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A Week in the Life of an Our Cow Team Member: Lachy Brown, Livestock Manager

Wednesday 14 December 2022
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A Week in the Life of an Our Cow Team Member: Lachy Brown, Livestock Manager

Lachy's job is a crucial one as it involves working with and managing our livestock, farmers and supply of all of our produce. Plus, he's out and about on the road a lot as he visits our existing Farmers, as well as bringing new Farmers into the Our Cow Farmer Family.

If you're an avid watcher of our Instagram stories, you might recognise Lachy - aside from his day job with us, he's also helped us muster cattle, pick up trucks, even hand out flyers at the recent TEDx event in Byron Bay! He's a real 'jack of all trades' and we're really stoked he's now officially part of the Our Cow team.

We hope you enjoy reading more about Lachy and what 'an average week' looks like for him.

 

Firstly, where are you from, and what brought you to Our Cow?

I grew up about 40 mins from Casino, NSW - so I'm a bit of a local! After finishing school, I decided it was time for a change, and I went up to North QLD where I spent a number of years, before moving back to NSW. I started working in a few different roles including station hand, stock handler and moving up to livestock management in stations around the Northern Rivers region.

The last role I had was at a station right next door to Dave & Bianca's farm, which is how I met them. They'd already asked me to come with them to meet some of their farmers before, as they wanted my opinion on different livestock, but all informally. So in a way, I've been working with them for a while already!

 

What does an average week at Our Cow look like for you?

Every week I start off in the office at Cow Town, going over what livestock has been booked in for that week, making sure everything is setup properly and confirmed with Farmers who are supplying their livestock.

I always book livestock in at least 3 weeks in advance, and the week they'll be arriving I contact everyone again to ensure everything is running smoothly, the volumes are confirmed, there aren't any problems, etc. We don't want any surprises!

Once that's done, my priority is forward planning for what's coming up over the next few weeks and I start locking in livestock with our individual farmers.

After a day or two indoors I need to get out, so I'll call or drive out to see our Farmers, check on the livestock that has been booked in, and ensure everything is running smoothly. As I'm quite new to Our Cow, I want to meet as many of our Farmers as possible over the coming months.

 

How do you check the quality of the livestock before it arrives at Cow Town?

This is so important and a big part of my job. I have to check the quality of all our livestock is right before it gets here - it can't be anything less than 100% perfect. 

There's a number of checks I carry out to ensure our farmers are meeting all the specs required to become and remain an Our Cow farmer. These include things like:

  • Checking the breed of the livestock
  • The genetics of the animal
  • The structure of the animal (what it looks like, temperament, etc)
  • What the animals are fed, and how often
  • How the animals are worked on the farm, and how the farmers go about it to ensure no stress so the cattle are happier and healthier
  • If the farmer has improved their land with new pastures, and rotational grazing
  • The health practices they use being all humane
  • Use of pain management

And there's lots more! Dave has made my job easy so far as he's only chosen to work with the best of the best farmers - I've been so impressed with the farmers I've met so far and the quality of their operations.

 

What has been your favourite thing about working with Our Cow so far?

I love meeting all our farmers. I've met over 20 of our farmers now, from all around the Tablelands area, and continuing in the New Year.

I really enjoy listening to all the knowledge they have to share. They're very successful for a reason, they know what they're talking about and they're happy to teach others, too.

I've met Snowy a few times and he's great, he's a funny fellow and he has so much knowledge to share.

I'm also really enjoying being out on the road and seeing so much country and areas of Australia I've never been to before. As I grew up in this area, it's been fantastic to travel more and I'm looking forward to doing more of this over the coming year.

Thanks Lachy for the chat, and welcome to Our Cow! We're so pleased to have you omboard, and looking forward to working with you in 2023.


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