When Hamish Milne was offered an opportunity to manage a dairy farm or come on board as a sharefarmer, he had no hesitation about opting for the latter.
Hamish, 32, sees sharefarming as the first step towards his ultimate goal of running his own dairy farm, even though he was raised on a family beef-sheep property and already has his own beef operation.
Being a sole worker on the farm has its challenges, but Hamish is up for it. He’s working up to 12 hours every day but takes it in his stride.
“It doesn’t bother me,” he said. “I’ve got a goal in mind to have my own dairy and you have to work hard to achieve that.”
Hamish is on an 85-15 sharefarming agreement with Aran Gleeson at his Kirkstall farm.
Aran’s main farm is about 10km away at Illowa, a beef-to-dairy conversion that continues to perform well, milking about 500 Friesians.
The Kirkstall property had been owned by a client of Aran’s contracting business and when it came up for sale about three years ago, he and wife Taliah were quick to buy it for more out paddocks to raise dairy heifers and grow more silage.
The dairy that had been operational under the previous owner was put into hibernation as Aran concentrated on growing the Illowa business.
After getting the opportunity to buy more land next to his Illowa farm, Aran decided to grow numbers and work two dairies. He reactivated the Kirkstall dairy and called on Hamish to help.
The dairy went back into use in July and Hamish is now milking 253 Holsteins.
Aran owns the cows, the land and the dairy and provides other equipment, while Hamish supplies a motorbike and pays for a few things including chemicals in the dairy.
“It’s a way to get into the industry without too much risk,” Hamish said.
“Aran offered farm manager or share farmer and we thought this agreement would work better at the start and we can review later on once things progress, and hopefully I can start getting my own dairy cows.
“It was easier to do it this way. It’s an opportunity to work for myself and to get my foot in the door of the dairy industry while continuing to work on my beef farm.”
The beef farm is being run on his family’s farm at Mepunga. His parents, both recently retired, are helping with the beef while Hamish progresses his dairy career.
The Milne family farm has been in beef and sheep over recent decades, but had earlier been home to several smaller dairy farms.
Hamish has long-term plans to revive dairy on the 283-hectare home farm.
“I grew up with beef and sheep but I’ve always worked in dairies,” Hamish said,
He did relief milking while at school and later worked with dairy farming neighbours Barry and Andrea Smith for more than seven years.
“They taught me what I needed to know and I enjoyed being outside working with animals.
Getting the 38-a-side swingover dairy up and running again in Kirkstall was easy, especially with Aran’s previous experience at the Illowa beef conversion.
“Aran had people come in to upgrade the dairy where needed and replace all the cups and lines,” Hamish said.
“It was right to go when I did the first milking in early July.”
Hamish hasn’t needed to learn much since taking on the additional responsibilities.
“Aran set it up and said how he wanted it to run.”
Some of the cows on the Kirkstall farm came from Aran’s farm but they were topped up with a new herd from Colac, with more are on the way.
The cows are mostly pasture fed but they also get access to almond hauls on the feed pad in the morning and get roughly 7kg of wheat-canola mix per milking.
They return straight to the paddocks after the evening milking.
Hamish enjoys working with the Holsteins.
“I’ve always liked the Holsteins,” he said. “Every farm I’ve worked on has been Holsteins and I like how you get more litres in the vat.”
They cope well on the flat farm, which is known to get very wet after heavy rain, though Hamish says this season has been good.
Aran calves most of the year at the home farm and the calves will be taken to be raised at the Kirkstall property.
In February, Hamish will start calving in Kirkstall. “We’ve got two calving sheds and calving paddocks so we can do it here,” he said.
He will also rear close to 100 Friesian bull calves for mop-ups that will be trucked back to be raised at the Mepunga beef farm before being sold as two-year-olds, continuing a trade he has developed over the past four years.
While he has been doing most of the work on his own so far, Hamish has access to a shared worker with Aran.
“I have to pay a worker if I want to put one on, but that’s up to me,” he said.
With two people, the milkings would be kept to under two hours, though Hamish has been getting them done in less than 2.5 hours on his own.
“It’s fine,” he said. “It just takes an extra 20 minutes and you get whatever other jobs are needed done when you can.
“I knew it would be hard by myself. It would be a lot easier with a second person doing jobs but that will have to wait for a few pay cheques to come in after a few start-up costs.
“It’s still early days here but so far, this deal is working well for me. So far so good.”