Saturday, March 30, 2024

Trainee to trainer

Avatar photo
All the way from Alfriston, on the outskirts of Manurewa, Janelle Adams says she loves everything about farming cows and can’t wait for the calving season to start.
Reading Time: 2 minutes

The 19-year-old Taranaki dairy farm herd manager loves her job.

“The other day I was out in a storm in my wet weather gear and the cows were following me around – it was awesome.”

And having trained in dairy farming skills at Land Based Training’s (LBT) South Taranaki Te Rua o Te Moko training farm in 2013, she is now back at the farm to take up a 2IC-herd manager position and help train new recruits.

She has finished Level 2 and 3 training and is now embarking on Level 4 through LBT and hopes one day to be a sharemilker on her own account – or even better, with a good dairy farming bloke to work with.

He would have to be keen on hunting though, because Janelle gets out the back of Waverley whenever she is able, hunting pigs, deer and the wild sheep that inhabit the pasture and bush margins.

Even better if he has a licence, as she doesn’t have her own yet, but loves to go hunting whenever she can with anyone she can who is licensed.

“I love going out in the bush – I take a gas cooker and a tarpaulin and stay out there. I often go eeling and gathering paua when I have time off.”

“I’ve got a beefie too, I’m going to butcher it – or sell it – I haven’t decided yet.”

As long as she can get outside and do something each day she is happy, saying she can’t stand being inside.

That’s possibly why she struggled with Alfriston and the whole Auckland lifestyle.

“I always had dramas in Auckland – I was always one of the bad kids at school.”

“In the end I just thought stuff this, I just want to be who I want to be.”

Getting out of town, she shifted down to be with her grandparents as a 16-year-old, and picked up a relief milking job.

“It’s so peaceful here.”

Dale Cooper, the sharemilker at Te Rua o Te Moko, is getting the farm into shape for calving, Janelle says, and has cut back the herd numbers from 500 cows to 480.

Janelle milks and manages the second herd through the little, old 28-bail rotary dairy taking two hours each milking.

“I actually prefer the herringbone at my last job, because it’s easier to make sure the cows milk out.”

Milking is no hardship, however, because Janelle loves to get up early in the morning and says she hates going home because she loves being busy and being outside.

“I love teaching things to people too – although it can be hard working with the students if they don’t want to listen to me.”

Janelle broke her nose when she first started dairy farming and still bears the scars, but that doesn’t stop her “getting out the dress and heels and being a real girly girl sometimes”.

Her twin sister is a beautician in Hamilton, so she visits regularly and gets out on the town with her.

“I love taking selfies too.”

Total
0
Shares
People are also reading