Our farms
De Hoeves started in 1978 with one farm on sandy Veluwe ground in Lunteren. Families joined over the following four decades, each keeping their own name and their own land while agreeing to farm to a shared health, welfare and grazing standard.
The remaining five are smaller family units in Gelderland and Overijssel of between 90 and 160 cows. Ask us and we will introduce you to any of them.
The first Hoeve, and still the yard where new protocols are trialled before they go out to the group. A 2x14 rapid-exit parlour, deep-bedded cubicles and a calf barn with its own airspace so young stock never share air with the milking herd.
Our largest milking herd, on clay that grows heavy grass and holds water late into spring. Cross-breeding to Fleckvieh has given us harder feet and calves with real value to the beef side of the business.
Three milking robots and a grazing gate that lets cows choose the paddock or the barn from March onwards. Cows here average 2.8 milkings a day and walk out to grass on their own schedule.
Where dairy-beef calves from our own farms are reared and finished. Straw-bedded pens, outdoor loafing yards and a feed plan built around our own maize and grass silage rather than bought-in concentrate.
Peat ground that we manage with a raised water table to slow soil oxidation. Every cow here qualifies for the meadow-milk premium, with a minimum of 120 days and six hours a day outside.
Rears replacement heifers for three of our farms, which keeps calving blocks tight and takes pressure off the milking yards. A low-emission floor was fitted here in 2023 and is being watched before wider rollout.
Times shift with the season — calving block, grazing turnout, silage week — but the shape of the day is the same on every yard.
Parlour lights on, plant washed and checked. Pre-dip, strip, wipe, attach — the same routine on every farm so a relief milker can step into any yard and know exactly what to do.
Herd manager walks the groups before breakfast. Anything limping, off-feed or standing away from the others gets looked at that morning, not put on a list for later in the week.
Calves fed and weighed on schedule, mixed ration out to the milking groups, feed pushed up. Silage faces are kept tight and clean so nothing heats and spoils.
From April, cows are moved to the next paddock on the 21-day rotation. Grass covers are measured weekly so we graze at the right leaf stage rather than by guesswork.
The afternoon round. Bulk tank temperature logged, cell counts reviewed, and any cow under treatment milked last and separated.
Cubicles raked and re-bedded, passages scraped, water troughs scrubbed. The last job is always the one that decides how well cows lie down overnight.
Come and look
We host buyers, school groups, neighbours and student vets most months of the year. You will get boots, a short briefing on biosecurity, and then a walk through a working yard rather than a showpiece.
