Home of "Wicked Good" milk

Hatchland Farm has grown from the dreams of a 13 year old boy raising his first calf to a dairy farm with more than 450 cows and a bottling plant that processes the milk produced by those cows. Howard Hatch, the owner and head of the business, has managed the growth of Hatchland from a small dairy herd in 1958 to the operation of today. In 1992 Howard started bottling his milk in a section of a truck garage on Benton Rd in North Haverhill and in 2004 built a modern bottling plant next to the milking facilities on Horse Meadow. Preston Hatch and Kristen May, Howard's son and daughter, as employees and partners in the business, play a major role in the day to day operations of the farm. Dave May, Kristen's husband, delivers the milk on long distance routes and Preston's children work at Hatchland when they can. Howard's brother, Rick, manages the dairy and Rick's wife, Rita, works in the office as well as in the dairy on occasion.

The Production Side

Hatchland has more than 500 milking cows and more than 300 heifers and calves. The cows are milked twice a day in a double 12 parallel milking parlor. When the cows are milked the priority is on cleanliness to inure that the milk sent to the bottling plant is of the highest quality. The 26 tons of feed that the cows consume each day consists of mostly home grown alphalfa haylage, grass haylage, dry hay and corn silage. A purchase grain mix of high quality ingredients is also used to complete the energy, protein, vitamin and mineral needs of the cows. Artificial hormones are not used and no animal byproducts are fed to the cows at Hatchland. A comfortable home, healthy food for the cows and proper milking procedures are the first steps in the production of high quality and great tasting milk.

The Finishing Touch

The "Wicked Good" milk products produced at Hatchland are bottled in their own plant right on the farm. Our milk goes directly from the cow to the bottling plant and most of the time is bottled within a day. Our method of pasteurization takes more time, but the lower temperature use when vat pasteurizing doesn't change the natural flavor of the milk as much as higher temperature pasteurizing does. This insures that the great flavor is not altered by the process. The secret to our "Wicked Good" chocolate milk is using the highest quality ingredients, our already great tasting milk and bottling it the Hatchland way.