TIPTOE HOLSTEINS


xtensive research and planning have helped one Leicestershire family move forward with herd expansion plans in recent years, with the Tiptoe herd growing from 240 cows in March last year to 600 cows today. Having decided their former mixed farm had to specialise to continue to be viable and profitable, the Hill family took their time visiting other herds both at home and abroad before committing to their own expansion plans. Now in the hands of enthusiastic and forward thinking cousins John and Andrew Hill, the focus during the expansion has been on cow health and comfort.


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Farming in Leicestershire John and Andrew are third generation dairy farmers, with their grandfather expanding from milking two cows by hand to milking 70 cows before cow numbers increased to 120 at the hands of John’s late father Alec and Andrew’s father Edward. Prior to specialisation the farm also carried beef, sheep and arable enterprises across its 900 acres, with Edward, Andrew and John having worked hard to continue and expand the dairy herd since the sudden death of Alec in 2008.


With both Andrew and John keen on the farm both studied at Harper Adams and came back with ideas about the way forward. “Something that has stuck with us since college is get bigger, get different or get out,” says


22 THE JOURNAL FEBRUARY 2015


ARE IN THE HANDS OF THE NEXT GENERATION


The future of Tiptoe Holsteins is in safe hands with an expansion being driven by a keen next generation, as Katie Davidson found out


John. “We knew change was needed at Sludge Hall Farm and we decided to change the focus from being a mixed farm to predominantly dairy and the ideas were converted in to business plans for expansion.” It was a long process from the initial ideas in 2008 to finally milking in the 44 point external Boumatic rotary in March 2014. “We had to look at the best approach, in previous generations ideas were bounced off each other and then the best idea gone with. However, this project has been a major investment and from the initial dreaming and talking we then went about


PHOTOGRAPHY BY RICHARD HODGSON


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