De Holy Hoeve

De Holy Hoeve is a meat business with a shop on the Oostveenseweg in Schipluiden, run by two farmers who raise Lakenvelder cattle, Hampshire pigs and goat bucks on several farms around Vlaardingen, Schiedam and Schipluiden.

Almost all the cattle are Lakenvelders, about 70 head, and out on the Midden-Delfland meadows they eat nothing but grass. The cows are not milked, the calves stay with their mothers and drink from them, and the young bulls are castrated and graze with the herd as oxen for two years; in winter the cattle are housed on straw, and what they eat then is not stated. The pigs are Hampshires, which their website says suit the open field: they go out day and night from birth, forage in woods and scrub alongside their feed, and have a straw-bedded shelter all year. Around 250 goat bucks a year are bought at two weeks old from a goat dairy in Midden-Delfland and raised here; whether they go outdoors is not confirmed, and the chicken is bought in from Gildehoen farms.

The shop at Oostveenseweg 1 is open on Friday from 14:00 to 18:00 and Saturday from 10:00 to 15:00, with the whole range frozen and fresh beef most weeks.

The business keeps the whole chain in its own hands, from the birth of the animals to the delivery of the vacuum-packed meat.