We have been an accredited member of the Soil Association since 1996
About Us
Dairy
We currently have 170 milking British Friesians who have all been home bred. Their milk is sold to the Organic Milk Supply Co-Operative who, in turn, supplies Yeo Valley and Alvis brothers amongst others.
The cows are milked twice a day by Dan and, although not high yielding, they each giving approximately 5,500 litres per year. They convert grass and clover into milk and are supplemented with organic feed, some of which is home grown. In the summer they spend their days and nights at grass and in the winter they are housed on straw and fed on our silage.
They do not have names but we do have a “Bluebell” family which are grey / blue and white; this is a throwback to breeding up from Shorthorns to Friesian. Each of our cows has a calf every year. Half the herd are pure bred with a Friesian bull to breed our dairy cows of the future.
Beef
Half our dairy herd are crossed with Hereford , Aberdeen Angus, South Devon or Sussex bulls which are all native breeds. We keep our own pedigree Hereford bull called ´Bromham 1 Sorcerer´ - ´Saucy´ for short. He was born the year Harry Potter was all the rage!
The calves are raised on the farm until they are 2 years old, at which time some are sold on to the Organic Livestock Marketing Co-operative but we are selling more and more direct to customers. This is the meat that you will eat.
Arable
We grow wheat, barley and field beans in rotation with our grass and clover. Beans are legumes, like clover, so they help to enrich the soil with nitrogen. These may be sown in the autumn or in the spring.
We harvest our crops in the summer and autumn. All of these may be sold off the farm or milled and fed back to our cattle.
Stewardship
Our farming practices are sustainable meaning that no artificial fertilisers and pesticides are used, which provides a better environment for our children. We have 83 ha of grass in stewardship, which is beneficial to wildlife and wild flowers.
Two of our ponds have been cleaned out and fenced and the willow trees surrounding have been pollarded. Two otter Holts have been built close to the river Cole to encourage the otters which have been seen on the river to breed.
We have 12.5 km of 6 metre stewardship strips around our fields which act as a buffer between crops and hedgerows and we have planted 1.5km of new hedge rows and still retain all the original hedges planted in the 1860s.
A recent BTO survey revealed that we have over 70 different species of birds on the farm, including sky larks, lapwings, field fares, English partridge and reed buntings. Oxford University discovered that we have water voles in our river banks and we have a mink control programme in place under BBONT supervision to protect the water rats. We also have a large population of hares which put on a great show during the breeding season!
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