Rookery Farm Cows
Discover how our small, carefully bred organic herd contributes to sustainable beef production and enhances biodiversity on our farm.
Breeding cows since 2021
We started our very small organic beef suckler herd in November 2021 with three cows called Panda, Petra and Cottontail, alongside their three calves who were three months old.
In Autumn 2024 this has grown to ten breeding cows plus seven calves born this year, and a bull called Jay.
The aim is to produce the highest quality 100% grass-fed organic sustainable beef, and also improve the biodiversity on the farm through low-intensive grazing.
Our cows are perfect for this as their grazing thins the grass swards which allows a greater variety of plants to colonise our fields. This in turn supports more insect life and from there more bird life amongst other animals.
Carefully chosen breeds
We chose the breeds and cross breeds of our cows carefully to best achieve our main two goals.
We now have a mixture of miniature Herefords mixed with a little bit of Dexter, some pure breed Lowlines (miniature Aberdeen Angus) and some Lowline Miniature Hereford cross.
They are basically the smallest cows you can have, and we chose them because they are ‘light’ on the ground, even in the winter. They thrive on a variety of grasses and plants that other larger commercial breeds would struggle with.
Year round cow care
Even in the colder months our cows have access to a field alongside their winter barn, where we feed them the hay we have made in the summer.
In the warmer months we move them around the farm to ensure they have fresh pasture, and they often graze alongside the chickens in the various poultry paddocks we have.
Cows and chickens together
The cows and chickens fit well together. In the summer there is an abundance of grass in the chicken paddocks which in the past we often had to mow, but now we can utilise it for the cows.
The chickens love having them around and the cows are very happy to graze alongside and lie down amongst them.
The cows also seem to keep the foxes away which is an added bonus!
Environmental benefits of grazing
In the late summer and autumn, we graze the cows on our flood plain fields which is where they do a lot of their environmental work, opening up the thicker grass swards.
Heathy grass fields absorb and store huge amounts of carbon, and low intensive grazing is a vital part of this carbon cycle.
From our farm to your plate
Our Rookery Farm Organic Beef, when it is available, is from cows that have been born here on the farm and have grown and matured slowly here, living a happy healthy life.
We know our animals and care passionately about them, so it is not easy to take any of them to the abattoir, but that is part of the process of producing quality beef.
They have our utmost respect throughout their lives and beyond, all the way to your plate.
