Latest News and Events
Sunday Observer Article - 21 October 2007
Our farm was recently featured in the Sunday Observer Food Monthly magazine, as part of an article on "Happy Animals Provide Happy Meat!"
The article showcased the obvious fact that looking after cattle in a caring/calm way results in better quality beef – a fact now supported scientifically. More and more farms are taking this on, but this is not just to do with the way cattle are treated from birth at the farm, but also the way they are treated from the farm all the way to the consumer's plate – even the way animals are treated at the abattoirs matters. Our local abattoir, Millers of Speyside, Grantown-on-Spey, also featured in this article, are proud of the quality of the meat they produce due to the way they treat the animals from arrival, through killing time, and onto the dry-aging process. All this care makes the meat more tender.
Meat's flavour is dependent on many things – the way the animal was fed, the way it was raised, the fat content of the meat, and the way, after slaughter, the meat was conditioned and matured .... Keeping animals unstressed through their lives, and raising them and feeding them in a consistent way, has been shown to affect meat quality in a very significant way. But clearly the most potentially stressful thing for Balnafettach cattle, as to any of the millions we eat each year, is the manner of their slaughter. Balnafettach Highlanders go to the slaughterhouse at about two-and-a-half year old. We cajole them into a truck in pairs, and they travel about 15 minutes up the valley of the Spey, to Millers' abattoir at Grantown
You can read more on the Sunday Observer's website.
Gates Open Day - 6 October 2007
We had a wonderful Open Day on our farm as part of the Gates Open programme organised by the Highlands & Islands Food network on Saturday 6th October. Many local folk and further away visitors came to join us on a day full of activities. Our butchery demos on a home-grown Jacob X lamb were particularly successful – and so were the tastings afterwards!
Kids (and parents!) were naturally able to increase their knowledge as to what was happening on our farm and to get close to some of our sheep and cattle – Highland cattle are so photogenic!! And so was the old fully renovated MF35 (1958) tractor.
Other activities included an interesting Nature Trail, fly-fishing and clay-pigeon shooting. There was also a great opportunity to buy some lovely wildlife photos and obviously our fresh pure Highland Beef and Jacob X Lamb in our newly-fitted Farm Shop. Everyone is now welcome to pop up to the farm to buy our meats anytime, although we do advise strongly to ring us first on (01479) 870 341 to make sure there is somebody around (as the Shop is not staffed all the time).
Bill and I would like to take this opportunity to thank again all our friends without whom we could not have had this great day. Also a particular Thank You to all our visitors, who, we hope, had a great day out. Thank you all!
All in all our Open Day was a great success and we are already planning for October 2008 – so watch our website!