15 Farms. 3 States.2 Dairy Shows.1 Youth Camp…

Holly Bickerton from Western HYB reports back on an action-packed month spent in Australia as part of the Australian Exchange.

My time in Australia started with the Dickson family, at Emu Banks Holsteins, the top BPI herd in Australia. As well as a fantastic road trip along Great Ocean Road, the Dicksons took me to Paul Smith’s farm where 750 cows are milked through a 45-point GEA DairyProQ robotic rotary dairy. I was really impressed by the technology used in the parlour and dairy. Everything there was carefully considered – from using an extra vat to trickle feed the milk into the plate cooler to allow better cooling, to an automatic one-button wash system needing no human intervention. The parlour also can separate a sub-clinically infected quarter into the dump line if the SCC is high. Calves were fed using automatic calf machines from 24-hours-old. These were the only automatic calf feeders I saw during my time in Australia. Forward-thinking Paul is always looking for the latest technology to improve his business and reduce labour costs.

That evening, I was thrown straight into Australian culture with an evening at Simpsons Speedway, with the Dicksons and the Templetons.

We were up early the next day for a trip to South Australia, where we visited Donovan’s Dairy, milking 2,300 cows on a 116-point rotary. They ran a simple system with the cows grazing on pivot-irrigated land with grain in the parlour and the only heat detection used was tail paint.

Next was Benlargo Holsteins, a lovely family-run farm. Angela and Shae Tweddle showed me their best cow, Benlargo Elijah Ding, who was only three days fresh. She was an incredibly powerful cow who stands out from the rest; at eight-years-old, she has a fantastic mammary system and stands on a superb set of feet and legs.

Back in Western Victoria, Leah took me to View Fort Holsteins and Jerseys, owned by Matt and Nic Templeton. This is a fantastic herd of cattle, producing high-quality milk and consistently winning top awards at shows and on-farm challenges. Land isn’t irrigated, so the cows are fed a PMR on a feed pad after milking, before they head out to the paddock. That evening, I helped Leah and Anna Dickson catch the heifers for the youth camp and load onto the truck. They had spent the last few weeks halter-breaking 50 heifers ready for the children to use at the youth camp. No easy task!

After a packed few days, I headed over to Noorat to help at the Western District’s Youth Camp, a fantastic three-day event for 8-15 year-olds. For the duration of the camp each child was given a heifer, which became their responsibility to feed, bed, wash and water daily. Children took part in workshops including conformation, stock judging, washing, halter-making, showmanship, clipping and an interactive artificial cow lesson including the reproductive system, calving a cow and castrations. I thought the artificial cow lesson was fantastic. They learnt how to put ropes on a calf and how the correct calving position should feel. Many of the children had seen parents doing these things at home but now have a better understanding of how, why and what they were doing. They also had classroom-based lessons on genetics, how to read pedigrees, farm safety, the mammary system and an interesting talk from Matt Templeton about his involvement in the dairy industry and how he became an international fitter and judge. The children loved this, making them realise there’s more to the dairy industry than just milking cows. The youth camp ended with all the children taking part in a showmanship class judged by myself and Leah. I loved judging the class and felt really proud seeing how far each child had developed in their showmanship skills in just a few days.

After the youth camp I headed over to Gippsland with Oakley Henry (2019 Exchange). Oakley dropped me off with the McRaes, (Andrew McRae 2023 Exchange), who milk 1,540 cows across three farms with Andrew’s mum rearing all the calves herself. They also employed German backpackers for most of the milking. It’s a fantastic opportunity for the backpackers, who are provided with a place to stay and a job, enabling them to earn funds to continue their travels. In Gippsland they graze flood-irrigated land. The water runs off the mountains before being distributed though canal systems with gates onto each field. Each section requires flooding about every 15 days during the dry season. Water is incredibly expensive and so ensuring it is used effectively is key.

Andrew took me on some great trips, including a visit to Wilsons Promontory, a beautiful National Park with many beaches, great views and lovely walking tracks. One of my favourite experiences was watching some traditional camp-drafting. This is a unique western Australian sport where the rider must pick a calf and separate it from the group ‘camp’. They must draft the calf in a figure of eight around two pegs and through the final gate, and competitors are marked on speed and style. This was amazing to watch and showed off the Aussies’ skills and how they work their cattle with horses. Whilst this was just a fun competition, on the cattle stations these are essential skills used daily to manage cattle.

My next stop was Glomar Holsteins, owned by the Johnstone family who milk around 600 cows on a flood irrigation system through a 24:24 rapid exit. Their most recent purchase was a grand-daughter of Oakfield Solom Footloose.

I was taken for a day trip to Raymond Island on the Gippsland lakes system. The island is famous for being home to over 200 koalas. After taking a walk around the island we sat down for Australian fish and chips by the lake. Gummy fish (shark) is traditionally served from the chip shop, alongside potato cakes, dim sums, and gravy. Delicious!

Another awesome trip was a day at the Traralgon annual rodeo. The rodeo was a fantastic display of western sports including barrel racing, bareback bronc riding, team roping and steer and bull riding.

I left Gippsland at 2am on the Tuesday morning to travel to Tatura to help Justin set up his stand for IDW. While in Tatura I met up with Brady Hore who took me up to Northern Victoria to spend a couple of nights at Elmar Holsteins. Elmar was the first fully housed and AYR calving herd I visited – 600 milkers in one barn with over 60 fans, sand bedding, flood washes and fed on TMR. All the sand bedding and flood wash water are recycled through an excellent filter system. They have produced multiple national champions including their most famous cow, Elmar Goldwyn Jessica, who spent many years on an IVF programme at TLG. The cows were exceptionally clean and the whole herd had fantastic mammary systems.

