This is a post about flavour. Deep, complex, flavourful lamb and goat.
It’s also about wildflowers. Diversity. Sustainable farming. Pine martens. And grazing. But it’s fundamentally about flavour. Which is what grazing boils down to.
We believe how we farm gives our lamb, goat and hogget a taste of place. A unique taste that’s a combination of people, place and wild green grazing. Our lamb grazes a complex ecosystem of hugely diverse grasses, wildflowers, leaves, herbs and hedgerow. It’s that diversity that has a huge hand in creating the deep, complex flavour profile of the meat we sell, that we cook with ourselves, that we raise.
If that’s something you’d like to buy, or try, or ask us about, please tweet at us on Twitter (@HawHillFarm) or catch us on Instagram (@Hawthornhillfarm)
Three things primarily shape the,taste of lamb and goat. The breed. Slow growing rare breeds like our Shetlands develop deeper flavour. How it’s raised. Happy, calm lambs make for flavourful meat. And what it eats . It’s that last one I’m talking about here.
This is a post about grazing. But grazing IS everything. Grazing is the colour and depth of the ribbon of fat on your leg of lamb. Grazing is flavour. It’s complexity. Richness. It’s the texture, the succulence, and the juiciness. Grazing is everything.
Grazing is also the cornerstone of sustainability, of environmental responsibility and of a farming method that raises happy, healthy livestock with the minimal of artificial intervention. You can manage your grazing intensively. Plough it up. Sow it with grass and clover. Fertilise it chemically. Kill your rushes with roundup. Or you can manage it sustainably. Working with your ecosystem to maintain your flock and your healthy, diverse fields. That’s what we aim for. That’s what we do.
We do managed, or rotational grazing. The idea is simple. We split our farm into about 14 smaller paddocks, using temporary fencing. We move our flock from paddock to paddock every day, two days, or three. We rest each paddock for approximately 24 days. Sometimes more. Sometimes less. Nothing grazes the paddock for that time. We start at one end of the farm, finish at the other, and begin again.
Simples.
But this means a few things. It means we have biodiverse wildflower meadows. We have a sustainable wildlife friendly farm. We have healthier lambs and goats. And we have lower costs. It also means, we have flavourful lamb, hogget and goat.
Our wildflower meadows have time to recover, to flower, to feed the insect life, and to reproduce. Each paddock is rests for 95% of the growing season. Thde wildflowers and grasses have that time to recover, grow, flower, and spread their seed. We have Orchids. Vetch. Grasses. Brambles. Wild mint. Cranes Bill. Stitchwort. St John’s Wort. Cinquefoil. Meadowsweet. Ox Eye Daisy. Broom, Devil’s Bit and Speedwell. And much, much more. This variety gives flavour to our lamb and goat, and a habitat to butterflies, dragonflies and all manner of wild fauna.
Each paddock is small. So, and here’s the messy bit, the animals manure the paddock evenly, and trample it in. Meaning our animals fertilise the pasture as they go. No need for NPK fertilisers. And, with small paddocks, the stock eat almost everything. What they don’t eat – rushes – we manage sensitively by hand. Our pastures have no chemical fertilisers, herbicides or pesticides. Zero.
We are also reducing the parasite problem for our animals. Which means less medication for our stock. Because each paddock rests for almost a month, a significant percentage of parasites don’t get passed on.
We get farming benefits. Our grass grows faster, our stock are eating the best quality grass on the holding constantly, we have deeper rooted plantlife so we have some drought resistance, we should grow more grass each year per acre, so we are looking at lowered feed bills over winter, and we might manage to keep our stock on nothing but grass until later in the winter. We can produce a high quality sustainable lamb and goat meat. At a lower price.
We practise managed grazing. It’s what conserves the diversity and species richness of our fields. It’s what unifies and enables calm, well fed, happy livestock. A sustainable, eco focused biodiverse pasture. And great tasting, sustainable, responsibly raised lamb, higher and goat meat.
If you want to buy our produce – lamb, hogget or goat – or have any questions, or just want to say hi, please comment, or reach out to us on Twitter where we are @HawHillFarm. Our lamb, goat and hogget is raised on chemical free pasture, it’s great quality, and it’s sustainably priced. We aim for supermarket prices, sustainable standards, and rarebreed quality.
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Hello, i was very interested in reading about your grazing methods. I have about 20 boer goats, kids due at the end of March. I now have more land to use, due to losing my old horses. I also love wild flowers, and have thought a lot about wild flower meadows. Maybe this is the time to do it! There is about 12 acres. Last year i had a horrendous infestation of Barber pole worm in the goats. I am aiming to spread out the goats, and hopefully eradicate the worm problem. The reservation i have, is the worry about poisonous plants. Did you sow individual species plants rather than using a meadow mix? I am wondering how you manage the unsuitable plants. I would appreciate any help you can give. Thankyou. Janet
Hi Janet.
We sow the pasture with red and white clover and birdsfoot trefoil. We graze it hard, then wait for a late frost, sow into the frost, and then when it melts the seeds have s chance at soil contact.
Otherwise the meadow is what we call here unimproved. It’s never been ploughed, reseeded, artificially fertilised or sprayed. And if you under or rotation graze, you get wildflowers.
We do have a worm problem. Any small acreage with livestock eventually will. Not sure about the barber pole work, but our parasites mean we’d have to have s field ungraded for a year to clean it.
So, even with rotating the herd every two days, feeding willow branches, which there’s good evidence for thinking they have some anti worm effect, we still have to work every month. But it’s very wet here, and that has a direct effect in our firm burden.
Re poisonous species, you can buy grazing wildflower mixed appropriate to your here, so goat friendly ones will be available. We have only one problem plant, ragwort, which the goats never eat. We don’t have brassicas locally, which can be a problem. But, brassicas excepted, our goats tend to be clever enough about picking and choosing.
Hope this helps, and good luck!
Keith
Hi, interesting article. We have a house in France that we cannot get to at the moment. A local goat/shep-herd has offered to graze our garden. however, we have a lot of orchids of various types and other wild flowers which I normally let flower until June. If I let him graze now, will the sheep eat the orchids before/during flowering?
Hi, interesting article. We have a house in France that we cannot get to at the moment. A local goat/shep-herd has offered to graze our garden. however, we have a lot of orchids of various types and other wild flowers which I normally let flower until June. If I let him graze now, will the sheep eat the orchids before/during flowering?
They will. Goats especially, and most sheep will eat anything this growing. So, all wildflowers, grasses, and even trees. Goats will tend to strip the bark from trees, killing them, and some sheep will do that too. The only things they won’t graze are poisonous plants, or inedible plants. Everything else is fair game. Sheep, if left on, will graze right down to the ground. Which can be useful if you need shirt vegetation.