Agriculture · Building & Making
Livestock and farm worker: what the job actually is
Doing the daily work of a livestock operation: milking, feeding, breeding, caring for sick animals and running the farm machinery that goes with it.
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The work
What this job actually is
- Being the person who actually looks after the animals on a farm, day in and day out: feeding, watering, milking, cleaning, moving, breeding, and noticing when one of them is off.
- The work depends on the kind of farm. Dairy is milking routines and a precise relationship with each cow. Hogs and poultry are barns, ventilation, biosecurity and a lot of watching. Beef is pasture, handling, feed and weather.
- You also run the machinery: tractors, feed mixers, loaders, milking systems. A lot of the work is mechanical as well as animal.
- It is a job you do on a team, usually with the farm's owner or manager close by, and the quality of the farm you work on decides most of what the job is like.
- Animals do not take days off, so neither does the rota. Weekends and holidays are normal working days.
A Tuesday
What a normal day looks like
Not a good day or a bad one. The ordinary version, which is what you would actually be living.
- 4:45 — Start of the first milking or feeding, in the dark, in the cold or the heat, with the barn already warm and loud.
- 5:00 — Bring the cows in, set up the milking equipment, check each animal and each udder for something unusual.
- 7:30 — Milking finishes. Wash and sanitise the equipment, which is the part that protects milk quality.
- 8:30 — Breakfast. Short and standing up.
- 9:00 — Feed. Mix and deliver the ration, clean out the alleys, bed the pens with fresh straw.
- 11:00 — Health checks and treatments. A cow with a limp, a calf who will not drink, a heifer close to calving. You record each one.
- 12:30 — Lunch, and a conversation about the machinery that is making a noise.
- 13:30 — A repair or a job on the machinery: the loader, the feed mixer or a gate that will not latch.
- 16:00 — Second round of chores and the afternoon milking begins.
- 18:30 — Finish. You smell of the barn, and the shower is the first thing on your list.
Honestly
Who loves this, and who should not do it
The second list is the useful one. Nearly every careers page leaves it out, which is why nearly every careers page reads like an advert.
- You like animals and you like being useful to them, most of all when it is early, dirty and unglamorous.
- You like physical, practical work, and you like machinery and fixing things.
- You do not mind a very early start or a routine that repeats every day, because the routine is the job.
- You notice small changes, such as a cow standing differently or a pig eating less, and you like being the person who spotted it.
- You want work that can start without a long degree. Job Bank rates Ontario prospects for this occupation as Good.
- You need weekends and holidays. Animals have to be fed and milked every day, and relief is often arranged around you, not for you.
- You cannot stand the smell, the noise, the dirt or manure, because there is no part of the day without them.
- You would be crushed by sick or dying animals. Calves, piglets and chicks die, sick animals get put down, and a barn disease outbreak can be a crisis.
- You get hurt easily. Cattle, hogs and farm machinery injure people every year, and much of the training is learning to respect that.
- You need a high wage quickly. Job Bank's Ontario figures for this work start low, and the barn, not the pay, is often the draw.
- You are isolated or alone for most of the day. Barns can be long hours of working with only animals for company, in rural places far from friends.
The route in
How you actually get there in Ontario
You can start without a credential
Many people begin with a summer or part-time job on a livestock farm. A willingness to turn up on time, be careful and learn is what hiring farmers look for first.Learn the safety side early
Ontario's Specialist High Skills Major in Agriculture includes first aid and CPR certification, WHMIS training, and a choice of sector certifications such as livestock production, plus co-op placements. It is a way to arrive on a farm already trained.A trade exists for dairy
Skilled Trades Ontario lists Dairy Herdsperson as a trade, code 640D. It is non-compulsory, so you do not need it to work, and the apprenticeship leads to a Certificate of Apprenticeship; there is no certifying exam for this trade. The trade covers the health, nutrition and breeding of milk cows, milking and milk-handling equipment, and the barn's mechanical and electrical systems.College or diploma if you want to move up
The two-year associate diploma in agriculture at Ridgetown Campus, University of Guelph, offers livestock electives and teaching barns with dairy, beef, sheep, swine and equine. It is also a way to learn the whole operation before you decide whether to run one.
Where this comes from: Skilled Trades Ontario — Agricultural, Dairy Herdsperson (640D) · Ontario — Specialist High Skills Major, Agriculture · Ridgetown Campus — Associate Diploma in Agriculture
The money
What it pays in Ontario
Job Bank's own figures, quoted rather than summarised, with the period they describe — so you can tell how old they are and go and check them.
