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From our field to your bird table - the complete process all from our farm

A big difference between us and our competitors is that the whole process from planting the seeds (wherever reasonably possible) to dispatching direct to you, all takes place on our farm. This keeps quality high and cuts out any middle man, and therefore keeps our prices to a minimum.

Here at Vine House Farm we grow the following crops that go into our mixes: Black Sunflower Seeds, Canary Seed, White Millet, Red Millet, Wheat, Oil Seed Rape and Rolled Naked Oats.

  1. drilling-sunflowers-resized.jpgPlanting the seeds – Neil undertakes the drilling which takes place from March to May with the birds’ favourite, sunflowers, being planted last in May.

  2. Inspection – Robert inspects each field frequently throughout the growing season to ensure the crop is growing to its optimum. Our sunflowers are enjoyed by many different species when they are growing, especially pigeons! We try our best to keep them off the sunflower fields in the first month of growing.

  3. sunflowers.jpgHarvesting – combine harvesting of the various crops, again undertaken by Neil, begins in July with the rape and wheat and continues through to October when the White Millet and Sunflowers are harvested; two months after most farmers have cleaned and put away their combines!

  4. Cleaning and drying – whilst the combine separates the seed from the rest of the plant the seed still undergoes a thorough clean, with this ensuring all waste is disregarded. At this time we also dry the grain.

  5. bagging-seed-resized.jpgDelivery of foods we cannot grow e.g. Peanuts – as these products are unloaded they are thoroughly checked for quality, by Lucy, before being accepted. Where possible we aim to buy food as locally as possible. Our Kibbled Maize is grown in Norfolk and all of our fat products are manufactured in the UK.

  6. Mixing and bagging – this is an important part of our process, here we ensure that each bag has just the right mix and weight. Quality control is taking place throughout.

  7. pic_UKMail-resized.jpgTaking orders – Martin and the team are in our offices above the farm shop 7 days a week processing postal, telephone and web orders.

  8. Packing and dispatch –our dispatch team, headed up by Tony ensure that you are sent exactly what you ordered. Orders are dispatched on our next working day delivery service through UK Mail.

  9. Sit back and enjoy watching your birds enjoy a good feast!