Paramedic by night, herd manager by day

Most weeks you’ll find Tanya Crompton either in a paramedic’s uniform or gumboots. 

Two 12-hour shifts in the local ambulance - midday to midnight - are followed by days managing a 360-cow Friesian herd on her in-law’s Back Valley farm, on the South Australian Fleurieu Peninsula. 

And the mother of three (two daughters in tow, one remembered with love) wouldn’t have it any other way. 

“I grew up on a dairy farm, married a dairy farmer’s son and really like working with animals and being outdoors,” she explained. 

“And then, when you have kids, you realise that you can pretty much take them everywhere. Sure, whatever you are doing takes twice as long, but you can take them everywhere - unlike my paramedic work.” 

Growing-up, Tanya admired her late mum Julie - a nurse who forged her own career while also raising six children and working alongside her husband Mike on the family dairy. 

Tanya carries this same work ethic. She combines her front-line emergency work with dairy herd management and running a 60-breeder beef herd with her very-supportive husband Jared and helping her father at his beef farm. 

Family is Tanya’s strength, and she believes farming keeps everyone close. 

Calving four times a year and running a Total Mix Ration (TMR) system for seven months means there’s always plenty happening on the dairy.  Tanya looks after herd health and the breeding program - responsibilities that draw on her stock sense and paramedic training.

“The reproductive health of a cow is very similar to a human - a lot of their ailments are too,” Tanya said. “The problems you have with calving are the problems you can have with childbirth. Not so much your LDAs (left displaced abomasum) and RDAs (right displaced abomasum), but like pneumonia’s and even sick calves - many times those bugs are what humans get and they display similar symptoms.” 

The family’s predominantly Friesian herd is bred mainly for mastitis resistance, calving ease, teat length and sound feet and legs, while “budget pressures” means Tanya mostly selects high DataGene Balanced Performance Index (BPI) young genomic bulls for joining. Keen to continue learning, Tanya takes advantage of DairySA courses in areas such as calf rearing, AI, hoof-trimming as well as business and pasture management. This practical knowledge strengthens her role on the farm and her conversations with family, employees and advisors. For example, learning more about pasture growth and allocations helps her work more closely with her father-in-law Nick, who - as a silage and hay contractor - oversees fodder conversation. It's a similar situation with the businesses’ long-term nutritionist. 

“I normally do the paddock rotations for the milkers and liaise with Nick - especially at this time of year - depending on how much grass he wants to cut,” Tanya said. 

“The grass knowledge, having more insight into how you determine how much dry matter is out there and what a cow actually requires, is useful. This extra knowledge is also reinforced when our nutritionist visits.” 

Tanya also loves involving her daughters Savannah 5 and Paige 2 in farm life. 

 “My five-year old’s pulled three calves and they have both helped push up calves, they learn quite a bit,” she said. “My five-year-old daughter was ticking off the calf ID numbers for me while I was vaccinating. There’s a lot to learn on a farm and you don’t get that type of exposure anywhere else.” 

Whether it's riding in the back of an ambulance, feeding calves or artificially inseminating cows - one thing is for sure -Tanya wouldn’t change a thing. 

For more information about Dairy Australia courses visit the Dairy Australia events page.