The Hereford cow is one of the most famous of the traditional British beef breeds with its distinctive white face and brown and white body. Renowned for its excellent eating quality and quiet temperament the Hereford is seeing a resurgence in popularity in recent times.
Being a traditional breed one of the Herefords main characteristics is its ability to fatten off grass, without the need to feed supplementary diets of cereals as is the case with modern continental breeds. This grass based diet makes the cow slightly slower growing but gives a very tender meat with a superior flavour. This eating quality is also excellent thanks to the marbling characteristic of Hereford meat which when cooked helps improve the texture and taste of the meat; how beef should taste.
Here at Essington we have a suckler herd of pedigree Herefords, this means that we breed off the pedigree Hereford cows with a pedigree Hereford bull and then rear the offspring for meat. Although this is a bit more work than just buying in cattle to fatten up it means that we can select the finest cattle to breed from ensuring a top of the range end product for our customers. The pedigree Hereford is also a purpose bred beef breed where as many other beef cattle originate from the dairy industry, by having pedigree Herefords we are guaranteeing quality.
We like to calve our cows in the spring or summer when there is plenty of grass for them to eat which will give the calves a good start in life and also give plenty of food for the cow whilst she is rearing her young. The calves are then weaned at around 8 -9 months and kept until they are around 2 years old when they are big enough to be killed for the butchery.
For more information on how we cut, mature and sell our pedigree Hereford beef click here |
