William (Dad)
William was born and brought up at Calla Farm, Carnwath, a beef and sheep farm. He spent 3 years at SRUC Auchencruive and met many good friends , had lots of fun and kickstarted his interest in dairy farming.
In 1996 with the help of the Baillie family, William bought Hillhead of Covington. The dairy at Hillhead hadn't been running for a few year so William set about making improvements to get things up and running and buying some cows. In early 1997 he starting a milking herd with 50 Holstein Friesian cows.
He has continued to learn from other and progress the business. Putting in lots and lots of hours making improvements to the farm buildings, mixing and laying lots of concrete and turning his hand to lots of jobs. The use of genetics and genomics has developed the herd of 400 healthy Holstein cows that we are all very proud of.
Jennifer (Mum)
Jennifer was born and brought up at Newmains Farm, Cleghorn. Being brought up on a dairy farm Jennifer knew the hard work and commitment involved in dairy farming everyday of the year so she went off to find a career away from the farm.
She qualified as a Chartered Physiotherapist in 1993 and spent many years working with the NHS alongside her private Physiotherapy clinic but was always interested in the developments on the farm and would help out with all farm jobs. In the early days of no staff at Hillhead Jennifer would often bring the cows in for milking before travelling to Glasgow for a full days work.
Jennifer now does most of the work with the pasteurising and milk vending alongside her physiotherapy clinic.
Abbie
Right from a young age Abbie was interested in the cows and calves on the farm. She would spend lots of time and determination getting calves trained and prepared for showing. She would train calves for Eva and Finlay and any of her cousins who showed an interest.
Abbie started helping at milking in her early teens. She has always shown great interest in the care and attention for all the calves and cows of Covington. There aren't many jobs that Abbie isn't capable of!
Abbie graduated from SRUC in 2022 with a degree in agriculture. Whilst studying for her degree she was employed with Genus Breeding in their graduate programme which allowed her to train and work as a Reproductive Management Technician and visit lots of dairy farms to help them with cow fertility and get all their chat!!
Abbie is currently off travelling and hopefully she will provided with some updates on dairy farming on the other side of the world.
Eva
Eva is the baker. With a keen interest in baking from an early age she learnt many skills from both Gran Calla and Gran Storrar. Check out Cakes of Covington for Eva's work. Eva does all the baking for the vending machine at The Milk Hut here at Hillhead of Covington. Her cakes and traybakes really are delicious. She is continually coming up with new ideas and bakes so keep an eye out at The Milk Hut.
Eva is a very hard worker as she is also an important member of the team at Cones and Candies in Biggar.
Eva's favourite job on the farm is steam cleaning and in her early teens she was responsible for the summer time steam cleaning of the cubicle sheds. She has also done her time with calf feeding and milking parlour assistant. Tractor work is not for her though!
Finlay
The youngster of the family but catching up fast. Finlay is most enthusiastic about the tractor work on the farm. A quick learner with machinery and equipment although he also is happy to help at milking and cow management. A great worker and asset to the farming family.
The current challenge with Finlay is keeping him enthusiastic with school work!
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