We have raised a bumper crop of young bulls this year sired through our AI programme from Te Mania Berkley, Te Mania Emperor, Te Mania Nebo,Tuwharetoa Regent, Quaker Hill Blindside, Quaker Hill West Coast and from our own stock-bulls Wildfell Perseus, Wildfell Eric, Fordel Fanfare and Oakchurch Dynamite . Your calls are welcome if you'd like to discuss this or for any more information.
Alongside the Wildfell Aberdeen Angus herd we are also producing Wildfell Wagyu with a small but increasing number of Wagyu x Aberdeen Angus, using our full blood stock bull, Wildfell Sammyano, meaning his parentage can be traced back to Japan. We now have a supply of mature Wagyu steers available for commercial purposes and are looking to supply to local restaurants. We also have a small flock of breeding sheep comprised of Norfolk Horns and Lleyns and we raise around 200 lambs each Spring both for breeding and commercial use.
Wildfell Wagyu Beef Boxes for Sale.
We take the health and welfare of all our animals seriously and provide them with a lot of care, attention and affection resulting in a healthy, contented and docile herd and flock. We performance record all our Aberdeen Angus with Breedplan and have now achieved their Gold star rating.
We are recording complete performance information with BREEDPLAN for our Angus across all traits for which EBVs are available. These figures evaluate our Aberdeen Angus in relation to all other animals registered in the breed and help us determine which animals are the best.
View Breedplan Go to page 52
We are very committed to developing regenerative management practices alongside our Higher Level Stewardship Scheme which has been in place for 8 years. The breeding herd spends 9 months of the year including calving based on the Great Fen Project which is all around our base here at Wildfell Farm. It is a 50 year project and has been running for just under 20 years. It is designed to restore 10 000 acres of peat soils known as fen land back to how it was before drainage and intensive agriculture using wet grassland grazed by our cattle and sheep and at the same time providing fantastic habitat for many species of birds, mammals and insects.
This will in time join up 2 very important Nature Reserves, Holme Fen and Woodwalton National Nature Reserves. So far, about 5000 acres is under this management . The whole area acts as a huge carbon sink between the cities of Peterborough and Cambridge on either side of it. In one particular area we graze animals in close cooperation with the manager to create a suitable habitat for the rare Fen Violet.
We stock less than 1 cow and calf per hectare and our own calculations show that we are actually carbon negative meaning that the grassland absorbs more carbon dioxide than is produced by our cattle. It is virtually organic with no artificial fertilizers or pesticides in use with the exception of controlling thistles and other noxious weeds if required. The cattle spend their lives outside and as a result are very healthy so our use of medicines including antibiotics is very low.
On our own Wildfell Farm we employ a system of mob grazing to simulate the action of wild herbivores such as buffalo in the US going back 200 years . We graze a lot of animals in a small area then they move off after 2-3 days to allow to grass and herbs to regenerate for up to 30 days before we graze again. When we took it on in 2009 it had been very intensively farmed growing potatoes, onions, sugar beet, carrots and cereals. The soil was in very poor shape so we started a programme of application of compost made from kerbside green waste which is processed at a site only a mile from us. We have applied hundreds of tonnes of the stuff and as a result the organic matter in the soil has doubled over the past 11 years. We have also applied recycled gypsum - plasterboard which also enhances soil structure. Earthworm populations have shot up and the soil is much easier to cultivate. We introduced livestock in 2014 to create a mixed farm so that grass and herb grazing could provide yet more organic matter to improve soil health, give it a break from cultivation and allow even more soil microbes to develop.
We grow lucerne which requires no nitrogen fertilizer, to produce a high protein feed which when mixed together with fodder beet which we also grow produces a perfect diet for growing cattle. The breeding herd spends the winter on the free draining fields at Wildfell Farm grazing fodder beet with some silage. We do not use any feed at all which is imported and in fact it is all grown either on the farms here or from within a 10 mile radius. We are not vegan yet our cows and sheep are. They convert grass which we cannot digest into healthy beef and lamb whilst playing a major part in managing some very special habitats here in Cambridgeshire.
We are members of the Aberdeen Angus Cattle Society, the British and Australian Waygu Associations, the Norfolk Horn Breeder Group and the Lleyn Sheep Association. We are in TB4 area, Red Tractor and BVD accredited and are members of the Biobest HiHealth scheme
Stock for sale
