We’re often asked, “Is your lamb organic?”. The short answer is yes ... but it’s complicated!

 

We consider our practices to be organic but we’re not “certified organic”. 

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Our approach on this is to inform our customers directly about what we do and what we don’t do and let them decide for themselves what organic means to them.

 

What is Certified Organic?

 

In Australia, organic certification is performed by several organisations that are accredited by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) under the National Standard for Organic and Bio-dynamic Produce. Currently there are 7 registered DAFF accredited certifying bodies.

 

Each of these bodies will, for a substantial fee, provide certification and allow the use of their logo.

 

In other words, it’s a brand.

 

We do not seek Organic Certification partly because we disagree with some of the practices that are prohibited by the standard on the basis of animal welfare. For example, the standard prohibits the practices of vaccinating and drenching sheep, which in our experience are essential for the health and welfare of our animals, and instead advocates treatments such as homeopathy.

We always put the health and welfare of our animals first and use organic practices and minimal intervention for the management of our flock but to  help understand our ethos it may be best to consider what we do and don’t do on our farm.

 

What We Do

• Maintain and improve the fertility of our soils to provide high quality grass and clover based pastures for our animals to free range on

• Provide easy access to high quality water supplies and mineral supplements (e.g. mineral licks, shell‐grit, and trace elements of mineral origin)

• Vaccinate our lambs soon after birth for caseous lymphadenitis (CLA) and the five main clostridial diseases and selenium and vitamin B12 deficiencies in lambs

• Drenching once parasitic worms begin impacting animal health but only so untraceable levels remain within the animal prior to slaughter (ESI)

• Tail docking and castrating of lambs after the administration of an analgesic

• Provide a safe and healthy environment where our animals can live as they do naturally, socialise with their flock and be happy

• Treat our animals with care and respect and follow the Australian Animal Welfare Standards and Guidelines for sheep and transport

 

What We Don’t Do

• Feed lotting or provide any feed supplements that are GMO or contain animal products

• muelsing, crutching or shearing

• Administer any hormones or growth promoters

• Administer antibiotics unless recommended by a vet

• Apply fly or lice or other insecticides

• Add water (vascular flushing) colours, flavours or preservatives to our meat 

• Artificial Insemination, embryo transfer, genetic engineering, treatments with reproductive hormones or semen sexing

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