A DAY ON THE FARM FOR
BRETT

Hi
My name is Brett

And this is my twin sister Emily.
We are in year 6 at
Jamberoo Public School.
Our school is part of the 2009
Picasso Cows program and Emily
is helping to paint the cow.
I am helping by writing a
journal about my job on the
dairy farm.

Twins by birth but not by nature
Even though we are twins we are very
different ( but we are still great mates)
Emily is very artistic and musical.
I like those things too but I like the outdoors
and play lots of sport.
My favourite sports are swimming and Emily
rugby.
When I grow up I would like to fly fighter
jets or be a carpenter – for now I am very
happy farming in my spare time.
Brett

I started working on the dairy farm as part
of my Rotary Junior Community Award

To complete my award I have to do a
number of tasks.

Junior Rotary Community Award
Community Service
Physical Recreation
Social Experience
Community commemorations
Community meetings
Cultural exchange
Religious and spiritual experience
The Arts

Social Experience Activities
Community commemorations
• I went to Kiama Council 150th Celebrations
Community meetings
• I attended a P&C meeting
Cultural exchange
• I had a meal with an Italian family
Religious and spiritual experience
• I am going to the Nan Tien Temple @ Dapto
The Arts
• I went to the Wollongong Art Gallery

Junior Rotary Community Award
cont…
Skills supervised by a tutor or a
mentor
Emma mentored me on how to
raise dairy calves
I also have to keep weekly
records in the form of a weekly
diary

Reward for Effort
Once I have completed all of the tasks my
diary is assessed by my school supervisor
whose name is Miss Garlic
My work is then sent away and I receive a
certificate presented to me by my local
Rotary Club

My tutor
My tutor for 10 weeks on the farm is
Emma
She is the Clover Hill Dairies apprentice
and is doing dairy skills as part of her
HSC
Emma is in year 11 and has been working
on the farm for 2 years

Emma loves the
cows and they are
very curious about
her

Emma loves the calves and they
are adore her & they remember
how she used to look after them
when they were babies.

This picture is an example of my
new computer skills. Here I
learnt how to turn a colour
photo into back and white.

What Emma has taught me
Animal Welfare
Raising calves is like raising kids you should
treat them like they are your family
Little calves need to live in a very clean
environment and we clean their utensils
every day
We make sure they have 4 litres of colostrum
in the first 24 hours to give them immunity
from infection

What Emma has taught me
cont..
Calves also get fed hay and pellets
They must also have clean fresh water at all
times
We also fill their pens everyday with fresh
pine shavings
The two health issues we have to watch for
are scours and pneumonia
When the calves get scours we give them
electrolytes ( just like human babies)

What Emma has taught me
cont..
When they get pneumonia we give them medicine
like calf Panadol, vitamins and antibiotics for 3
days
We feed them milk twice daily until they are 7
weeks old then we feed milk 1x daily until they
are 12 weeks old
We make sure nothing is wasted- what the little
calves don’t eat is feed to the big calves. When we
do this we makes sure we do not give the big
calves leftovers from sick baby calves

What Emma has taught me
cont..
Each calf is identified with 3 tags
One tag has number ( which is different for each
calf
Another tag in the opposite ear has the calf’s name
The third tag has a microchip in it and is called an
NLIS tag
NLIS is a scheme which allows traceability from
paddock to plate
NLIS stands for National Livestock Identification
Scheme

Other skills I learnt
Lynne was my mentor for two
things
Environmental stewardship-
Landcare farming
Computer skills –
PowerPoint presentations

Other skills I learnt cont…
Landcare farming
I learnt
how to plant trees and shrubs to
increase biodiversity
How to sow grass by hand-
broadcasting- to prevent wind
and soil erosion

So lets start at the beginning
I was lucky enough to help out around
Lynne Strong’s dairy farm Clover Hill
Dairies and let me tell you I had a ball. On
the farm I was put straight to work
When I first started I learnt lots of new
skills
My first day was 8th of August I did lots of
Painting starting with the architraves for
the windows for Nick’s new house. Nick is
Lynne’s son and he is the boss

I even got to put the
undercoat on a baby
Picasso Cow which
we are lending to the
Landcare Artfest

Then Emma the
apprentice came
and took me up to
the calf shelter
were I was able to
feed the calves and
any thing else that
needed to be done.

We had to disinfect
some of the other
spare hutches and fill
them with bedding
so that we could
bring in more calves.
Cleaning the hutches
is very hard work.

Emma and I had to
then go and get the
new baby calves we
are going to put in
the shed.

One of the calves
was already out
of the paddocks
so we only had to
take it to the
shelter

The other calf was in the
paddock so it was up to
us to catch it
Unlike human babies,
calves are generally able
to walk within a few
hours of birth and are
able to run within a day
or two.

As you can see Emma
is pretty good at this.
She has had lots of
practice!!!!!!

To take the calf to its
new home we had to
walk through the
milking shed
I HAD NEVER
SEEN SO MUCH
POO IN MY LIFE!!!!!!

Anyway we eventually caught the
calf and when we did Emma had
to quickly herd the other cows
away from the calf while I held it.
Man r those calves strong.

