No antibiotics, pesticides or veterinary chemicals are used on Barleyfield calves or in their food or water.

Conventional feeding practices throughout Australia include the use of antibiotic gut supplements in many grain feeding mixes. These are used in order to stimulate the action of the gut to enable the animal to digest the high protein foods which they are fed. Our feeding regime mimics a more natural process, by using a high roughage mixture over an extended period of time, enabling the animal to use the protein at a more natural rate.

We have found that our feeding method has lead to optimum eating quality of the carcase, without the high fat content of many grain supplemented cattle.

The Barleyfield Guarantee of consistent quality and chemical free beef, stems from a commitment not to sell any meat which we would not be prepared to eat ourselves. With our strong empathy with Organic, Permacultural and Biodynamic principles we believe that we have achieved the balance between agricultural sustainability and ethical meat production.

Beef producers are encouraged to implant all their calves with growth hormones when they are weaned. As a result, conventional beef cattle produced in Australia are routinely implanted with slow acting growth hormones. These hormones trigger abnormal growth rates in calves, which can achieve in excess of 20% more growth with the same amount of feed. Barleyfield cattle are not implanted with growth hormone promotants.