Poultry vet Dr Heather McKimm establishes her own consultancy partnership

It’s been a busy couple of years for Dr Heather McKimm, who Poultry Digest featured in the April/May 2024 edition when Dr McKimm was a Senior Executive at Victorian layer enterprise Kinross Farms, then owned by Philip and Jane Szepe.
Across the Kinross operation, Dr McKimm oversaw feed milling and nutrition, veterinary health, farming quality and contracted farming operations, and worked alongside the senior leadership team on the layer shed expansion program.
When Poultry Digest first visited the Kinross farm in order to learn about the expansion and operation of the Kinross free range operation, Dr McKimm was enthusiastic about the production performance that was being achieved in free range layer production.
By using the Big Dutchman Natura aviary system installed in the Santrev constructed sheds, production was 
actually outstripping performance in some of the farms enclosed facilities.
Subsequently the family-owned Kinross enterprise was acquired by the private equity Roc Partners which already owned and operated the Pace Farms layer operations.
On top of this period of change, an outbreak of Avian influenza in Victoria hit some of the Kinross sheds leading to a loss of up to 20% of egg production capacity in Victoria.
After a hectic recovery period Dr McKimm took time off for maternity leave after the birth of her daughter Primrose in November 2025.
Poultry Digest caught up with Dr McKimm at the PIX /AMC/APL 2026 combined ‘Food with Purpose’ trade exhibition and conference event held on the Gold Coast earlier in May 2026.
She revealed that maternity leave gave her the space to recognise something.
Her experience shaping one of the top-performing poultry businesses in the country, together with the biosecurity work that helped contain and eradicate the 2025 avian influenza outbreak, could be of real value across the industry.
That realisation became Stockworth, a consultancy dedicated to giving producers the expertise to lift farm performance, reduce the financial toll of endemic disease, and prepare for emergency disease threats.
Her extensive experience in all vital aspects of poultry production, combined with her position as incoming president of the Australian Veterinary Association’s Commercial Poultry Veterinarians Group, will be valuable to an industry that has not only attracted investor interest, but needs to manage avoidable risk while maintaining production efficiency, product safety, and bird welfare.
Stockworth launches in July 2026.
The practice will provide full veterinary consultancy to commercial poultry producers, including biosecurity strategy, quality assurance, industry research and development, and training.
Dr McKimm flagged end-to-end biosecurity audits as a particular focus for the new practice, especially for complex integrated businesses.
The audits pressure-test existing systems and prepare operations for emergency animal disease readiness, with H5N1 the most immediate concern.
I asked Dr McKimm about the approach behind the business.
“From years on the operations side at Kinross, and from conversations with producers across the industry, time on a commercial farm is increasingly being spent in the office rather than boots on the ground.
“Stockworth is set up to reverse that. Take the paperwork and compliance load off, so producers can focus on the birds rather than the screen.
“Lift production by managing flock health on the front foot rather than the back. And get producers ready for the next outbreak before it lands.”
More information on her website stockworth.com.au.