JO and Kay van Rijthoven had their lives turned upside down a little more than a year ago.
The couple were sharefarming at Mt Gambier in Victoria, but when they decided to buy their own place, the owners gave them just one month to finish up.
This left them with little time to find and buy a farm, settle and transport their 700 cattle (including 340 milkers). They managed to achieve the massive move, but not without a number of hurdles. Jo and Kay bought a 93ha farm near Nathalia, north of Shepparton in Victoria, after looking at real estate agents' windows in Shepparton at 10pm one night. Jo said they had looked at 50 farms.
The young stock were moved first and on the day of moving, the cows were milked at 6am and loaded straight onto the truck. As a result, the van Rijthovens were left with a $65,000 freight bill.
"Then the finance company re-financed our cows at half the value because of the zero water allocation when we had already moved here," Jo said.
"It took several months to work out and we ended up getting backing from National Australia Bank, but then that took another three months because of the change with the water rules. We didn't settle until January. It was terrible.
"All we could see was a big wall. My mind was going 100 miles an hour, trying to figure out how we were going to get through this.
"It made us feel so small, when we worked 20 years to get what we had. But we were determined to get through it and we were very lucky."
They say most people wondered why they put such pressure on themselves by moving so far away.
"To buy at Mt Gambier was $10,000 an acre ($24,710/ha) at the time, very basic farms were asking $1.8 million," Jo said.
"In southwest Victoria it was much more expensive and the milk price was a lot lower then."
Jo and Kay had two main criteria for their farm - bore water and a "half-reasonable" dairy.
Their Nathalia property has a spear bore and a 20-a-side dairy, with automatic cup removers built a few years ago.
But the big thing the couple have noticed is a strong sense of community.
"The people are great; they will really help out when they can see you are trying hard," Kay said.
Jo and Kay were milking 340 cows in the sharefarming agreement in Mt Gambier.
Now they are milking about 160 and despite the tough road so far, they are glad they made the move.
"Financially we are better off in a drought milking less, than (we were) sharefarming and looking after staff," Jo said.
"We're milking half the number of cows but they are producing more milk.
"We learned a lot and have really hardened up."
The van Rijthovens haven't stopped since they moved.
In the past 12 months, the big changes made to the farm have included a new calf shed, new driveway, an upgraded water supply for the cows, new pumps and water tanks at the dairy and new fences.
The effluent pond was emptied and cleaned and set up with a pump and spray and connected to the spear point. About 10ha can be irrigated from the effluent pond.
"I was starting at 4.30am and finishing at 10pm; I was running on adrenalin knowing it was ours," Jo said. "But we have a long way to go though."
In the next 12 months they plan to spend a lot of time "fine-tuning" the irrigation system and focusing on the young stock.
The milkers have picked up in production and condition and are sitting on 4.2 per cent butterfat and 3.3 per cent protein, which Jo is happy with.
He said they aimed to increase production to about 8000 litres a cow by next year.
"The cows went through a lot," Jo said.
"We didn't lose many but we had to start selling them as soon as we got here because we couldn't keep them all in such dry conditions."
Genetics is very high on the agenda for Jo, who breeds for fat and protein.
The bulls he selects have to have a score of at least 100 for their Australian Profit Ranking and Australian Selection Index. Then he looks for type.
"We have a closed herd, with 95 per cent AI. I use five to six proven bulls and some progeny test bulls," Jo said.
"One day I would love to be in the top 100 herds, that would be the ultimate."
Jo and Kay plan to expand the herd to 200 while endeavouring to grow more feed.
Last year they grew an 8ha crop of sorghum, which reached 2m high, and used it for strip grazing.
"It was a great crop because it was so efficient; it only got two waterings and the cows did really well on it," Jo said.
"I was so happy with it we will put in 100 acres (40ha) of it this time and probably 10 acres (4ha) of lucerne and once the sorghum is growing we will cut back on the hay.
"The aim is grow more with less water."
This season Jo and Kay are buying a "truck load" of hay and silage every three weeks and go through 20 tonnes of pellets a month.
Jo has ramped the pellets up to 7kg/cow a day, which was double last year's intake, because of the higher milk price.
"It has been tough and exhausting but we are happy to have our own place," Jo said.
"You have to be positive. I would really encourage young people to make the step from sharefarming and now is the time to leap out and look in northern Victoria because even though it is dry, it is cheaper to get in."
