Our Estate Farm is critical to the food and meat business.  It started with rare breeds of pigs, in the woods, as a hobby of Lord Salisbury's.  We are still very much involved on the pig circuit, showing our rare breed tamworths, large blacks and middle whites at agricultural shows accross the country.  We sponsor the British Pig Association's annual "Pig of The Year" competition, culminating in a nail-biting final at the Great Yorkshire Show in Harrogate. 

 

Many of our pigs come from the rare breed breeders on the show circuit as weaners to us.  They roam freely in large open pens on the downland and in adjoining woodland.  They are fed on a natural diet of corn and protein, as well as foraging for roots in their pens.

 

The pigs remain outdoors for all the time they are on the farm.  We use a family-run abbatoir in Sturminster Newton (the nearest one to us) and often, this is the furthest any animal will have been from the Farm (20 miles).

It's not all sucking on straw and leaning over gates though.  Farming today can be traditional, extensive and caring to livestock and the ground, without being old-fashioned.  Four staff look after all the livestock and 4000 acres of arable land, grassland, downland and heathland.  They use modern, highly technical equipment on the arable cropping.  Other work involves time spent planting new hedges and helping the keepers develop wild bird habitats, pollen and nectar areas for insects and game cover strips.