lowering its chin to create a sucking motion. I managed to get one of the dissidents to drink a fair amount but the other was simply making the bottle and my hand very sticky. That would have to do.

The Sunday morning sun peered out over the plains as we prepared for another milking. Again, we started off with great efficiency. Unfortunately, one cow seemed to have decided to play the role of the schoolboy who gives the substitute teacher a hard time. This beast led a row walking into the dairy, but then stopped in its tracks and refused to go any further, causing a massive cow jam. I sprayed the cow with water. It wouldn't budge. I shouted at the cow. No movement. I smacked the cow. Two steps forward and four step back. I folded my arms and looked unimpressed. No reaction. It was hopeless. No matter what we did the wretched animal would not proceed to its spot to be milked. Finally, after more cries of 'stupid cow' than an episode of Eastenders,  I climbed into the miscreant's path and managed to send it (and all the cows behind it) back the way it came. Shuffling the order so a different cow was at the front, I reopened the gate and we completed the milking.

The farmer returned after lunch on Sunday, but had plenty to catch up on around the farm, so I led the afternoon milking too and fed the calves after. This time there were no delays and the day even ended on a satisfying note - the two male calves were now drinking without my hand-under-chin assistance. Who knew that I could teach newborn cows to drink?

I left the farm on Monday, presenting another similarity to my weekend in  charge of the farm and an exam. After finishing an exam, you know that you will probably never use any of that painstakingly memorised information again and that it will soon be shunted from your brain to be replaced by song lyrics and tennis scorelines. Likewise, I may have milked my last cow and I certainly won't be raising and lowering the right levers at the right times to wash the pumps ever again. However, with education it is believed that from taking a class and studying for the exam one learns and develops from the process, even if it is often unclear how or why. The same can surely be said of my dairy farming experience, and I headed back across the barren, sun baked, spirit level flat plains of Northern Victoria feeling that I had somehow become a stronger person.