When we had the 2 new
baby calves in their new
homes Emma showed me
how to feed them hay
and pellets. We also gave
the fresh water

The calves soon learn
how to drink out of a
bucket. How funny
is this calf . It stuck
its head in so far…..

.. Her eyes are
even covered
with milk.
One of the
other calves
soon licked it
off

This is Emma
feeding the
calves. Brett is
learning a lot
from Emma

This is Erin. She has had a
hernia operation and is in a
pen by herself.
Erin thinks I am a lollipop

It was time for milking so Emma and Nick
went off to milk but I wasn’t allowed yet
so I went back down to Lynne’s house to
paint some more of Nick’s new windows

Milking time
and the long
walk home

And back again

At about one o’clock I was
told that I could come
up to the Dairy to see
how every thing works
and it was so cool.
Personally I think that it
is the best dairy ever.

After milking I learnt
to hose off all the
poo. The poo and the
water go into two big
tanks and are
irrigated back onto
the paddocks to
grow the pasture

After Emma
showed me
around the
dairy we then
went back up
to the calves to
feed three of
the calves some
milk and let me
tell you those
calves
can be
greedy
when they
want
something

When we had finished feeding the calves their milk it was
time for Emma to go to the new farm where Emma milks the
cows all by herself.
This is the new farm and this Emma’s favorite cow Magpie.
Magpie is very friendly

While we were down
there Lyn’s husband
Mick was also there
planting seeds but he
doesn’t sow them by
hand he does it with a
tractor and a machine he
pulls behind called a
direct drill.

The seeds are kept
in this
compartment.
There are many
small tubes that
shoot the seeds
down and into the
soil. The seed then
shoots and you
get nice green
grass.

When the wheels
turn on this machine
they rotate the seeds
in the seed
compartment which
helps them to fall
down the shoot
tubes

The way it works is one of the blades
on the direct drill makes a gap in the
ground and behind that blade is
another blade that covers in the soil
and in between is a little pipe that
shoots out the seeds into the grass.

In the tractor there
is a GPS that tells
Mick were he has
already planted
the seeds. This also
enables him to
work at night.

This is
Brett
riding the
Quad

Oh and I'm only posing on
the bike as it is illegal to ride
a motorbike if you are under
16. You must wear a helmet
when you ride a bike as
quad bikes are very
dangerous

Week 10 and I have
learnt to milk cows.
Awesome!!!!!

First we push this
button which will
give the cups a
vacuum and this
will allow them to
start to suck out the
milk.

When were finished
milking we have to
hose out the dairy so
that its nice and clean
for the next milking

My next new skill
Environmental stewardship and Landcare
Farming
Clover Hill Dairies has won many awards
and is the 2009 NSW Landcare Heroes
Primary Producer Award winner

Lynne and her
family and
neighbours spend
a lot of time
looking after the
environment on
their farm and I
am helping them
do this for the
next 10 weeks as
part of my Rotary
Program

The creek bed we are working on has been
cleaned to remove all the invasive weeds. We
had to plant the grasses to help prevent
erosion caused by water and wind.

On the first day
we planted 400
grasses and some
trees to stop
erosion in the
creek bed and
increase the plant
biodiversity.
I am learning
lots about the
environment and
lots of new
words such as
biodiversity
which means the
different types of
living things on
the earth

What I was told
to do was to get
two buckets of
ryegrass and
spread (called
broadcasting) it
evenly on the
bare dry patches.

Each week after that my
main job was planting
rye-grass in the bare
areas to help hold the
soil together.
Ryegrass is a grass that
grows really well in
winter whereas the
other grass on the farm-
kikuyu grows well in
summer and dies off in
the winter.

When we finished
planting it was time
to water them in so
another man come
down with a 300
litre tank of water
and I was sent down
to water it all ,and
once that water and
the wind hit your
hands I guess you
could say that you
wish your hands
had really hot
heaters in them.

At the end of my 10
weeks we had got a
lot of work done and
everyone was very
pleased.
This is me with all the
neighbour volunteers
under the big
strangler fig

Soon it was spring and all the
reptiles started coming out of
hibernation. They have red belly
black snakes and lots of diamond
pythons and blue tongue lizards on
the farm .
This is a diamond python and they
are not poisonous. It was in the
garden where I was painting so we
encouraged it to find some other
place to sit in the sun

This is Jamie ,
Lynne’s next door
neighbour with a big
python.
Jamie likes to pat
them
Mmh I don’t think I
will try that

Best news yet
Lynne and Michael and Nick have offered
me a job
I will now be working at the farm for 4 hrs
each week on Saturday
My other friends are working at the local
IGA Grocery store and I am very happy I
have an outside job

I love working on
the farm.
Everyday I learn
more about the
A DAY cowsTHE FARM FOR
people, the
ON
BRETT
and the processes
that help make out
dairy products

This slide show is a Brett W
production for
Picasso Cows 2009
With special thanks
to
Lynne
Nick
Michael
Tim
And especially
Emma for all their
help

Acknowledgements
All photographs in this presentation are
the property of the Strong's and should
not be used without permission
I have permission
My little dude has been borrowed from
the web
http://icecreamjournal.turkeyhill.com/index.php/2008
/08/20/ask-ernie-8-questions-8-answers/