Lucy Collins

Meet Lucy from Dixie Park, Western Victoria

From summer job to lifelong dairy passion.

When we asked Lucy Collins how she ended up in dairy, this memory says it all. Her first job as a teenager, milking cows for her friendly neighbours, quickly sparked a love for the work, the animals and the land.

Today, she and her husband run Dixie Park Dairying in Southwest Victoria, balancing hard work with plenty of laughs. “I once thought I was watching someone being airlifted from a paddock and called my husband in a panic,” she recalls. “Turned out it was just the first time I’d seen a helicopter spreading urea!”

For Lucy, there’s nothing like seeing the calves she’s raised grow into strong, healthy cows in the herd. “Watching them join the herd is always so satisfying,” she says. And each cow, to her, has a unique story. She loves that Holstein spots (those well-known black-and-white patterns) are as individual as human fingerprints.

Lucy also believes in using tech to make farm life run more smoothly, like the Batt Latch, a gate release timer that lets cows move from the paddock to the dairy for milking at their own pace, creating a more relaxed environment for all.

If there’s one thing she’d like people to know about dairy, it’s that farmers pour their hearts into it. “We’re always trying our best for our cows and our land, even if it’s not perfect.”

But to Lucy, it’s exactly as it should be: holiday photos with Fatty dressed in festive gear, new traditions with her newborn and her mother-in-law’s famous ice cream cake, a farm favourite. It’s a life at Dixie Park that Lucy wouldn’t trade for anything.