Christmas feeding

The snow is thawing, but the roads are still slippery and we're breaking into the new summer hay made this year! Abigail, William and dogs helped get the new bales down right from the top of the barn, we loaded them up, feed all the livestock and checked the ewes closely by running them into the barn, giving them the once over and then letting them back out into the fields. They're doing really well and I am hoping we should get a good lambing next year. I will have some extra custom in 2010 - two of my three daughters are getting married and we're having lamb and mutton at the two weddings. This lambing has to be best yet!

All jobs done, we've beat a hasty retreat back to the warmth of the fire - and to start on the new paperwork supplied by the Government. Yet more paperwork! I am sure there's a consipiracy to drive farmers out of business simply by drowning them in form filling. Still, a toast to Christmas, to the year to come to all my wonderful Customers who have supported me so brilliantly through the year!

26th October Wonderful Win in Organic Food Awards

It has been a wonderful time winning the National Organic Food Awards for our lamb with our mutton taking Highly Commended too. I have congratulated the flock and we are all thrilled to win! Thank you for sending all the emails with super messages and congratulations, it is very much appreciated.

Christmas deliveries - orders taken now!

We have fresh stocks of Manx Loaghtan Chorizo Salami and Manx Loaghtan Salami with juniper and red wine, they can be presented in a presentation box, also smoked lamb so let us know if you would like any. Our last deliveries for lamb and mutton before Christmas will be in November to avoid the manic Christmas courier rush so if you would like to order please do get in touch as soon as possible.

We have a good stock of our honey coloured sheepskins here, quad rugs and single rugs which make great presents. They can be sent out as late as December - as they are not a fresh product!!

Do keep in touch, we love to hear from you.

Helpful new member of the team!

The weeks have flown by with all the usual activity of lambs growing, grass growing soon to be made into hay, sheep have been sheared, fleeces soon to be turned into spun wool. Bee hives have swarmed and honey soon to be extracted and we have plenty of Manx Loaghtan lamb and mutton, Manx Loaghtan Salami and smoked lamb - so it is all happening. We also now have in stock beautiful soft honey coloured quad rugs.

We have a new member of the team called Flute - a lovely young smooth collie bitch who is in charge of moving the sheep flock. Very sadly my great help and constant companion sheepdog Trim died at a good age after the last blog posting. I had been looking for a sheepdog replacement for over a year as I knew Trim was getting on and was indeed fortunate to find Flute earlier in the year and she has taken over very well. (Good sheepdogs are very hard to find but I have a couple of excellent sources - Alison Smith [ads-sheepdog@live.com] and Andy Nickless at The Working Sheepdog Website)

The wonderful weather in June created the most beautiful hay fields full of wildflowers and shimmering grasses. It has been a joy to walk through them. The flowers and grasses have now seeded so we are able to cut the grass and make the hay - when the sun comes out again! We have had various school visits enjoying the pond dipping, wild flower and grass study activities.

We will soon have a short film to be viewed, a trailer is already up and showing. I hope that you enjoy it. It was great fun to make it with Cristian Barnett, well known photographer and film maker and Flute and the flock think it is wonderful being filmstars!

Blue Peter comes to Langley Chase and Langley Chase is Wiltshire Independent Food Producer of the Year 2009!!

Langley Chase has been having such an exciting time that there has been no time for posting!! Time to make amends.

We are proud and thrilled to have won the Wiltshire Independent Food Producer of the Year 2009 and thank you all so much for putting us forward for the nomination. We received the award at a most prestigious and delightful evening at the beautiful Wilton House in Salisbury, Wiltshire. We are also grateful to Wiltshire Life Magazine http://www.wiltshirelife.co.uk/awards.shtmlwho run the awards and to Smith & Williamson Accountants in Salisbury who sponsored our category award.http://www.smith.williamson.co.uk/salisbury. The magazine has yet to publish the evening and we will post the photos when we get them.

We have been playing host to BBC Blue Peter who came here just before Easter and Joel, the presenter of Blue Peter, came to help with the lambing and with the jobs about the lambing barn. We all had a great time, the weather was sunny and lovely and little lambs were everywhere. We had a rejected lamb, born that morning that Joel arrived and he took over the care of it and named it Joleene! A girl of course!! Blue Peter programme is going to follow her career over the year, maybe years! I am pleased to say that Joleene was happily re-united with her young and forgetful mother who finally took on the task of rearing her lamb. So all is well!

