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Pasture fed sheep
Our sheep, like the cattle, live entirely off our traditional organic (chemical free) pastures. Our natural woodlands provide all the shelter they could need and our spring fed pools have a ready supply of fresh water. Rotation of these lush pastures also helps to protect them from health problems and so veterinary intervention is only used in a rare emergency. All of our sheep are registered organic with the Soil Association.
Our breeding flock of sheep also live out on our pastures year-round. Grazing in synchronisation with the cattle promotes all varieties of grass (both tall and short) to be grazed allowing thick and vigorous growth to continue in our pastures all year. Our sheep especially relish Sheep’s Fescue, a grass which is rich in saccharine matter.
Our flock of sheep are a mixture of Mules and Suffolks and have their lambs at Fordhall each spring. An opportunity to see our lambs up close is often available, so keep an eye out for any lambing events advertised on social media. The reason why we choose a mixture of Suffolk and Mule sheep is their ability to suit the terrain and grass diet on offer here at Fordhall. By not sticking to just one traditional breed of sheep, we hopefully give ourselves a better chance of finding the perfect mix of sheep which produce good shape and size lambs but also yield good milk and have good mothering tendancies.
We are currently experimenting with some Romneys, which are a breed of sheep well known for their ability to thrive on grass alone and so should suit our farming system. The Romney sheep have white faces and a heavy fleece, and being big framed sheep they are a dual purpose breed, providing excellent meat as well as wool. While the meat is renowned for its flavour and quality, the fleece uniquely combines several important traits. Being lustrous and hanging in separate locks, high yielding and easily spun, the wool clip from the purebred Romney flock is sought for many commercial products ranging from sweaters to carpets. More importantly though for us at Fordhall, the Romneys have a good resistance to parasites and lameness and are suited to lambing outdoors and thriving on grass.
Pasture For Life Association. All of our cattle and sheep are registered with the Pasture For Life Association and accredited as such. This means you receive full traceability and peace of mind when you purchase from Fordhall.
Please note: Although our sheep are registered with the Soil Association and reared to their organic standards, we are not able to label our lamb as organic as we currently do not use a registered organic abattoir. We try to minimise the journey our animals take to the abattoir which instead means using the one most local to us. As a result, although our sheep are all organically reared, we cannot label the lamb itself as organic.
