Farm Work in Australia

Starting our Farm Work

When we arrived in Australia we spent the first to weeks exploring Sydney.

Then we began looking for our 88-day farm job. We quickly received an offer in Victoria at a dairy farm. The deal sounded good. So we packed our bags and went.

Our Paycheck (every 2 weeks)

Our Farm House

Daily Life on a Dairy Farm

Nothing could have prepared us for what dairy farm life was actually like.

We worked 50 hours a week, often more. Our alarm rang at 3:30 AM, because the first milking shift started before sunrise. The second shift was in the late afternoon or evening. Each milking session took 2–3 hours, and the work felt like factory-line labour repetitive, dirty, and extremely physically demanding.

Most days, we didn’t finish until the late evening. We were basically at work the entire day.

Working Conditions

The job was one of the hardest things we’ve ever done. Physically, yes but also emotionally.

We saw things that made us question whether staying was worth it.

• Cows being hit.

• Cows being killed when they stopped producing milk.

• Men calf die because nobody cares if they get feed

• We even saw cows that had died inside the milking machine.

Seeing this every day becomes heavy, especially when you’re the one standing in the middle of it.

The Pay vs. The Reality

If you’re doing it for the money, dairy farms might look attractive. The pay adds up quickly, and it is possible to save a lot.

But the truth?

You earn that money with your body and sometimes with your mental wellbeing.

We went there only to complete our 88 days, to secure our second year in Australia. But after two months, we were already at our limit.

Why We Quit Early

Even though we planned to stay the full three months, we reached a point where we simply couldn’t do it anymore.

Every single day we thought about quitting.

Every single day felt heavier.

One morning, we showed up and suddenly saw we were scheduled for 12 hours even though we had no lunch with us and were already exhausted from the previous week. When we told our boss this wasn’t possible for us, he basically said that this is how farm life works and that we were still working “too little”.

We had already been doing 50 hours per week, so hearing that “we had it easy” felt like a slap in the face.

When he threatened us saying he could make sure we get fired if we didn’t do what he said that was the final moment. We packed our things and left the farm the same day.