Pasture fed cattle

Our outdoor reared cattle graze on our organic pastures throughout winter and summer with no additional grain (otherwise known as 'Foggage Farming'). The English Longhorns and Aberdeen Angus's make up most of our traditional herd and are hardy breads, accustomed to living outdoors. They have thick coats to cope with winter weather and all are registered organic with the Soil Association.

In the winter months, we supplement their diet with homemade haylage. This is a grass cut in the summer and baled before it gets too dry and mature, so it retains a little more nutrition. The elimination of grain from the diet is just one example of how Fordhall’s herd is set apart from the conventional. By maintaining a fresh grass fed diet, our cattle experience no major dietary changes.

We will also house our weaned calves for their first winter in an open barn to provide them with a little more shelter. They remain 100% pasture fed (fed ample haylage), and this shelter helps to ease them into life in the fields, as the next year they will be out with the rest of the herd.

Our cattle calve in the spring (March onwards), and are on the farm for you to see when you visit our free farm trails. This means there is plenty of fresh nutritious grass around for our mothers to provide plenty of milk for their hungry calves.

With no added fertilisers, no routine antibiotics or hormones, and no other animal feeds, our cattle grow and mature stress free as they would naturally. We continue with Arthur’s legacy to farm as close to the natural lifestyle of the animal as we can. This means the animals mature slower than in conventional systems, but they are happier and produce a flavoursome and tender meat at the end of it. Beef will develop more flavour and marbling with the age of the animal. We believe this way of rearing cattle is not only natural but produces some of the best tasting meat you can buy.

A wholly grass fed diet has been proven to increase concentrations of the essential fatty acids Omega 3 and conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) in beef, in comparison to grain fed cattle. These fatty acids, which also occur in oily fish, play an essential role in metabolism (chemical changes which take place in our bodies to utilise food and eliminate waste materials) and have been proven to:

  • Play an essential role in the prevention of coronary heart disease and high blood pressure.
  • Reduce the risk of depression and ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder).
  • Help prevent cancer and degenerative illnesses in the walls of arteries.
  • Enhance growth promotion and reduce body fat.

These fatty acids are called essential, as the body cannot produce them, and so they have to be consumed in food.

Please note: Although our cattle are registered with the Soil Association and reared to their organic standards, we do not market or label our beef as organic as we currently do not use a registered organic abattoir. We try to minimise the miles our animals travel to the abattoir which instead means using the one most local to us. As a result, although our cattle are all organically reared, we do not label the beef itself as organic.