By Chris McCullough

Back in 2006, just a year after graduating with a business degree, Carl purchased 85ac of land to run a suckler herd on, alongside his day job as an accountant.

Starting up a dairy farm on the Isle of Man was a goal Carl Huxham set himself over 10 years ago, and one the former accountant met by keeping things simple.

With the help of a £20,000 young farmers’ start-up grant, in 2007 Carl was able to build the first shed that the parlour is now located in. And that heralded the foundations on what is now Cronk Aalin Farm in Sulby.

Carl said: “I later left accountancy in 2012 with the aim of milking cows and retailing the milk direct to doorsteps. I purchased a second-hand milking setup comprising a Fullwood 16-point parlour, with 1,600L bulk tank, and water heaters, all for £8,000.

Carl Huxham left his accountancy job in 2012 to focus on his dairy herd

“The cubicle sheds were completed that year and I installed the parlour over a six-month period. During that installation I changed the system to an eight-point swing-over adding ACRs and milk meters.

“With the infrastructure in place I purchased 24 heifers, and we started milking, initially feeding the milk to calves.”

Dairy business

In 2014, together with his wife Sarah, Carl launched their Aalin Dairy business producing milk and delivering it straight to customers.

Cronk Aalin Farm near Sulby has been developed over the past 18 years

Carl said: “In the beginning I milked the cows, washed the empty glass bottles, then pasteurised, bottled and delivered the milk.

“Over the last 10 years, the milk rounds have increased to nine. We are now using electric vans to make the deliveries covering the top half of the Isle of Man.

“Our production always runs at a surplus which is made into yoghurt. I’m quite proud that we have won Great Taste Awards for our yoghurt and our cream.

“Our farm really has been built from scratch over the past 18 years. Our own dwelling house was finished in 2015 and an indoor silage pit was built in 2022. We were able to buy 21ac from a neighbour in 2020 to give us more capacity,” he said.

Isle of Man farm

Cronk Aalin Farm is home to a modest-sized herd of 40 cows, which started off dominated by the Holstein Friesian breed. Currently, Carl is focusing on adding the Monbeliarde and Ayrshire breeds into the mix to suit land conditions more.

The average yield of the herd is 6,000-7,000Lper cow per year at an average 4.8% butterfat and 3.4% protein.

With a preference for red cows, Carl has added Montbeliarde and Ayrshire breeding to his herd

Carl said: “Being on a hill farm ranging from 480ft to 900ft above sea level, we need a cow that has strength and good feet, which is why I now favour the Montbeliarde. I personally like red cows, therefore all of our AI bulls chosen now, must be red.

“The cows are normally grazed from March to November in one group, and are housed in the wintertime on cubicles bedded with straw.

The herd has an average yield of up to 7,000 litres per cow per year

“We aim to rear five replacement heifers per year using AI. Currently, we are running a Limousin sweeper bull but there is little demand for beef cross calves locally.

“They are generally reared to around three- or four-months-old and then sold to other farmers on mainland UK,” he added.

Milk from Cronk Aalin Dairy is delivered by a fleet of electric vans.

Carl and Sarah employ one full-time employee on the farm and another full-time employee to work in the milk processing room. A team of 11 delivery drivers, work on a rota system delivering the milk on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

He said: “I milk the cows and oversee the farm operations, whilst Sarah looks after all the paperwork and the customer side of the business.

“All our milk is sold at 85p/pint delivered direct to the customer base by our drivers. We use pint glass bottles to sell the milk in, which are washed and reused increasing our sustainability.

Customers can purchase milk and a range of milkshakes in glass pint bottles from Cronk Aalin Dairy

“There are another 27 dairy farms on the Isle of Man and they all supply the islands central processor, with one also retailing some milk to customers.”

Carl’s cows graze grass during the summer time, with an additional 2kg of 17% concentrate fed in the parlour. This ration changes in the winter time to grass silage mixed with pea and barley wholecrop, and rolled oats, with a 20% cake fed at 4kg/cow/day.

Even though Carl has invested in the farm since its humble beginnings, he continues to enhance it but at the same time, keeping things simple.

Cows graze grass during summer months topped up with concentrates fed in the parlour

He said: “We operate a simple system. I guess our biggest investment is having all our own machinery to harvest forage by ourselves. We are now operating a trailed Lely Storm forager plus two 8.5t silage trailers.

“Our future plan here on the farm is to become more efficient, and reduce costs. Being on an island, our input costs are all quite high as everything incurs a shipping cost.

“We may be free from TB[tuberculosis] and BVD [bovine viral diarrhoea] on the island but exporting stock for sale is also expensive. Importing stock is currently banned due to UK bluetongue outbreak,” added Carl.

Dairy business

Isle of Man farm

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