Our Animals

All of our livestock on the farm are native breeds. This means that they originate from the UK. Native breeds are slower growing compared to continental breeds. They are grass fed and live outside for the majority of their time. Native breeds tend to carry more fat so our meat may have a slightly higher fat content compared to supermarket meat however the fat provides the meat with flavour and stops it from drying out during cooking.

Cattle

Here at the farm we have a small herd of beef cattle. We have 25 breeding cows who will have a calf every year, we also have their calves and the cattle we are fattening for our beef pop up shops throughout the year.

We have a variety of different native breeds. These breeds include: Aberdeen Angus, Beef Shorthorn and Sussex.

When we were deciding what cattle we wanted to have on the farm we chose native breeds for many reasons including:

they are very docile
they are maternal and make fantastic mothers to their calves
they produce lots of milk for their calves
they are low input meaning they grow well on grass and do not require any other feed when out in the fields.

Cows are pregnant for 9 months, like humans. Our cows have their calves during the autumn months normally between September- November. They will then live with their mothers and drink their milk until they are weaned. We normally wean our calves in early May.

Our cows live in our shed on the farm during the winter normally from December to early May. This is because they will cause too much damage to the fields if they are kept out and they will also have no grass to eat due to the cold wet weather. During this time they eat silage which is fermented grass that has been made during the summer and they are bedded on straw which is the stem from arable crops that is baled.

The Beef Shorthorn breed are our latest additions on the farm and they have just had their first calves this April. Keep an eye out for them when you are walking on the footpaths around the farm!

Sheep

On the farm we have a flock of sheep. We have 40 breeding ewes (females) who lamb (give birth) every April. The breeds of sheep we have on the farm are: Kerry Hill which originate from Wales, Hampshire Down which come from Hampshire and Mules from the North of England.

Sheep are pregnant for 5 months. We put the rams (breeding males) with the ewes on 5th November so they should start lambing from 1st April. Lambing normally takes about 2 weeks.

Our sheep live out all year round apart from February- April when they will come in for lambing. They will then be turned out with their lambs just a few days after the lambs are born and will live with their mums until July/August when they are weaned.

The lambs are then moved into a different field away from the ewes so that they do not become stressed.

We will keep the ewe lambs (females) which we need and then sell the remainder for breeding. We keep all the ram lambs (males) and send them to the abattoir when they are ready. This is normally anytime between September- November.