Young Farmer Focus - Lauren Pincombe: "We hope to stay on the farm well into our future, and one day raise a new generation to take over our life ambition"

I work on a 450 acre dairy farm alongside my partner Josh Fincham at Hampreston Manor Farm in Dorset.

We calve 270 cows in a nine week block and rear 75 heifers as replacements.

We also sell all bull and beef calves at 10 days old to two local farmers.

Josh has now taken on a contract farming agreement and is the farm manager which makes me so proud of him.

Despite not coming from a farming background myself, I was always passionate about animals.

I attended the Royal Veterinary College, and graduated as a Vet in 2019.

After graduating, I joined Josh on the farm and have been in charge of the young stock and all livestock health and breeding ever since.

We are breeding a New Zealand Friesian type of cow on the farm because they can endure the long walking tracks between the parlour and field due to their short stature, while also keeping the yields up.

It also helps our cows with good fertility and proteins while preventing mastitis and lameness.

I believe dairy farming is a very rewarding career.

Seeing the animals go from strength to strength and the positive changes we are making to improve not only cow and calf health, but overall profit, is fantastic.

We hope to continue here well into our future, and one day raise a new generation to take over our life ambition.

I think it is important to encourage farmers to meet and engage on educational talks and that is why we are involved with many young farmer groups and the Dorset Grassland Society.

We participate in ‘farmer time', an initiative that sees farms undertake Zoom calls with schools to educate young children and staff on farming and what we are about.

This is very rewarding as many children have not seen green fields or cows.

They love to ask questions about where food comes from and we feel educating the future generation is important for farmer consumer relations.

We love what we do, and would not change it for the world.

Hard work and dairy farming go hand in hand, but we strive to achieve the best we can and have the highest animal health and welfare attainable, while also having a good life balance.