Part two of our Australian Working Holiday Visa (WHV) dairy farming adventure took place on a 300-cow unit near the regional town of Kerang, Victoria. Situated near the Murray River and the New South Wales border, Kerang is a characterful town with plenty of amenities and a great base for exploring other towns and landmarks in the area.

We found the job through a recommendation from a previous employer, but dairy farms in the area are crying out for staff, and if you have a good work ethic and don’t mind getting your hands dirty there are plenty of jobs available. Our pay was $30 per hour (averaging around 40 hours per week), and our package included free access to a car provided by the farm, and free accommodation with no bills to pay. This is a fairly standard package, so don’t settle for less if you are looking for similar work!

The farm itself boasted a 60-point rotary milking parlour, flood irrigated grazing pasture, an established team of workers, 300 Holstein Friesian dairy cows, and a spacious house serving as workers’ quarters. The family who owned the farm were truly lovely people, and made sure we were happy and properly looked after. As well as two generations of the family, we also worked alongside a young herd manager and two Italian backpackers who were gaining their 88 days of farm work.

Our roles were mainly centred around milking the cows and rearing calves, but also included plenty of machinery work, quad bikes, fencing, calving and other general farm work. Our favourite job was collecting in the cows for milking; following the cows at a leisurely pace through green fields and down dusty tracks in the Australian sunshine is very relaxing! Less fun jobs included sheeting the clamp and sorting cattle in the rain, but we got on well with the other employees and these jobs are fine when you work as a team.

In our spare time, we explored Kerang and the surrounding towns. There are a lot of good pubs in the area, particularly in Barham and Cohuna, and we enjoyed driving through the Victorian countryside to further away towns such as Echuca and Bendigo. Notable landmarks in the area include Pyramid Hill, Mount Hope, the Ibis Rookery, and the lakes on the road from Kerang to Swan Hill. During our stay, we kept busy and saw a much as we could, however we would have become bored and struggled to find new activities if we had stayed any longer as there really isn’t much going on in the area and the landscape is largely flat and featureless.

We were here for six weeks from late August to early October 2022, and unfortunately the weather was unseasonably wet at this time. As a result, the calving paddock turned into a bog, and this significantly impacted on the health of the calves. We saw very high calf mortality towards the end of the calving period, which of course made the job a lot less enjoyable. Luckily, we missed the worst of the weather, as the Murray River basin flooded two weeks after we left and the cows and calves had to be relocated to higher ground.

High points:

1. The boss- we were treated like family by the owners, and they were constantly making sure that we were happy and weren’t in need of anything.
2. The workload- we had plenty of time to rest in the middle of the day, and the boss was very careful not to overwork anybody. The work itself wasn’t difficult, and was mostly enjoyable.
3. The pubs- there is a wide offering of food and drink in Kerang and the surrounding area if you don’t mind driving a few miles.
4. The package- we didn’t pay for accommodation, bills or transport, so were able to save everything we earned.

Low points:

1. Animal welfare- the UK has very high welfare standards, and the wellbeing of farm animals in Australia is comparably worse (this was not the first time we had noticed this in Australia).
2. Insular views- racist rants were a daily occurrence.
3. The landscape- there aren’t a lot of outdoor activities in the area, and as mentioned before, the landscape tends to be flat and featureless.

There are a lot of dairy farms in Victoria and a shortage of dairy farm workers, so if you want to experience Australian dairy farming on your WHV, you can be selective about where you work and which jobs to apply for. Although we had a lovely time in Kerang, there are hundreds of farms nearer to the coast and to Melbourne which may have more interesting surroundings and more opportunities for fun in your down time. As we have mentioned on previous posts, it is important to properly interview potential employers to ensure their values are compatible with yours- it is not pleasant to regularly listen to racist and backwards conversations. However, if you aren’t afraid of early mornings and a bit of mud, you can earn good money, learn new skills, and meet great people on dairy farms in Victoria!