Farmstrong: Urban accountant turned dairy farmer, discusses the challenges of a ‘dream job’

Laura Murdoch is known as a cow whisperer but says she doesn't give them all names.

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Laura Murdoch, the “cow whispering” Southland /Otago Dairy Manager of the Year in 2022, shares how she manages the challenges of her “dream job” with The Country’s Jamie Mackay.

“Today I’m really looking forward to yarning to Laura Murdoch, who is a Southland dairy farmer, but more importantly, Laura, you are the cow whisperer. How did you get that name?” Mackay asked.

“Well, I started being called Lou, Lulu as a nickname in farming and then it came about that I had just a wee bit of a natural knack of bonding with the cows that people were asking me if I was a cow whisperer because I seem to have so many of them as my friends,” Murdoch said.

“Now I convert herds from no mate cows, or pet cows, to over half of them pretty much all pet cows.”

“So, you’re milking 250 cows? So does literally every cow have a name?” Mackay asked.

“They don’t all have names because I’m not the creative person who keeps thinking of more names and more names and more names.

“Some of them will know the number, so if I call that out, they know I am talking to them,” Murdoch said.

“You have an interesting back story yourself. You used to be an accountant and you’ve turned into a dairy farmer,” Mackay said.

“So, when I was, 17, I first got to see a cow shed and I was told I couldn’t go milk cows back then because I actually had a carpel tunnel it turned out,” Murdoch said.

“So, I went down the accounting side of it and worked for a couple of the largest firms down here in Southland as an in-house accountant.

“I had always been obsessed with cows since I was I7, tried to keep my finger in the pie a wee bit by doing the odd bit of milking and then had to bite the bullet and get the operation and then swapped over and never looked back.”

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Do you still keep your hand in on the accountancy side of it?” Mackay asked.

“Yes, I do because I do quite enjoy that,” Murdoch said.

“I love the head part of, you know, the brain sort of, the challenge involved with the accounting and obviously going through getting trained and things, rather than just chucking it all away.

“I just set up a company on the side, that’s now kind of my part-time hobby job on the side of farming, where it used to be the other way around.

“So, I just help a couple of small businesses, around town, I’ve been able to do the administration, health, and safety, human resources payroll all that.”

“Well, it must be a great skill to have on your own farming operation,” Mackay said.

“Look you’re here on behalf of Farmstrong today,” he continued, “How do you look after the top paddock, the top two inches and yourself physically and mentally, especially at this time of the year? You’re just finishing carving, you’re about to head into mating. You have to do silage, you’re milking the cows as well. It’s just full-on.”

“So being like I’m just a one-man band farm work strictly under the owner - so, between the two of us - we are the workers on the farm - you’ve got to be up with the game. So, it’s just, breaking it right down to basics,” Murdoch said.

“Sleeping well and eating well, you have to be well in yourself to be able to look after yourself first before you can be much use in looking after everything else that’s going on.”

“So, I just need, I just need to wrap this one more question for you because I’m looking at your profile here and I see that you used to be into multisport and duathlon. So, you’ve got an athletic background. How do you stay fit for, you know, off-farm or do you get any time to do that?” Mackay asked.

“Because I see, for instance, you’re working on an 11 on, three-day off roster, you realise most townies would turn up their nose and having to work that hard.

“Most of them these days don’t even want to turn up to the office. So how do you keep fit outside of the farm just quickly?” he asked.

“Well, I just probably do it more on the farm and then I have a couple of dogs that I walk around the neighbourhood most of them know me and they see me with them,” Murdoch said.

“On the farm you can do little things like walk to your paddock or run if you’re feeling really energetic, to lock the girls away, you don’t always have to jump on the bike or the quad.

“There are different things that you can do to make your job a bit more physical during the day to give yourself a bit of a challenge.”

Mackay asked about the mental side of things and how Murdoch dealt with a bad day.

“It’s easy in farming to create your own barriers and obstacles in your head,” Murdoch said.

“You’ve got to be able to call yourself out on that stuff. S*** happens from time to time and you’ve got to be able to stop and reset.

“Take five minutes out. Hop off the tractor and go for a walk. Re-program your head and change your thinking.

“If I’m having a tough day, I just need to see my cows in a paddock and look at their faces. Five minutes doing that will change my whole day.”