Running her own farm veterinary practice, Alice Miller moves between routine and crisis, meeting the demands of the farming communities who are the backbone of rural life
Long before dawn, on a quiet Dorset lane, the headlights of a vet’s truck spear the darkness. For Alice Miller, this is familiar territory. While most people are asleep, she’s on the road, rushing towards a calving shed or a dairy parlour. With all the calmness of an experienced paramedic, she’s talking a farmer through applying urgent pressure on his bleeding dairy cow, reassuring him as she rushes to get there. Farming doesn’t keep office hours, and neither does rural veterinary work.
Alice grew up in Buckinghamshire in a family of animal lovers. A field behind their house was home to a menagerie of farm pets – goats (still her favourite animal), pigs and chickens.
‘I always wanted to be a vet,’ she says. Now, with nearly two decades of vetting experience, she’s achieved her dream of establishing her own independent farm veterinary business: Homefield Farm Vets, based in Milborne St Andrew.
Focused and ambitious, Alice went to vet school in 2004, back when competition was fierce – there were far fewer vet schools than today. Alongside her identical twin sister Holly, Alice took a demanding five-year course at Bristol. Despite both being fiercely independent, they followed remarkably parallel paths: both became vets, both married farmers and both are now running businesses of their own – Alice in Dorset and Holly in Devon. During her early work experience, while still at school, Alice realised farm veterinary work was about more than big animals.
‘I loved being outside and working with livestock, but it was the community that really grabbed me,’ she says. ‘Being a farm vet offered me entry into a tightly-knit rural world built on trust, resilience and practicality.’
No good girls
That sense of belonging didn’t come without challenges. While training, Alice and her sister answered an advert for lambing help. They arrived in spotless new overalls, full of enthusiasm, only to be dismissed at first glance by the elderly farmer who told them bluntly: ‘You’re girls. You’ll be no good.’ His embarrassed son implored his father to give the twins a chance: they proved so competent they were asked back to help for many years.
After qualifying, Alice moved to Dorset to work in a veterinary practice near Blandford. The Young Farmers network welcomed her and it was through this rural social scene that she met her future husband, Quenton Miller, at a local Point to Point. Their paths, as it turned out, had crossed rather unromantically before, when Alice was TB testing a neighbouring farmer’s cattle and some of Quenton’s cows had made a bid for freedom!
Alice spent nine years as a new graduate in Blandford, building a solid foundation, working with beef, sheep and dairy. A growing interest in cattle fertility led her to the University of Liverpool, where she completed a Masters degree in Bovine Reproduction while still working full time. ‘It was intense,’ she says, ‘but it was completely worth it.’
Her dissertation on heifer synchronisation allowed her to translate academic research directly into practical advice for farmers, work that strengthened their trust and delivered tangible results for the farming community.
In 2023, life shifted again with the arrival of Elsbeth, Alice and Quenton’s daughter. Parenthood prompted a reassessment for Alice, but during maternity leave, it was her farmer clients who encouraged her back, calling for a service she had always wanted to build.
‘I loved being on maternity leave, but I missed my work,’ she says. ‘It felt like the right time to do what I’d always wanted, to follow my passion to have my own farm vet practice and still be a mum,’ Alice says.
Tough and honest conversations
That ambition became reality in November 2025 with the launch of Homefield Farm Vets, based in converted calf sheds with a breathtaking outlook over rolling hills. There’s a laboratory, meeting area and a training room. Alice is keen to support veterinary students and runs several farmer training courses. She’s already led some successful farming forums focusing on hot topics such as TB. But the practice operates primarily from its trucks. ‘We wanted a traditional model,’ says Alice. ‘Personal relationships, reliable continuity of care and honest conversations.’
Those conversations extend to billing and cashflow, topics often avoided, but critical to farming businesses. Quenton, a fourth generation Dorset farmer and a director in the farm vet practice, understands those pressures. Farming alongside his brother and father in Milborne St Andrew and Milton Abbas, he brings a producer’s perspective into every business decision. ‘If vets make decisions without understanding farm realities, it doesn’t work,’ he says. ‘Credibility comes from lived experience.’
That mix of veterinary and farming insight underpins the Homefield approach. The team, now eight strong, covers everything from routine fertility visits and TB testing to emergency call outs at all hours. ‘If you ring us at 3am, you can expect a vet on the farm within the hour,’ Alice says. ‘That’s the commitment we’ve made.’
Being on call 24/7 is demanding. Alice shoulders most of it, acknowledging there’s no shortcuts when it’s your own business. Days off are often cancelled and sleep regularly disturbed. Yet both she and Quenton agree the autonomy makes it worthwhile. ‘You’re the decision maker and in charge of your own destiny,’ Quenton says. ‘That psychological shift is huge.’
The work can be emotionally heavy. From difficult euthanasia decisions to delivering news about TB reactors, Alice carries a responsibility she never takes lightly. ‘Farmers are emotionally attached to their animals too,’ she says. ‘Some of those conversations are tough.’
Beyond clinical work, Alice sits on the British Cattle Veterinary Association Board and the Red Tractor Dairy Sector Board, maintaining a strong voice in policy-making, while remaining deeply rooted in the practical needs of farmers. And perhaps her three-year old daughter will follow in mum’s footsteps? ‘Elsbeth’s already pulling on my protective gloves,’ says Alice. ‘She even answered Homefield’s phone – which was a bit of a shock to the client!’
homefieldfarmvets.co.uk
by Tracie Beardsley
Quickfire questions for the Millers:
Books by your bedside?
Quenton: A unicorn sticker book … Elsbeth’s obviously!
In my defence I also have a National Geographic book on drone photography
Alice: The spring edition of Cattle Quarterly – I’m editor of it so I proof-read it in bed
Dinner party A-list?
Alice: My grandma Eva. I think she would be proud of me. She was a hard worker, coming to this country after escaping Nazi Germany. She inspired the work ethic in me.
Quenton: Wildlife photographer Doug Allan, and legend Shane Warne. I love my cricket, I’m always listening to Test Match when I’m working on the farm.
