Farm

All our cattle are born and bred as naturally as possible on our farms at Hertford Heath. Our own selective breeding since the 80s has led us today, to a Aberdeen angus /Simmental herd of single-suckler beef cattle running with two Aberdeen Angus and a Simmental bulls.

This cross-breeding has created a relatively placid herd with a large form and delicious flavour from the Angus – traditionally a very small breed of cattle. We farm all of our cattle extensively, not intensively. They forage on open pasture and meadowland and at the King’s Meads Nature Reserve and Roydon nature reserve.

We always transport our own cattle to the abattoir, ensuring they remain calm and correctly cared for. our herds spend seven months outside on fresh pasture being rotated every month to new grazing fields. they then spend the other remaining months in the year inside our purpose build cattle sheds on our own farms bedded down with straw from our own arable farms with home grown silage , maize,  whole crop and clover feeds. This ensures minimum food miles, reducing costs and preserving a full sustainability environment which enables us to produce high-welfare produce.

Beef Production Annual Cycle

We run a suckler beef herd, of mainly Aberdeen angus  and Simmental cows whereby each cow has a calf (sometimes two) each year. The gestation period for a cow is nine months. When each calf is born it is given an ear tag to identify it from another calf. A passport is then issued for each calf with details of the mother, father, breed, sex and date of birth; this stays with the animal for its entire life for traceability. The male calves are castrated at birth to produce ‘steers’ not ‘bulls’ which in turn gives a more mature flavour to the animal.

The calves stay with their mother for the first eight months on the grass fields around the farms before being weaned off. This gives the mother time to build herself into good condition for the next calving season.

We have our own bulls to put with the cows and calves from May-September to get the cows in calf for next year. During the calves’ first winter they are housed in loose straw yards and fed on grass silage (preserved grass from the summer months). As soon as the weather permits – around late March – they are back out on our Hertfordshire grazing pastures, before coming back in for the winter where they are fattened up or ‘finished’ on forage maize (field sweetcorn) and whole crop (all home grown).

Sheep production cycle

In the spring our barn becomes a maternity ward. We have ewes waiting to lamb, our farm team nurse our ewes day and night making sure they are looked after to the highest standard. We open up our farm barn to our visitors to come and see our working farm in all it’s glory, which is always a huge attraction to all who visit learning and educating our visitors how the lambing process works is key to our farm ethos. When the lambs are a healthy weight we then place the lambs in our paddocks to enjoy the lush green grass and the freedom of space. Visit our Farm Park page for events.

Poultry

Every year we raise enough birds to keep up our egg production here at the farm. Chickens, ducks, guinea fowl and geese run freely on our farm park giving them a healthy happy life and to ensure we have enough egg production to supply our farm shop. We have mixed breeds to ensure a good variety of eggs and even some chicks at Easter time too.

Goats

Goat farming involves raising and breeding of domestic goats, although goats are essential and a great choice for rearing meat and milk for cheese here at Foxholes Farm we keep goats more for grazing. Goats are very suited for low grazing land and are also suited sharing pens with other livestock. Our goats are homed in the farm park for visitors to enjoy seeing them in their pens getting up to mischief. We house a few breeds from the Boer to Pygmy goats.  Although our goats are not for consumption, goat meat is very low in fat, low in cholesterol and high in calcium and iron.