The herd of 300 beautiful Holstein cows at one of The Fleurieu Milk Company dairies in Myponga has been owned and carefully managed for the last 32 years by Dairy farmer Geoff Hutchinson.

The Holstein milking cow breed is known as the world’s highest production dairy cow breeds.

All of the 300 strong herd have hand picked names with inquisitive and individual personalities. But if one cow was to stand out, it would be 2 1/2 year old ‘Summer’.

Summer originates from some of the best Holstein blood lines in the world.  She was imported from America as an embryo and artificially inseminated into a breeding cow in Victoria. Once born in Victoria, Australia, Geoff picked her up as a calf and bought her to back his Myponga Dairy Farm.

She now is 2 1/2 years old and has been part of the milking herd for 6 months.

Her day consists of two milkings a day with an early start for first milking at 4.30 am and the second in the afternoon from around 3 pm.  

After morning milking Summer spends her days out to the beautiful green pastures at Myponga to graze, rest and chew her cud.

Summer the milking cow is truly an amazing creature, she can produce an average of around 30 litres of the most delicious milk a day.  Can drink 80 to 160 litres of water a day, spend around 6 hours a day eating and another 8 hours chewing her cud.

Cud is a form of regurgitated food that is chewed a second time to help with digestion.

Summer has just returned home to the farm after an 8 day stay at the Adelaide Show Grounds.  She was spoilt even more than usual whilst staying in town and much time and energy was spent grooming and preparing Summer for her competitions.

Summer and the Fleurieu Milk Team won the Reserve Intermediate Champion this year and last year she won All Breed Junior Champion.

The Fleurieu Milk company is a local family run business that supports local  community groups and each year donates to The Little Heroes Foundation.

When you are next buying your milk at the local supermarket spare a thought for Geoff, Summer and this special herd of Holstein milking cows getting up so early to provide milk for the local community.  

If you know of a special animal that lives and works on the Fleurieu Peninsula, we would love to hear about it.  Drop a line to [email protected]