Next stop was International Dairy Week (IDW) where I was delighted to meet Leah Dickson again, to spend the week with her and her family. I started IDW by judging the parading section of the youth challenge, scoring the young members on their teamwork, technique, presentation etc. Their parading score, along with scores from clipping and judging, were combined to crown the overall winner. I feel privileged to have been asked to judge this section by Holstein Australia; it was incredible opportunity!

On the Tuesday evening the IDW 35-year anniversary dinner and awards took place. Two special awards of the evening were the Lex Bunn Award and the Bette Hall Power-of-Women Award. Winner of the Lex Bunn Award was Matthew Templeton, a truly inspirational man, a very successful cattle fitter, international judge and breeder who, despite many health battles never let anything stand in his way. Matthew sadly lost his fight for life on 20th February, surrounded by his closest family. Matt’s achievements and passion for the industry was remarkable – in his words: “If you’re standing still, you’re not moving forward.” I feel very honoured to have met him and his wife Nicola and their two beautiful children, Geri and Harlie.

Fiona Hanks won the Bette Hall Power of Women Award – the most knowledgeable, kind, caring and generous woman I’ve ever met. Nothing is too much trouble for Fiona, and she goes above and beyond to help anyone in the dairy community and her local community, especially the Templeton family during their difficult time.

Wednesday evening brought the STGenetics Create the Future Sale and I was asked to help prepare all the cattle before they headed to the ring.

Onto the cattle shows. We had an amazing week, winning Junior Champion Illawarra, Reserve Junior Champion Illawarra, Junior Champion Brown Swiss, Intermediate Champion Brown Swiss and Brown Swiss Best Udder. Toby Fleming, who tied with us, won Reserve Intermediate Champion Illawarra. Leah also won the new Junior Herdsperson Award, created by Brad and Jess Gavenlock. I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to show in the National Brown Swiss Show. This week was a highlight of the trip for me; I’m very grateful for the Dickson family for allowing me to be part of their team!

After Dairy Week I headed back up to Northern Victoria to visit two more housed cattle farms. The first was Clydevale Holsteins, where I was excited to see Valana daughters out of Jacobs Doorman Velvet, who is the grand-dam of one of our (Calben) heifers – Riverdane Davinci Valana. Clydevale milk around 500 cows through eight Lely A5 Astronauts on compost bedding and a flood wash system with Lely Cosmix S, Lely Lunas and a Lely Juno. The Lely set-up was impressive. The shed was cleverly designed with four separate cow groups, each with two robots and an outside area where the cows had the freedom to choose to lay in the sun or rest inside below the fans.

The next stop was Gorbro Holsteins who had just had the most incredible dairy week, winning many banners including Junior and Senior Champion Holsteins and Premier Exhibitor and Breeder of The National Red and White Show and Premier Exhibitor and Breeder of The National Holstein Show. They have one of the newest barn set-ups in Northern Victoria, having only made the transition to housing milkers six months ago. Housing set-ups are becoming increasingly popular in northern Victoria in order to shelter the cows from the heat, utilising lots of fans for their cooling benefits. In addition to this the land is better used for cropping, because it is so flat with a good irrigation infrastructure.

After the dry hot heat of Northern Victoria, I spent a day in Melbourne, walking through the Royal Botanical Gardens, the Docklands, Alberts Park and St Kilda’s Beach. In the evening, I took a walk along Southbank to see all the amazing lights and the Crown Fire Tower display.

After a short plane journey to Merimbula I was collected by Tom and Gemma Otton and their children, Sophia, Madelyn and Charlie. They run Tango Holsteins and Jerseys; a family farm, milking 200 cows in the Bega Valley. The Bega Valley is beautiful and not far from the lovely coastline of southern New South Wales. I spent the afternoon swimming at Tathra Beach with the family before heading back to the farm to help Sophia and Madelyn with their showmanship and their cheeky Jerseys.

Tom took me on a tour of the Bega Valley, visiting several other farms, including Warwick Farms, Brent Jessops and Rocky Allen at Rockstar Cows – who recently won senior Jersey at IDW. All these farms were affected by the Bega Valley fires in 2019. Lots of the area has been rebuilt and regrown, although many trees remain black. It was interesting to learn how farmers coped with the natural disaster and hear about the impact it had on them. Hard to imagine but many lost animals and houses. Others were lucky and managed to save some stock and their homes, with one farmer pumping water from his swimming pool over his house all night to save it.

Next was Waljasper Holsteins where I stayed with Justin and Libby Walsh and their daughter Ella. The Walshes took me to a lovely Australian local show, Berry Show, where I was lucky enough to lead their Dreambig two-year-old to Intermediate Champion. The show concluded with an evening rodeo. After a lovely breakfast the next morning with the family in Nowra, I caught the train to Sydney to spend my last couple of days exploring the city, including major attractions including The Royal Botanical Gardens, Harbour Bridge and The Sydney Opera House. Sydney is such a beautiful city with old traditional buildings as well as lots of modern skyscrapers.

My final morning was spent at Bondi Beach. By 8am the sun was shining, and the beach was already packed. I spent a couple of hours walking along the beach and catching the last bits of sun before the long flight home.

I’m beyond grateful to everyone I have met in Australia. I’ve made friends for life and experienced things that would never have been possible without the generosity of Holstein UK, Holstein Australia and the Australian members. Despite the countries being quite different in approach to everyday cow management, it was clear to see that the end goal of showing world class cattle can be achieved no matter where you’re from.

Holly Bickerton