Growing up on a family farm, Hayley Clark couldn’t wait to head out the gate and sample a new life away from life on the land.
“As a young kid my parents always took me out on the farm to do jobs and I loved being outside; as a teenager I didn’t like my parents telling me what to do and I definitely didn’t think I would ever be a dairy farmer,” Hayley said.
With her mind set on heading to Melbourne and university, Hayley took off to complete an engineering degree but came back home during COVID-19 in 2020.
“I worked on the farm over summer and found that I really liked it more than anything else I had done previously,” she said.
Hayley did continue on with her university degree, eventually swapping to computer science and a part-time arrangement, but she found herself increasingly drawn back to the farm.
“I was sitting at my computer for hours and hating not being outside and then I just decided that was it, I wanted to work on the farm with Mum and Dad.”
For the first couple of years Hayley was just a worker with no authority as she began to learn how the farm really worked.
“I certainly needed to know what I was doing before I could tell someone else what to do,” she laughed.
Hayley can’t believe how much she has learnt about running the farm, not only as a business but also from animal husbandry perspective.
Managing people has also been a huge learning curve and Hayley is now directly involved in employing staff.
All the skills she is currently accumulating are helping Hayley to be the best farmer she can and she puts these into practice, especially when her parents Laurie and Gayle take some time away from the farm.
“There are a mix of things I love about farming,” Hayley said.
“There is the physical job of looking after the animals, which is a big part and I love being active, and then there is the business side, which makes me feel like I am physically building an asset for my own future.”
Hayley has begun purchasing cattle from the herd and every time one of her own animals calves and has a heifer, she can see her numbers increase.
She currently has around 30 head.
“My goal is to eventually take over the day-to-day management of the farm — starting to buy animals a year ago is part of that transition.”
Hayley said her passion for breeding and genetics has come from her mum.
“Mum’s interest in cows over the years has sparked my own interest — Mum likes strength, chest width and good udders and she also breeds for longevity and I think that’s a pretty good combination.”
The Clarks are currently moving away from big Holsteins and are instead focusing on a more compact animal.
They have been using VikingGenetics for quite a few years now and are very happy with their progeny.
Hayley said her latest purchase is a recently calved heifer that entered the herd.
“She had only been in milk for 10 days, but she is always first in the dairy and she is wide and strong and that’s the sort of cow I want to breed on from.”
Hayley said she has bought a few animals in what she would call a reluctant sale on her mum’s behalf.
“There have been a few she hasn’t really wanted to pass on.”
The only thing Hayley and Gayle differ on is Hayley’s love of Jerseys.
“Mum makes fun of me, but I like a few Jerseys and some red cows.
“They are my own area and I like looking through the semen catalogues and making my own breeding decisions — they are solely mine and while I don’t want a herd full of them, I will definitely always have a few.”
Hayley is currently completing a Certificate III in Dairy Production and she thinks she will probably go on to complete a Certificate IV as well.
The Clark family is currently milking 400 cows on 263ha at Katandra West.
They run an irrigated grazing system with some land used for winter cropping.
They are currently looking into changing the calving pattern, calving four times a year over a shorter joining period.
“We aim to get around 140 heifers a year on the ground which is pretty easy to achieve with sexed semen. We use beef straws on the stale cows to reduce costs,” Hayley said.
As a second generation dairy farmer, Hayley sees a strong future for the dairy industry and agriculture in general.
“We need food producers in this country and the key is getting young people interested early so they can develop their skills and take on the next generation of farming.”