After power, water and phone coverage was lost in Southland following Thursday’s devastating wind, Beach Valley Dairies owner Kaylene Bennett was left to figure out how to milk 470 cows.
With no generator, the Tuatapere farmer told the Otago Daily Times yesterday she was able to get her cows milked at their sheds as a result of the kindness of two neighbouring farm owners.
But that two days of product did not go into her vat — or her pockets.
Her cows were used to a different kind of milking to her neighbours’, and they were stressed, so the process was long.
She woke up at 4.30am on Friday and milked all day and night, eventually finishing at 10pm on Saturday.
She believed she had worked 40 hours in a row.
Her daughter Sierra said she did 20 hours, but when she returned home, she stayed in the lounge by the fire.
She was too busy worrying about her family’s operation to get any sleep.
They got the power back on Saturday afternoon.
Mrs Bennett said she was amazed that four of the surrounding farms had joined forces to make sure their collective cows were all milked.
"I think there’s certainly been a real show of community," she said.
She could not believe the outpouring of support, from kind messages to offerings of hot showers, food and generators.
Mrs Bennett said if not milked, cows could develop sicknesses such as mastitis and ketosis.
After five or six days of not being milked, the cows would begin to "dry off" which meant they would be done milking for the season.
She said drying off would have a financial impact, and mastitis would affect the upcoming breeding season.
Dairy farmers were dumping milk because they did not have the power to chill it, Mrs Bennett said.
Fonterra required milk to be chilled below 5°C two hours after milking.
The dairy company’s tanker drivers could refuse to pick up milk if it measured above 14°C in the vat, she said.
FarmRight investment manager Blair Hamill and his team had been working around the clock to provide power to their 25 dairy farms from Owaka to Tuatapere.
They had generators within the group which they used for the first day of no power, but the following day they needed to power water pumps.
The generators they did have also started failing for a variety of reasons.
Yesterday, Mr Hamill said he had spent his time ferrying generators across Southland and had tried sourcing some from Canterbury.
When asked how many litres of milk they had dumped, he said he did not care, and he was more worried about the animals’ welfare.
Mr Hamill said big or small, Southland and Otago farms were all having a difficult time, while trying to help each other where possible.
"Everyone just does what they can," he said.