The BBC Blue Peter Programme at Langley Chase goes out on Tuesday 28th April at 4.35 p.m. Be sure to catch it!!

Lambing has finished now and we have over two hundred leaping and bouncing lambs. When I checked them again this evening a whole crowd of them were racing together around the edge of the field in a black swathe with the mothers looking on and calling to them. The sunshine will gradually change the colour of their fleece from black to chocolate brown, to mid brown and then eventually to the deep coffee colour of the Manx Loaghtan.

We now have Manx Loaghtan Salami, delicious with plum chutney, also our Year Lamb is ready now so let us know if you would like to order anything. Give me a ring any time or email us on post@langleychase.co.uk.

New Product, lambing about to start, thank you for norminations.

The past few weeks have flown by and we have been very busy preparing orders for lamb and mutton and our smoked lamb - and we have produced A NEW PRODUCT!!

MANX LOAGHTAN SALAMI IN RED WINE, it is so exciting. It is the perfect present as it lasts for nine months and can hang in your kitchen looking decorative and be eaten at the same time. Are there any salami devotees out there??


We have lots of whole and half lamb ready, along with diced mutton and mutton joints, also smoked lamb and Manx Loaghtan salami.


Our April delivery will be on Wednesday 22nd April and collection on the farm will be Saturday 25th, so if you would like an April delivery or collection now is the time to let us know what you would like to order. Give me a ring anytime for any information or send me an email.


We are gearing up for lambing and everything is in place, even the water buckets in every pen! The weather is settled and we are ready for anything now.


We have been nominated for Best Independent Food Producer sponsored by Wiltshire Life Magazine and we are very grateful to our customers for the nomination so very many thanks for putting us forward for the award.

Just wanted to wish you a very Happy New Year and to thank you for your custom and interest in our Manx Loaghtan lamb and mutton in 2008. It is very much appreciated.

The big news is that we are on The Food Programme on Radio 4 Sunday 11th and today at 4.0 p.m. featuring the flock and the high quality of our lamb and mutton.

You can listen to it by going to the link on the BBC website http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00ghqw8

It will be available for the next seven days to 'Listen Again'

The big freeze is now thawing. It has been beautiful with white, shimmering trees and the pond completely frozen.

It has been so freezing and cold but wonderful once you are out there – I have grown muscles just trying to break the ice on the water troughs and pushing the wheelbarrow with the hay in over fields with frozen mole hills!! A real obstacle course as the wheelbarrow hits the frozen mole hill and then the hay flies out!

I am sorting batches of lambs again now that the weather is getting better so let me know if you would like to order anything. Our prices are still at the 2008 price and will be increased in the Spring. Any orders taken before end of Febuary will remain at the 2008 price.

There has been talk in the media about organic farming considering cutting down on the standards of feed due to the high cost of organic feed. If this was so the products would not be registered organic and would not be able to be registered with an organic body.

I want to confirm that we are totally and completely committed to organic standards and adhere to the rigorous organic standards of the Soil Association. We feed totally 100% organic feed, it is expensive but it is worth every penny.

We are now thinking about lambing which is in March but plans are being laid now and preparations being made.

Christmas is coming!

23.11.08
The Autumn colours are so beautiful with the golden leaves on the oaks in the fields and the yellow of the hedgerows which are alive with birds bustling about. Squirrels have been much in evidence busy gathering apples and berries.

It has been a busy time here as usual, and most exciting as we have recorded a programme for the Food Programme with Sheila Dillon. I have always been an avid listener of the Food Programme and its presenter so we are really delighted to be on a programme featuring our organic Manx Loaghtan lamb and mutton, which I think goes out in January.

We have been busy having lamb and mutton delivered throughout the country and our last delivery goes out in the second week of December as everything gets so unpredictable nearer to Christmas. That means that our final orders need to be in with us within the next week to allow time for the traditional hanging of the lamb and mutton. We have a wonderful supply of the most beautiful honey coloured sheepskins in single and quad rugs, they make an attractive Christmas present, as does half a lamb of course!

The weather has made it difficult to get to some of the fields with the landrover and trailer so I am hoping for some dry weather to help save time. No luck so far, even had sleet today.