Three Americans in New Zealand: Rural work and fun

One of the women I work with owns a dairy farm and invited us to come by last weekend during milking time. We jumped at this opportunity and it was both educational and very interesting. She and her husband own 390 cows, 7 bulls and about 80 calves. The cows are milked twice a day and the goal is for all of them to be pregnant every year. They sell all of the bulls and most of the cows that are born in the spring (Sep-Oct), keeping about 80 per year. The calves will start their milking career at age 2 and will do this until they're about 12.

So we each got dressed up in overalls, gumboots and hats. Below is the view overlooking one of their paddocks. Blake was a very good herder.

This is the group we helped to heard in to be milked.

The cows line up with their business ends towards the middle where they are hooked up to a suction machine. When they are empty, their udders are sprayed with an iodine mixture to keep them from getting infections. They were very generous in allowing all of us to try each of these steps though we mostly just got in the way! I managed to get several different cow bodily fluids on me while the kids kept relatively clean.

After the milking, Kay took us down the road a bit to see their calves. They are about 8 weeks old and very cute. We hopped into the paddock and though they were all intensely curious about us, they were also too scared to come very close.

Last night was the town Christmas Parade. It was fun to see everyone gathered on the main street (Maniopoto Street). It started with sprints down Maniopoto which were done barefoot by about half of the racers. The woman in the Georgetown shirt behind Liza is the other American doctor I work with.