Welcome to our farm Oost-Gein!

Our history
The farm Oost-Gein has, just like any other farmstead, a history and a future:

1674 - The farmstead was build in 1674. During the First World War (1914-1918), the farmer’s son Gijsbert den Hartog was stationed at the citadel of Nigtevecht (situated in the near neighbourhood of homestead Oost-Gein). In his spare time, Gijsbert was able to help on the farm of the three unattached brothers Schalij, who were breeding Blaarkoppen.

1936 - Gijbert buys the farmstead Oost-Gein, 28 hectares of land included. He owned 40 cows, which were to be manually milked. The milk was transported by carriage to the market of Amsterdam. After the war, machines are being used to milk the cows. At that time, milk was poured in milk cans, which were to be placed at the road. Still, a lot of the work is done manually, such ploughing.

1954 - The two sons of Gijsbert, the brothers Klaas en Rikkert (with his nickname Uncle Rijk) den Hartog were incorporated in the farm. They begin with 40 milking cows and some pigs. The company booms. The first tractors are being bought; horses get a less prominent role.

1974 - The first stable, with boxes for the cows at both sides of the structure and its threshing-floor in the middle, was build. It was one of the first, which was to be build in the Netherlands and soon afterwards, more of these stables appeared throughout the country. A few years later, the brothers built the second, new stable. The milk cans are being replaced by a milk tank. Moreover, “tower silos” (large silos in the shape of a large cylinder, used for the storage grass) were being build. Meanwhile, the number of cows increases and after some time, the brothers Klaas and Rijk milked 130 cows. Also, the bred 35 sheep, between 300 and 400 pigs and 30 sows.

1987 - The two sons of Klaas den Hartog (Henk and Kors) were incorporated in the farm of their father and their uncle. The milking quota had already been introduced in the Netherlands (it was a system designed to reduce the production of milk within Holland: for every amount of milk, allowances had to be bought, so that one could sell his milk legitimately). The intensive stock farming was in those days extended by the purchase of milking quota (allowance to produce 1 million litres milk per year), the breeding of Holstein cows (also known as “Americans”) and the construction of new buildings on the farm. The “tower silos” were replaced by other silos, which were horizontally constructed.

Since 1997 - The branches of the cultivation of sheep and pigs became slowly but steadily less prominent. After the MKZ (animal epidemic disease) crisis in 2001 these branches were abandoned. Investments were made in other forms of agriculture; and in 1999 the compost branch was set in motion. The farm changes its policy to biological farming. Since August 2001, biological milk is being delivered to the factory. The company extensities.

2004 - The company of the brothers Henk and Kors den Hartog split up. Henk den Hartog continues farming at Oost-Gein and starts of with “a second beginning”. Namely with a different way of utilising pastures (stripgrazen), as it is an ideal system to continue with an other race of cows, the Blaarkoppen. This means that the extensive, biological farm with the Blaarkop cow finally returns after 70 years.