Our customers' support enables us to honour the legacy of our soldier settler family who had the foresight to preserve extensive  stands of natural saltbush, native grasses and wetlands. 

Six Secrets to our slow-grown, aged gourmet Lamb/ Hogget

What makes our product so special?

The Wiltshire Horn breed of sheep we produce. Wiltshire Horn sheep are an ancient breed of sheep probably brought to England by the Romans and there are some notable differences between them and most modern commercial breeds. The most notable difference is the sweet tasting flavoursome meat without the lanolin / “lamby” flavour of the commercial breeds. Wiltshire Horn sheep shed their wool and don’t require shearing, crutching, mulesing or any of the chemicals associated with protecting sheep from fly strike. Wiltshire Horns are slower to mature than most commercial breeds and generally take longer to achieve the carcase weights of the most common commercial breeds. Whereas most modern sheep breeds can breed all year round, Wiltshire Horn ewes generally only cycle once per year in the Autumn with the shortening of daylight hours which means most young Wiltshire Horn ewes do not cycle in their first year, and so don’t usually have their first lamb until they are 2 years old. Because the ewes cycle in late summer or early autumn the lambs are usually born at the end of winter which is a more natural synchronisation with spring pastures for the newborn lambs. Grazing on natural saltbush and native pastures. Our sheep are raised on natural Riverina pastures with the following varieties of saltbush:

· “Hedge Saltbush” (Rhagodia Spinescens)

· Ruby Saltbush (Enchylaeana Tomentosa)

· Bluebush (Maireanna Brevifolia)

· Creeping Saltbush (Atriplex Semibaccata)

· Flat Top Saltbush (Atriplex Lindleyisub. sp Conduplicata)

The abundantsaltbush varieties are preferred by the animals during summer when the greenwinter/spring trefoil and other native grasses dry off.

Abundant fresh water. We are lucky to have flowing water forming the boundary of the land where are sheep are raised. From birth our sheep are never further than 600 meters away from a drink which means their meat is more tender than when stock are required to walk long distances to get a drink from a muddy dam. It also means our sheep are better able to digest the saltbush they favour. The age of our sheep when slaughtered. We process most of our lambs as “two tooth” lambs properly called hoggets which results in a more flavoursome but less “lamby/lanolin” flavour. The difference between young milk fed fat first cross lamb and our slow grown weaned hogget is something like the difference between a fresh young “drink now” pinot noir and an aged shiraz. We also process lambs at around 8 -12 months old as well as select mutton when we have a hogget that missed muster or a fat barren ewe in fantastic condition because she hasn’t raised a lamb. Our butchering process. We minimise handling and yarding to ensure that adrenalin levels at the time of slaughter are lower than when animals are processed at large scale abattoirs. We don’t use dogs to muster and handle our sheep. We don’t road transport our animals for processing during hot weather. Our butchers dry age our carcasses for at least 14 days which allows the met to “set” promotes tenderness. Chemical free animal husbandry. All our lambs are vaccinated with “6 in 1” sheep vaccine. We don’t usually drench our sheep due to the sparse stocking rate and unirrigated low rainfall grazing country (although we reserve the right to if necessary for animal health). There is no dipping, or jetting for flies…..and much less stress on the sheep as the result of less mustering and yarding of the sheep.