The Camel Milk Co. began when Megan and Chris Williams bought three feral camels. Today it exports products around the world. Samantha Schelling writes.
It was working on a remote outback station near Alice Springs in 2008 where Megan and Chris Williams not only met and fell in love with each other, but with the wild camels roaming on the 10,850 square kilometre cattle property as well.
Starting a camel milk dairy seemed like a great idea to Megan, who had grown up on a dairy farm in northern Victoria
So in 2014, the couple started Camel Milk Victoria – the state’s first licensed camel dairy – with three dromedary (single-hump) camels on 43.3 hectares near her childhood home.
Today the business farms 350 camels over 195 hectares. It was renamed The Camel Milk Co. Australia in 2017.
The camels are milked through an automatic five-aside double-up walk-through dairy.
From when they first began, the dairy allows for mother and calf to be together. This is a distinct animal husbandry choice the couple made.
Megan Williams says, “While we’re probably milking sixty to seventy at any one time, depending on the number who’ve calved, we built capacity to milk up to two hundred. We’ll hopefully achieve that goal in the next 12 months.
“We’ve got some really exciting things coming on board, and some deals coming up that we think will definitely increase demand.”
Wild beginnings
The couple’s first camels came from central Australia’s 1.2 million feral population, which roams around 3.3 million square kilometres.
According to FeralScan, these numbers possibly double every nine years, with Australia having the world’s largest feral Arabian camel population.
The Williams initially increased their herd by buying in wild camels, but it has grown naturally since 2017.