- $17.95
- Low (hourly)
- $21.15
- Median (hourly)
- $32.50
- High (hourly)
Ontario, NOC 84120. Reference period 2023-2024, last updated by Job Bank on 19 November 2025. Wages vary a lot by region inside Ontario and by how long you have been doing it — the low figure is roughly where you start, not what the job is worth.
Source: Job Bank — Livestock and farm worker wages in Ontario
Where it is heading
The outlook for the next three years
Job Bank publishes a three-year outlook for every job in every province. It is the closest thing to an honest forecast, and it moves, so read it as a weather report rather than a verdict.
Good4 out of 5 stars
- Employment growth will lead to a moderate number of new positions.
- A moderate number of positions will become available due to retirements.
- There are a small number of unemployed workers with recent experience in this occupation.
What that rating means: how many openings Job Bank expects in Ontario for this kind of work against how many people are likely to be looking — not whether it is a good job. A “limited” rating means more competition for each opening; it does not close the door, and it can change before you are ready to walk through it.
What is changing in this work
- Population growth, and local and overseas demand for agricultural goods will support job prospects in this occupation
- However, the agricultural industry can be sensitive to factors such as extreme weather conditions and global trade policies
Who hires for it
- Most work on farms
- 8,300
- people work in this job in Ontario
- 28%
- are women (48% across all jobs)
- 16%
- are self-employed (15% across all jobs)
Source: Job Bank — Specialized livestock workers and farm machinery operators job prospects in Ontario (NOC 84120). Outlook updated by Job Bank on 10 December 2025; read by us on 5 October 2026.
Before you leave school
Things you can do now
- Ask whether your school or a neighbouring board offers the Specialist High Skills Major in Agriculture. The co-op credits can be on a farm, and you graduate with CPR, first aid and WHMIS already done.
- Join 4-H and take a beef, dairy, sheep or swine project. Judges and leaders are often farmers who hire.
- Work a summer at a dairy, hog, poultry or beef farm. A single full season tells you whether you can do the routine.
- Ask about OYAP if your school offers it and a dairy herdsperson apprenticeship is available in your area. Check with your guidance office, since not every trade has a local sponsor.
- Volunteer at a local fair's livestock barns. Watching exhibitors and herdspeople work with animals is a free look at the job.
Test it
Do this before you decide anything
Reading about a job tells you almost nothing. This is designed to be done alone, this week, for free.
Do the morning routine on purpose and see what it feels like
About 90 minutes- Watch a plain, unedited video of a full milking or barn chore routine from an Ontario dairy or livestock organisation. Note which part of it you would be bored by and which you would want to do.
- Set an alarm for 5:00 and spend an hour doing real physical, repetitive chores for somebody who will let you: a neighbour's garden, a stable, a relative's yard. No phone.
- Phone a farm that employs people and ask one question: what do you look for in a new hire who has never worked a farm? Do not ask for a job. Ask the question.
- Look up the Dairy Herdsperson trade on Skilled Trades Ontario and read what the trade covers. Write down one part you did not know about.
What it tells you. If you were up at five without resenting it, the chores felt like something you could repeat, and the farm's answer was something you could do, a summer job on a livestock farm is the next step. If the alarm was the worst part, or the thought of doing the same thing every day felt like a trap, then livestock work as a full-time job is probably not for you, and that is worth knowing early.
Better than any article
Questions for somebody who does this job
Most people say yes to a teenager who asks good questions. These are the ones that get real answers rather than encouragement.
- “What time do you start and what time do you finish on a normal day?”
- “What is the hardest part of working with animals every day?”
- “How often do you have a day off, and who covers?”
- “What did you not know when you started that you wish you had?”
- “What do you do when an animal dies?”
- “How do people move up from this job on a farm like yours?”
- “What would make you hire somebody with no experience?”
Could you own one of these?
The part other career sites never mention
Directly, not usually. Most people in this work are employees, and Job Bank counts a small share of the occupation as self-employed, about the same as the whole workforce. The route to ownership is through the farmer's work: some herdspeople rent land or buy in as partners, and some become farm managers first. See the farmer page for that route.
Not sure this is the right list to be reading
Start from yourself, not from the job.
Future Finder is free, takes about ten minutes, needs no account and stores nothing. It will tell you which kinds of work you lean toward, and which of these pages are worth your time.
Parent of a teenager weighing this up? Career coaching for teens gets them talking to people who do the work, anywhere in Ontario.
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Wages and training requirements change. Every figure on this page is linked to the body that publishes it, and the review date above says when we last checked. If you find something out of date, tell us and we will fix it.