Animal & Health Welfare
Animal health & welfare
We know every animal in our small flock and care for them every day in accordance to strict Soil Association organic standards.
All the sheep enjoy the space and environment in which to express their natural behaviour. They graze naturally on our own organic pasture and organic hay produced on the farm. Organically approved sheep feed is available as and when required. The lambs are reared slowly and without the pressure of trying to achieve weights by set dates. This means they stay at grass maturing slowly and naturally taking anywhere between seven to 14 months for lamb and from three years for mutton to reach their full weight.
This natural and slow rearing system reduces the stress on each animal and all helps to give our lambs their fabulous taste. We choose each animal depending on what each customer wants and take all our animals to slaughter ourselves.
If any animal is ill or needs treatment, we call a qualified vet. Animal health medicines are only used in accordance with Soil Association protocol and a vet's advice.
Under Soil Association the following rules apply:
- The routine use of drugs or growth promoters are banned
- Non-organic feed is banned
- Containing GM material is banned
- Hormone treatments of any sort are banned
- Organophosphate sheep dips are banned
- The routine use of chemical wormers is banned and are only used with the permission of the Soil Association
- Lambs never have their tails docked