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Beef, lamb and arable

Lamb
Our flock consists of north country mules, bred from hardy Swaledale mothers and Blue-faced Leicesters. These are then crossed with Texel, Beltex, Charolais or Suffolk rams.  The lowland sires and hill-cross ewes produce quality lamb.

The sheep spend almost their entire lives outside, sometimes roaming with the cattle. All of the ewes are lambed at the beginning of April, to make use of the spring flush of grass which is in abundance at this time of year. Only the ewes about to give birth to triplets are brought inside for a week or two before their lambs arrive. All of these ewes and lambs are soon turned out onto clean pastures which have been specifically set aside. We aim to fatten all of our lambs from grass and use home grown grain if necessary. 

Beef
Lowther’s beef cows (heifers) are home-produced Limousins crossed with a ‘new traditional’ grass-fed Stabiliser breed. The heifers are mated with Belgian Blue, Charolais or Limousin bulls to produce the beef animals. All the calves are born in the spring on farms around the quiet Cumbrian villages of Thrimby, Whale, Melkinthorpe and Cliburn. For two years the beef herds graze on the hills above the Lowther valley. Grass is supplemented by barley, wheat, beans and forage, grown on our farms as part of a traditional four-year rotation of land.

Arable

The aim of our arable unit is to create an extensive rotation of crops to feed our own stock. We have 1000 acres of land we can plough - towards the Lakeland fells the land is too rocky. We grow wheat and barley, but our main crop is grass - the traditional, natural, British, high-sugar, high-energy food for stock. The more we can grow, and the better quality it is, the less feed we need to buy in for our cattle and sheep. By growing a different crop each year on the same land, pests and weeds are less of a problem and we avoid the use of pesticides, weedkillers, fertilisers and other chemicals. And our cattle and sheep have good quality, home-grown feed.

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