'Stress less' motto earns Qld dairy a spot in prestigious top 100 list

About nine years ago, the Freestone farm's bulk milk cell count - an indicator of animal health and milk quality which attracts a price premium when low - was "through the roof".

However, a few key changes has helped the producers become some of the nation's best, with Bill, his wife Denise and his mother Wendy recently winning gold in Dairy Australia's Milk Quality Awards 2022. The awards recognise the top 100 farms nationally with the lowest BMCC.

"Stress is the worst thing for milking cows. It pushes up all their counts, so when you start taking a bit of the stress out of the dairy, things start to happen," Mr McVeigh said.

"First, we took the dog out of the dairy so it wasn't chasing the cows, then we got rid of the radio."

Following that was a change to their herringbone setup, which yielded the biggest improvement.

One of the most common milk sheds, the herringbone shed has a central sunken pit and a raised platform on each side where the cows stand while being milked.

"When we installed it about 20 years ago, cows were a lot smaller then so we could fit 14 cows in. When the bigger cows came along, we went to 13," Mr McVeigh said.

"From then on, the cows were walking in calmly, standing calmly, and leaving without any stress.

"It's all about adjusting the way you do things as you go along rather than overlooking them."

For Mr McVeigh, surviving the "horrendous" 2017-19 drought and instilling a strong work ethic in his children are some of his proudest achievements, but winning the gold is now up there.

"A silver [in 2021] was a big surprise. I knew we were getting better, but when the gold came around, it was an even bigger surprise," he said.

Mr McVeigh's four sons and daughter have all worked at the farm at various times, with son Daniel currently working fulltime.

The family currently milks 95 Freisians that produce about 600,000L of milk a year.

The dairying life is not for everybody, but it's something Mr McVeigh was born into and something he loves.

"On Christmas Day, we all went off for lunch and it got to two o'clock and we said 'righto, we've got to go. We've got to do the feed and milk the cows'," he said.

"It's very hard to come into and fathom it. Unless you're born and bred from a little fella, you'll never really understand it."

Norco chairman Mike Jeffery said it was an honour for its co-op members to be recognised as champions and was a testament to the brand's high quality standards.

"Our farmers live and breathe dairy, so we're very proud to have our people's efforts recognised in Australia's most prestigious dairy competition," Mr Jeffery said.

The McVeighs are joined by the Zischke family as gold recipients for the south east Queensland region.

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