Our organic beef cattle

We have 180 beef suckler cows based on native South Devon and Aberdeen Angus breeds, BSE-free and TB-free. We aim for great tasting beef combined with practical organic management.

This year, a Hereford bull has been purchased and we are gradually replacing South Devon breeding with Hereford. All our replacement heifers are homebred, and we are aiming to have a herd made up of 50:50 Hereford and Aberdeen Angus cows.

The herd is split into autumn calving and spring calving, all outdoors, which we find reduces infections for the new-born calves and the cows milk production rises as the grass grows. Whilst this is great for the cows and calves, it entails the stockmen checking the cows three times through the night during the calving period. To help we have a mobile cattle yard which we can take out to the fields if we have to assist with a difficult calving, or any health problems with the cows.

The bulls will run with the spring calving cows at grass from June for two heats (42 days) and at 34 days after we will diagnose pregnancy. Should a cow be empty she will then return to the bull in autumn. This tells us roughly how the calving pattern will work out, so we are on calving duty around 50 days. The autumn calving cows give birth during the first week in September, generally into a beautifully Indian summer giving the calves a really good start.

We house all the cattle by November so that we do not poach the grassland as it becomes wet in winter. We feed silage ad-lib to the calves and fattening stock with a complete diet feed machine.

We aim to maximise the quality of our clover silage, being 25-30% dry matter, 18% crude protein, digestible value of 68-70%, metabolic energy of 11%, pH 4 and 3% sugar. We don’t use nitrogen fertiliser, unlike conventional farmers who have to wait for the nitrogen to reduce in the leaf tissue of the grass before making silage. If they cut too soon with high nitrogen content, the silage can be very difficult to make, requiring additives and additional feeds. So we have real benefits using nitrogen fixing clovers.

One of our challenges is keeping the cows thin enough on these very high protein clover leys. The calves grow like mad, the cows get fat and then become difficult to get back in calf. Again in the winter, we have to be careful not to over feed the cows since if they get too fat, produce a very big calf which can give problems when calving.

We prefer these challenges to not having enough food!! A little bit of a juggling act is required in balancing the feed for milk production and growth of calves, whilst not allowing the cows to get overweight. Again we monitor worm counts in the faeces, but cows and calves are far more resistant to worms and over the last 3 years we haven’t had to worm any cows or calves. That says a lot about the organic way!

We have unique rubbing posts which are in the shape of a pyramid so they can scratch their backs, and you can see the animals love them! Our animal behaviourist has also recommended the use of clay (remember Kaolin and Morphin for sickness) which the cattle particularly like in the winter. Most species in the wild lick mud or soil to take up essential minerals. Controlled experiments on this in the waterholes of Africa are under way to evaluate the benefits.

During the winter months the stockmen's daily routine for seven days a week is feeding the cattle silage, bedding up with fresh straw, checking the animal health, and seeing they have got enough water. All the stock, summer and winter, are checked up to three times a day.

Buy our delicious organic beef at our online shop or call our sales team now. Tel: 01488 674747