About Portnellan Farm
Portnellan occupies about 230 acres and has belonged to
our family since 1952. It is a steep farm - facing
north towards Ben Lomond, in the west of Scotland, which
means we get lots of rain. If we tried to plough the fields to plant crops and there was
heavy rain, all the soil would land up in Loch Lomond at
the bottom of the farm. Therefore the farm is only
suitable for keeping stock – animals like cows and
sheep. We don’t have any sheep but there have been dairy cows
at Portnellan for over a century. In 2010 the dairy herd started its conversion to a beef suckler herd.
The last milking on Portnellan
It was very sad to see the last drop of milk being collected by the tanker in July 2010 but the time had come to stop milking: the 4 am starts, the late nights looking after calving cows, 8 hours of milking on top of the 8 hours of other farm work; all were taking their toll on family life. So now the cows suckle their calves, and these will become the future beef suckler herd.
If you’re interested in seeing the old
milking routine, we’ve kept it as an archive on the website.
Portnellan is an organic farm Organic cows graze on pastures
that are totally free from artificial fertilizers, insecticides, herbicides or
fungicides. Instead, natural products such as seaweed,
lime and farmyard manure are used to increase the
fertility of the soil. This means that the farm is full of wonderful wildlife.
The whole farm started undergoing organic conversion in 1998 and we are registered with the Scottish Organic Producers Association. The Association audits our systems to make sure that we are producing the highest quality organic products.
 |
Our dairy cows on one of their last twice-daily journeys to the milking parlour
Above:
Freda, David and Skye with the last milk tanker to call at Portnellan
Left: Dairy and beef cows feeding from our lush pastures |
