Graham Creek Lamb
The best time to purchase lamb is between late summer and fall, when lambs have grazed on open pasture for several months. In the autumn you can buy our genuine Ontario “Spring Lamb”, that is, a lamb born in the early spring, fed on mother’s milk and pasture all summer, and slaughtered in the fall, which produces the sweetest and most succulent meat. The majority of our meat is sold in the fall, allowing for the most rich and tastiest meat.
The taste of good lamb is earthy and rich with a faint sweetness. Lamb is fairly fatty, and, unlike pork, the fat is not entirely edible – it is more like tallow. This contributes to the high price of lamb, because by the time the lamb is trimmed of its fat, bone and other non-edible parts, the resulting meat is only about 40% of its weight.
Our purebred Cheviot ewes excel in maternal characteristics, high conception rates, milking and mothering abilities. Here at Graham Creek we choose breeds that are known for exceptional maternal characteristics and instincts to care for their young. Cheviot are easy to maintain and mostly trouble free.
This year we have ‘introduced’ an Ile de France ram to our Ewes. The Ile de France is widely used throughout the world as a terminal sire for quality lamb production. Our terminal sire will result in a highbred lamb, producing quality lamb meat for our customer.
The Ile de France breed is wide and thickset and both sexes are polled, meaning they do not have horns and are typically a prolific meat producer. They are considered a dual-purpose race, oriented with a 60% equilibrium livestock to produce meat and 40% for wool production.