Where does your milk come from?
We would like to invite you to our working dairy farm in Somerby to see for yourself how we produce fresh milk from our 140 dairy cows. Now we are milking Ayrshire cows!
We have just bought a new pedigree Hereford bull called Ferdinand! He's lovely and only two years old.
Farmers Mark and Jane Barnes run this 220 acre family farm situated in High Leicestershire on the Rutland county border. All the milk produced is sold to Clawson Dairies to be made in to the world famous Stilton Cheese.
We welcome groups to our farm 'by appointment' basis, to walk the fields, see the views across to Owston Wood and the spire of Tilton Church, see the cows happily grazing on the ancient grassland, meet the baby calves and even the Limousin Bull! Understand how the milking parlour works, what we feed our cows on and even have a taste of fresh whole milk. (Did you know that whole milk is ONLY 4% fat!)
Our farm is in Countryside Stewardship and Entry Level Stewardship which encourages the wildlife, habitat and ecology on our farm. Alama bank is a famous hillside on our farm, home to badgers, rabbits, fox and moles!
We are CEVAS accredited and comply with all the risk assessments required to host general farm visits. Each visit lasts for 2 hours and the minimum of 6 people is required. All the walks are FREE of CHARGE. Light refreshments of tea/coffee cakes and tasting of Stilton Cheese is available upon request at the time of booking.
Jane is willing to give Farm Talks using her own pictures and an insight to the running of Southfields Farm. An experienced speaker, she tells "Tales from a Farmers Wife" to any organisation, group or social club. There is no speakers fee, just travel expenses. Please ask her about these.
School groups and groups of youngsters are very welcome to visit our farm. Here's a few comments they've made:
"Thank you so much for the trip to your farm. We really enjoyed it. We mostly enjoyed milking the cows and putting our hands in the warm frothy milk. We also enjoyed going to the calving shed and stroking the few days old calf. We were very excited when we saw the small cow having some milk from it's Mum."
Brooke Priory School Form V
"Thank you so much for visiting Broomfield Primary School. All the classes enjoyed your activity especially Year 2 who now know which part of a cow's body the milk comes out from!!!"
Broomfield Primary School, East Goscote
