Lissy is from Canada and grew up on a farm. She has worked on dairy and beef farms in Canada, Germany and Australia. Lissy went to New Zealand in 2009 for 12 months of dairy farming work on the Intern Options – Dairy Farming Programme and started work in the North Island.

This is what Lissy had to say about his time in New Zealand.

So i got asked write a blog about my stay in New Zealand, on a working dairy farm. I arrived in New Zealand in August this year, it’s been almost 5 months since I left home. My flight from Canada to NZ took 15 hrs.

When I arrived in Auckland I took the bus down to Matamata, which is about a 3 hour bus ride. I stayed there one night and setup my bank account, tax file number, bought work clothing and my bus ticked down to Fielding, which is where my work began. The bus ride was around 6 hours and was good, I saw lots of interesting places along the way and beautiful scenery.

I started work straight away and worked on an 800 head Dairy farm. I was 7 mins from Fielding and around 30 mins for Palmerston North which was the next biggest town. The farm I worked on actually had two farms, one was 27 bale rotary and a 44 bale rotary milking shed.

We started work at 5:30am every morning till breakfast which was around 9am most days. Back to work at 10am, they would have you do anything from moving cows, fences, feeding calves to cleaning, rain or shine. Lunch was at 12, then back at 1pm to set up morning and night paddocks. At 1:30pm it was time to get cows in for milking.

For more information on what happens on a New Zealand dairy farm each day, click through to the typical day on a New Zealand dairy farm page.

Milking would start at 230pm till 5pm I worked in the 44 bale rotary and we milked 500 cows through it. Me and my flatmate ran that shed. Most days we got home at 5:30pm, some days it was way later than that.

This meant we worked around 10-12 hrs a day. I worked on that farm till end of September this year. I had a good time there and learn lots. The only bad think about working there was, I didn’t get along with the manager very good, which made work hard. So what I did was talk to the Intern Options person in New Zealand and they found me my next farm placement.

I traveled back to Matamata for one night before heading out to my next dairy job, this was in Te Puke in the North Island of NZ. I started work at the beginning of October. I was around 15 mins away from town and they also have 2 farms with two milking sheds. Number one is a 36 per side Herring Bone shed and number two is a 25 per side HB.

When I first arrived I worked in both sheds one in morning milking one at night milking. But when AB started I was fulltime in number two shed and we did AB for 4 weeks. We milk 270 cows in number two shed, around 350 cows in number one shed. Morning work starts at 5am till we are done milking which is around 7-8am. Back at 9am and you kinda get told what has to get done though the day and that’s it.

My work was form feeding calves, weeks, cleaning and helping the Murray(boss), Coralie & Darren(managers). We have lunch form 12-3. Afternoon milking starts at around 3pm and get done around 5pm. On rainy days and weekends we didn’t have to do anything, only milking.

The people at this farm have been amazing to me and the owner, Murray took me hunting one night. They invited the workers over to their house lots for supper and a few drinks. Coralie & Darren took me out to the Speed-way, shopping and invited me over supper and few drinks.  On my first days off I went to Rotoura for few nights and did sky-diving!

I’m staying on till end of this season and already talking about next season. I’m super happy to be placed on a job like this which makes you feel like you are part of their family!!

Over all my time in NZ has been amazing, It feels like I’ve been living in a dream, it has its ups and downs but I wouldn’t change it for anything!!

If you’re interested in a Dairy Farming Internship or Work Placement like Keith’s, check out the Dairy Farming Placements page for more information and to apply.