Former shearer excels at milking

Having spent most of his time traveling the world shearing sheep, Will Hinton has changed farming direction. He now milks cows on a share-farming basis in New Zealand. He and partner Kali Rangiawha run K&W Hinton Farms, formed more than four years ago.

Hinton hails from Wiltshire, England, where he grew up following the sheep-shearing trail before traveling “Down Under” to perfect his craft. It was while on this quest in 2017 that he met Rangiawha, who is from New Zealand. She had accrued a wealth of dairy experience.

Before long kids were born and roots settled. For the past 15 months the couple have been contract-milking 350 cows on a 280-acre farm located near Fielding in the Manawatu District on the North Island of New Zealand. They won the 2024 New Zealand sharefarmer of the year award. The couple have three children – Rylan, 6, Billy, 3, and Blake 1.

Hinton said, “With several years of dairy experience, Kali was the key driver behind our contract-milking business that we started four years ago. The farm we are on now is owned by Tim and Victoria Gorton. This is their first year owning a dairy farm so they have employed us to run it for them, whilst leaning on us for our experience.

“We milk 350 crossbred cows twice a day through a Waikato Milking System 54-unit rotary parlor. Milking takes 1.5 hours in the morning and one hour in the afternoon. This past year we achieved a record production for the farm of 443 kilograms milk solids per cow (about 977 pounds).”

Rangiawha also works as an artificial-insemination technician for New Zealand’s Livestock Improvement Corporation. She said she likes to run a tight spring-calving system to match grass growth on the farm.

She said, “Compact calving is very popular over here, run to match grass growth. We calve the cows from mid-July through to the end of September, with the majority calving in the first six weeks.