A FAMILY-run organic and free-range poultry firm in north Herefordshire is proving that slow and steady is a winning formula when it comes to rearing happy, great-tasting birds.

Against the backdrop of a growing number of intensive livestock units across the county, the Mees are proud to be doing something very different with Springfield Poultry.

Business founder Rod Mee, 82, began dairy farming at the farm in Steensbridge, near Leominster, in 1956 but found it hard to make a living before almost stumbling upon turkeys.

He said: "My wife bought half a dozen turkey poults (chicks) from Hereford market and we used them for giving away for Christmas presents because we couldn’t afford to buy any.

"I costed them out and found that it looked ok so I did 50 the next year and we sold those to butchers.

"And then we did 500 the year after and then 3,000 the year after that and then 10,000 after that."

Customers soon began asking for chickens and sales of the birds began in South Wales before branching out further.

The ethos of Springfield Poultry is 'natural'. The birds live in small flocks and are free to roam outdoors.

He said: "Fortunately we seem to have created a nice little niche because we don’t cut corners at all.

"We do the do things the old fashioned way. It costs a lot of money and we need a lot of staff to do it but we give them the birds the best feed and give them lots of space. Ours have good, natural daylight, they have got natural air without fans pushing air to them and extracting it."

There are now three generations involved with Springfield Poultry – Rod and his wife Beryl, their two sons Nigel and Stewart and their wives Annie and Susie, and some of the seven grandchildren are now getting involved.

While its clear that the chickens have a happy life, the benefits are also passed on to customers – both in terms of traceability and in taste.

Mr Mee said: "We have got the full traceability right back to the parent stock. When they are free range, as all our birds are, they are going out to grass at four-weeks-old and when they are running around on the fields they are using their legs, wings, all their muscles in their body. And the muscle is where the taste is. "And if that little bird is in intensive house where it’s probably not walking more than three or four feet to get to a drink or two or three feed to get to a feeder so it doesn’t have any exercise and doesn’t necessarily its muscles – it’s not much of a life really."

Springfield birds take over 70 days to reach full maturity as they are slow-growing which is nearly twice as long as intensively reared chickens.

The internet is also enabling the continued growth of the business which has traditionally sold to butchers, farm shops and farmers.

And the farm was recently visited by camera crews from BBC's Countryfile. Tom Heap spent a number of hours filming in the fields as part of a programme discussing free range and organic poultry and how it differs to intensive poultry rearing.