The Australian Women's Register

Dorothy Male is one of nine children . Five girls all left school and worked at home on the dairy farm before they got married, while the four boys worked on the farm. The family moved from Serpentine near Perth, Western Australia to the south west in 1978.

She was always interested in fairwork and learned what she knows informally through her father who encouraged her interest. She learns until she gets the practice and then fills in the practice with theory she picks up through reading.

In the 1980s and 90s they tried to make the farm sustainable by getting away from chemicals . Locals were somewhat suspicious – as Dorothy note, ‘ if you say the word ‘organic’ people think you’ve, you know, gone a bit funny’ But they decided it was something they needed to do and so persisted with trying to apply the principles to a large farm and make it pay.

Dorothy’s family developed the only computerised dairy system of its kind in Australia. When they are outside feeding stalls, the cows wear a transponder collar around their neck that communicates with a computer. When they walk through the gates they get scanned and their output is matched against their number. They get fed according to what their account says they should be fed in the computerised stalls. When they eat the amount gets recorded when they come back to the shed or feed stall for some reason. The data is then analysed and a printout on milk production and results can be obtained.