Working as a stock manager with a baby in tow

I’ve been working on this farm, which is a thousand hectares, since my son Wyatt was five months old. He was three months old when I had the job interview, and I had to bring him with me because I was breastfeeding. My boss and his business manager were both there, and they were both fully on-board with it. When I first started, I was still popping home at ten o’clock to breastfeed, and they’ve just been really, really good about it. The idea was that I’d do part-time hours but it turned into a full-time job very quickly. We’ve got 500 commercial ewes and the rest of our stock are all stud. We just calved 320 cows and about 3,000 ewes, so it’s a very intensive farm.

It can be a hard industry to get a job in as a female, let alone with a five-month-old. Wyatt now goes to kindy three days a week, which is brilliant, but it means that I have to drop him off and pick him up. Yesterday, we were docking way up the back – I had to leave at half-past three, shoot down and pick Wyatt up from kindy, then come back to work. It’s definitely not ideal, but it’s never a problem. We make it work.

Two days a week Wyatt comes to work with me – which is stressful! Initially I had my mum helping out, but her circumstances changed this year so she’s not so available anymore. For three or four months before he started kindy, I had Wyatt on-farm full-time with me. We were so full-on, weaning calves, and it was just not a problem. Landcorp are on-board with it, so long as I’m operating within their Kids on Farm policy. We’ve got a really good team and everyone helps out with Wyatt if he’s on-farm. One of our staff or a regular contractor will see me having trouble with the mob, and they’ll take Wyatt for five minutes so I can work my dogs properly.

A lot of your experience depends on your manager. My boss bought me a little Suzuki Jimny to take Wyatt around the farm. It’s a great environment for Wyatt to grow up in. People are definitely surprised I’m allowed to have him with me, especially on a Landcorp farm, but they think it’s really neat: “You’re getting stuck in; you haven’t let it slow you down,” sort of thing.

[Before Wyatt] I was shepherding in Gisborne. I was on quite steep country down there, and was being very selfish, doing exactly what I wanted to do. Certainly, to go from that to what I’m doing now and being reliant on people – that’s quite hard. I’ve had to have this whole headspace change and start saying, “Could someone please look after Wyatt?” But the number of people who are willing to help and give you half an hour of their time is huge. If you actually ask, people are always willing to help. That’s been massive for me, because my parents are two hours away. I don’t have anyone handy, but nothing’s ever been too much trouble for my boss or any of the staff here.

I really want to progress in the industry, but managers’ jobs are hard to come by as it is, then on top of that being a female, and on top of that being a single mum – it becomes a pretty hard sell. Previously, I could have got a job in the South Island; or I could have done the autumn muster, which is what all shepherds want to do. But I’ve got a really good position where I am now.

I think that the rural community probably think that they’re really good at supporting women in farming. People are like, “We’re not sexist – we employ a female casual, we employ female shepherds,” but there don’t seem to be many women getting up into managers’ positions. And maybe that’s because they end up with a partner and kids and their priorities change, but I definitely feel like rural New Zealand is better at hiring women into entry-level positions, but we’re not as good at supporting women right through to management positions as we could be. I know I suffer from a lack of confidence to be actually able to look after a multi-million-dollar business. There’s women out there running farms, don’t get me wrong! But, for some reason we seem to tap out of the industry before [reaching management level].

I think it’s a real cliché that if you work hard everything will fall in your lap, because that definitely is not true. You can work hard your whole life – it doesn’t mean things are going to work out the way you want or planned. My advice to other solo mums in farming is to stick at it and upskill – make yourself as employable as you can. Don’t give people any excuse to not hire you. It’s not easy, but it’s doable.