April 2010 edition
Relief Milking Course for North Eastern Victoria
Are you finding it hard to find a relief milker? Well North East Murray Dairy has taken the initiative and has been working with the National Centre for Dairy Education Australia and has developed a ‘Relief milking course’.
The aim of the course is to provide interested people a stepping stone and introduction into the dairy industry. The program is delivered over two weeks, with participants exposed to key activities on a dairy farm and hands on milking each afternoon. Participants will be given a solid grounding in all of the skills required for competent and successful relief milking including:
- Learn how to work safely and effectively on a dairy farm, including operation of ride-on vehicles.
- The basics of milking and maintaining milk quality standards.
- How to work with animals.
Each participant will be billeted onto several different dairy farms to experience ‘whats out there’ and see if dairying (initially relief milking) is a career path for them. Therefore if you are seeking to find more relief milkers or even a future employee this will be a great program to be involved in. We need as many interested farms for students to milk on. For the program to be a success we need your participation.
The program has been initiated for several reasons. If successful it will inject new labour into our local dairy industry, something many farmers have stressed is an issue. It also provides people that may not have industry of farmer contacts an opportunity to explore dairying in more detail. The course would be run towards the end of May-early June.
For more information for potential participants, or if you are interested in hosting some of the students for their training which could develop into a long term relief milker for your farm, contact Stuart Crosthwaite 02 60289511.
