The Farmers Mart Aug/Sep 2014 - Issue 35 | Page 46

ROGER HILDRETH

Forward
thinking at
Curlew Fields
Chris Berry talks with Roger
Hildreth at Hessay.
You may struggle to find
a family dairy farm with
a more enlightened and
forward thinking approach
than that of the Hildreths
of Curlew Fields Farm in
Hessay. In the past 12 years
they have switched buyers,
improved their breeding
pattern, moved to a green
field site, are keeping more
cows - and they’re not
finished yet.
Curlew Fields Farm runs to
some 180 acres and Roger
and his son Tom milk around
80 cows. They are increasing

numbers steadily by using high
type bulls through AI. Roger
believes they are heading in
the right direction.

‘Our replacement
rate is about 20
percent, where
we want it to be’
“We look for traits such as
lifespan, daughter fertility,
legs, feet and milking speed.
Our replacement rate is about
20 per cent and that’s where

J R Graham

we want it to be. If you’re as
low as 15 per cent then you
tend to be milking some older
and lower yielding cows.
Our herd fertility is slightly
above average as we use a
computerised system that lets
us know when the cows are in
heat.”
By far the most momentous
move Roger has ever had to
contemplate came in 2002
when the farm