Sheep and Sheepskins
We’d like to introduce you to our colourful woolly mowers! Our little flock of native breed crosses graze our orchard and also provide their services to neighbouring landowners. We’ve selected our friendliest ovines who have great quality fleece so that we can produce the full range or products a sheep can. With native breeds which rear slowly but produce great quality meat we aim to produce a mix of lamb and the older hogget for easter. We also use the sheep’s fleece after shearing and have the skins tanned at the end of the sheep’s life.
We cross our ewes with Jacobs to produce beautiful and high quality fleeces on the offspring. These often spotty lambs graze on grass, trees, shrubs and herbs, moving to new pasture often and staying with their Mum’s for as long as they need to. We also use them to turn our crop residue, the left over crops like caulis, spinach, sprouts into fertile manure ready for the next season. Similarly to our cattle and pigs the manure also hosts a whole ecosystem, supporting bioabundance and biodiversity.
The largest lambs are selected in the autumn and winter and the smaller ones will mature in spring. All of these are sold as wholes and halves, directly by us. We give expert butchers your cutting list and are able to tell you exactly what you have and how it is produced. Lamb produced on 100% pasture is not only supporting a thriving environment it also tastes better! Cook it low and slow for unrivalled texture and depth of flavour.
The last part of the cycle is a sheepskin. Locking up carbon in the fleece a sheepskin is the conversion of carbon, to grass, to sheep to a beautiful, cosy skin for the home. Tanned in the traditional way in England’s last tannery in Devon, these skins are a natural material which lasts a lifetime and is natural insulator. They are perfect for chairs, beds, rugs, dog beds, cots and beauty, get in touch to get hold of one! It takes up to 6 months to have our sheepskins made into these amazing, luxurious items so we have different skins available at different times.