Glenarron Farm
Glenarron Farm Holidays are centred in the heart of Victoria and of the Goulburn Valley’s ‘Food Bowl’, a soldier settlement area established in the 1940’s for farming. The ‘Food Bowl’ is now named as such because the farms were a complete variety of dairy farm, fruit and vegetable orchards, sheep and beef graziers, hay and cereal crops, and could sustain all of the districts needs. The area was irrigated and the only thing that has changed in recent years is the difficulty to irrigate with limited water resources.
Ron and Glenyss Baker bought the original 100 acres of Glenarron Farm in September 1963 and set about creating the Jersey stud that it is today. Starting with about 40 cows, Ron built up the herd size, purchased and bred from a few cross breeds initially before swinging entirely over to the Jersey’s. Over the next 45 years Ron & Glenyss had a family of 4 children, purchased more land increasing up to 200 acres plus a further addition of another 300 acres for replacing some heifer agisting and hay making. Today the Baker’s milk over 300 registered Jersey cows and always have another 180 young stock waiting in the ranks as replacement stock in the coming two years.
The water restrictions over the years have been aided at Glenarron by the construction of two under ground water systems, one surface water at a depth of 20 metres, and the other a deep lead bore that is about 150 metres deep. This bore water supply is called deep artesian water and follows a course that can flow interstate and internationally underground. We pump these two water sources into our channel system and blend it with the water that we are allocated each season and using a series of channels, disperse the water around the farm to flood irrigate the pasture paddocks about every nine days. We have balanced the watering process over the years to be as efficient as possible and done any less frequently, the pasture quality deteriorates and more water would be required to replenish it.
We feed many more times the hay, silage and other grains and supplements now to save pasture rotation and keep the irrigating to a minimum, however you can’t stop feeding cows and expect them to keep milking and you can’t dry a cow off in the summer and ask her to start again when it rains. Once a cow is dry she can only lactate again when she has another calf.
Every year we are excited to welcome a new group of calves and follow the genetic bloodlines that we create. Bull selection is integral to the continuation of a strong sustainable stud herd. Every calf born has been hand chosen to hopefully be genetically better than her mother and to breed on and milk well into the future. As a family, we love what we do, we give it our best shot always and anticipate a long future in our farming enterprise. Come and see what we do.
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