Lamb FAQs

Nature Gully Farm - Ordering Lamb

1. How Does Ordering Work?

Step 1 — Reserve Your Lamb
Place a deposit to secure your whole lamb.

We sell whole lambs only — not halves or individual cuts.

We raise one batch per year in our outdoor, pasture-raised flock.

Once sold out, orders reopen for the following season.

Step 2 — Choose Your Processing Window

Select from three available date ranges for your lamb to be ready.

Step 3 — Specify Your Cuts

Once you place your deposit, an form will be emailed to you so that  you may specify how you would like your cuts prepared.

If you do not answer the form, the butcher will prepare the lamb per the default cuts.  

Step 4 — Licensed Processing

When the date for processing approaches, we deliver our lambs to the licensed processing butcher, as well as your cut instructions. We pick up your order once it is completed, and then get it to you either by delivery or your pick up at our farm, depending on what you chose in your initial order.

 

 


Step 5 — Pickup or Delivery

We contact you when your order is ready and confirm pick-up and delivery details. 


2. Am I Buying Lamb or Mutton?

    Does It Matter?

Lamb is:

  • Under one year of age
  • More tender
  • Milder in flavour
  • Often preferred

Mutton is:

  • over one year of age
  • Less tender
  • stronger in flavour
  • has more fat content

We always sell lamb, but periodically have mutton available too. 

While grocery stores label product as “lamb,” age verification is rarely enforced. 

If you are looking for confidence in the age of what you are purchasing, source directly from a local farmer you trust.  

Yes — we are biased. But we are also transparent.

seems simpler if you pay per pound for what you are receiving. 

3. What Am I Paying For?

 

You pay for the packaged meat you take home, per pound —not  the live animal weight.  

Typical Weights

  • Live lamb weight: approximately 70–95 lbs
  • Final weight of your packaged order: typically 35–45 lbs, heavier on an older lamb. 

Most whole lambs yield less than half of their live weight as finished cuts.

Our outdoor-raised, grassfed (natural weight gain)  lambs are born in June  and harvested with 3 dates from November through March. They do take more time to grow because they aren't fed grain. 

Later harvest dates result in larger lambs.  The difference may be between a 35 pound box and a 45 pound box.   

The Live Weight / Final Weight is because these items are removed:

  • Hide
  • Head
  • Organs not processed
  • Natural processing loss

You are billed based on the final packaged weight of meat and bone, not according to the live weight or weight with the bits described above.

It seems simpler if you pay per pound for what you are receiving. 

 

4. How Much Freezer Space Do I Need?

Plan for approximately:

  • 1.5 - 2  cubic feet of freezer space 
  • This is equivalent to a very full, small-sized moving box such as you would find at Home Depot or U-Haul. 

5. Why Whole Lamb Only?

Selling whole lambs allows us to:

  • Provide you with a variety of cuts, flavor and texture profiles
  • Maintain fair pricing
  • Keep processing efficient for the butchers 

 

If you are ready to reserve your lamb, place your deposit early, as we have one batch of lambs per year, mimicking natural cycles of having one period of lambing per year. 

We raise our lambs one season at a time.