Welcome
To Sunnyside Farm
home to the Nithsdale herds of traditional native breeds
Sunnyside is situated on the north side of the Nith valley about one mile
outside of Sanquhar, Dumfries & Galloway in Scotland. Here we rear quality
traditional breeds - they include Aberdeen Angus cows, Shetland and Castlemilk
Moorit sheep, Gloucester old Spot, Berkshire Pigs and the fantastic Dexter
cattle.
Traditional breeds are becoming increasingly rare as modern day farming
practices and supermarkets, demand more from the animals in the system. They
have all fallen out of favour for many reasons, be it colour, slow growth,
fat content or just fashion.
The Gloucestershire Old Spot has distinctive spots, it has hair and a good layer of fat to keep it warm in the worst of our Scottish weather. It also takes eight to nine months to mature outdoors.
Butchers demand pink pigs without the unsightly spots that are cheap as
they only take 12-14 weeks to grow, processors don't want to deal with hair,
and modern consumers don't like fat. Well they should, and if you get a black
mark on your crackling then you know what breed it's from.
Fat cover gives meat moisture and flavour - too much is bad for you sure enough, but you don't eat pork chops everyday do you?
Traditional breed meat does cost more to produce - it takes longer to grow. We grow ours outdoors and use natural feed. This cost is justified, in our eyes, in the welfare of the animals. If you are going to eat meat, you should accept where it comes from and take the responsibility to make sure it has not suffered and has been produced properly - and this might mean paying slightly more for it.
I hope you can see where we are coming from and we hope you agree. Have a look around the rest of the site and please contact me with your thoughts, views and comments.
