It starts with the field, not the baler.
You can’t make great hay from a tired field. We rest, harrow, fertilise carefully and overseed when the sward needs refreshing. Our pastures are mixed permanent grasses — ryegrass, timothy, cocksfoot, fescues — with native clovers and herbs that horses and ruminants happily pick through.
The land is light loam over chalk on a southerly slope. It drains well and warms up early in spring — ideal hay country.
Cut at the moment, not the convenience.
Mowing too early means thin, lightweight bales. Too late means stalky, low-protein hay the horses pick over. We aim for that window when the heads are formed, the leaf is still soft, and the forecast looks settled enough for a clear three-day run.
If the weather turns, we wait. We’d rather take an extra week than send out a damp bale that’ll heat in the stack.
Under cover from baling day to collection day.
Every bale that leaves our farm has lived its whole life under a roof. We don’t leave stacks out in the field tarped over for the season, and we don’t outsource storage to anyone else. That keeps moisture, mould and rodent damage out of the equation.
It also means we know what we’re selling you. Each batch is logged with cut date and field, so if a customer ever has a question we can trace exactly which load they had.
Soft to the touch
Cut at leaf, not at stalk. You can squeeze a handful and it stays elastic.
Sweet to the nose
The smell tells you everything — fresh meadow, no hint of mould.
Bright to the eye
Pale-green to gold — never grey or dusty.
Predictable in weight
Each bale within a few percent of the next.
No miracle claims, no lab certificates we can’t back up.
You’ll find hay merchants quoting sugar percentages, protein levels and digestibility scores from a single batch report — and then selling that as if every bale carries the same number. We don’t. Hay varies cut-to-cut and field-to-field. What we promise is that the bales in any given batch are consistent with each other, that they’ve been made and stored properly, and that we’ll tell you honestly what we’ve got at any given time.
If you have a horse with metabolic issues and need a low-sugar hay analysis, tell us — we can have a representative sample tested for the batch you’re buying.
Want to come and see for yourself?
Visitors welcome by appointment — ring ahead.