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, Herefords 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 are certified by the pasture for life organisation for our cattle and sheep, which give our customers reassurance that their diet is 100% grass and pasture.

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 suckler herd of cows stay outdoors all year round on our dry sandy top fields and the store cattle (teenagers) run in and out of sheds with big doors open onto the paddocks behind. This means they can come indoors for shelter in the worst weather and feed, but still have the space to roam on pasture too. These store cattle would only be kept indoors if the weather conditions do not allow them to be out at grass.

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.

As the demand for our beef increases we are very aware we do not want to over intensify Fordhall. We will always continue to keep our pigs free range and cattle and sheep reared purely on grass. Our solution to this is to build relationships with other farmers. We have already built a strong relationship with Rush Farm in Redditch. Rush Farm are also Organic and Pasture for Life certified. By buying young cattle from them we can be confident the animals are good stock and we always agree a price each year which we are both happy with to make the relationship work for us both. We buy young cattle from Rush Farm which we bring to Fordhall and rear them on our grassland. We also have some of their older cattle which we use to produce burgers for wholesale.

We have similar relationships with other local, Organic farms. This includes Proper Good Dairy, who produce unhomogenised milk for the farm shop. They make great burgers as they have a bit more fat on them and the maturity of the meat adds lots of flavour - win win. When we buy cattle from other farmers to grow on, we always source them to Organic Standards, they are not always from other Pasture for Life certified farms but are kept to PFLA standards while at Fordhall.

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 and our butchery is not audited. 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.