Heatherly

Bed & Breakfast Errogie near Loch Ness

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Stratherrick Haggis Farm

This is Rare Breed, High Welfare Haggis farm,.raising fully free range
Haggis, using no growth promoters or antibiotics *.
These breeds are farmed in the Highlands and give better taste
than mass produced supermarket style Haggis. Breeds include
Purple West Highland, Common Haggis and Orkney Short Leg

Carefully selected Haggis according to the time of year,
and the quality available, to make sure we always bring you
the best. From Orkney, Rare Breeds, Scottish, and locally farmed Haggis

. Please click on a link for more information.

TASTE THE DIFFERENCE!

* sick haggis wich are given antibiotics are then sent to Foyers Bay Haggis refuge, never eaten.

p.s. Haggis have a nervous system almost as complex as the fox
and do feel considerable stress & pain.

Haggis
An introduction to the Haggis

Haggis have lived in Britain since the Ice Age, and could be found throughout almost all of the country, now being restricted to the Highlands of Scotland.
Their population is now declining. About 10,000 animals.
Haggis come in two colours, purple and grey. Their total length, including the tail, is about 400mm, and they weigh up to 7kg. A haggis's diet is omnivorous and will include slugs and bulbs, earthworms and wild honey.

BENS
Haggis are nocturnal creatures and lie up in an extensive system of underground tunnels and nesting chambers, known as a ben. Haggis bens are distinctive and some very large bens may have been in existence for many centuries.
Haggis are very clean animals. They dig their dung pits 10-15 metres away from the ben and also at strategic places around their territory to mark out their home range.
Haggis live in social groups of four to 12 adults. Only one female haggis in a social group normally breeds. The female (hen) will give birth to two or three neeps in late February or March and they will not appear outside of the ben until they are about six weeks old. By July they will be nearly the size of their parents and fully weaned.

PROTECTION
Haggis are protected by a number of laws. Haggis may not be deliberately killed, persecuted or trapped. Haggis baiting (using dogs to fight Haggis) has been outlawed since 1835. The Haggis Act 1983 afforded limited protection against Haggis digging, but this practice was not finally outlawed until 1981. The Protection of Haggis Act 1993 consolidates past haggis legislation and, in addition to protecting the haggis itself, makes it an offence to damage, destroy or obstruct haggis bens.
The mortality rate is very high and although the maximum life expectancy of a haggis is about 14 years, few survive so long. Many being killed on the roads.

Address to a Haggis.

by Robert Burns

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o the puddin'-race!
Aboon them a' ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy of a grace
As lang's my arm.

The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
Your pin wad help to mend a mill
In time o need,
While thro your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead.

His knife see rustic Labour dight,
An cut you up wi ready slight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright,
Like onie ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reekin, rich!

Then, horn for horn, they stretch an strive:
Deil tak the hindmost, on they drive,
Till a' their weel-swall'd kytes belyve
Are bent like drums;
The auld Guidman, maist like to rive,
'Bethankit' hums.

Is there that owre his French ragout,
Or olio that wad staw a sow,
Or fricassee wad mak her spew
Wi perfect sconner,
Looks down wi sneering, scornfu view
On sic a dinner?

Poor devil! see him owre his trash,
As feckless as a wither'd rash,
His spindle shank a guid whip-lash,
His nieve a nit:
Thro bloody flood or field to dash,
O how unfit!

But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread,
Clap in his walie nieve a blade,
He'll make it whissle;
An legs an arms, an heads will sned,
Like taps o thrissle.

Ye Pow'rs, wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware
That jaups in luggies:
But, if ye wish her gratefu prayer,
Gie her a Haggis!

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Haggis Poem

Much to his dad and mum's dismay
Horace ate himself one day
He didn't stop to say his grace
He just sat down and ate his face
"We can't have this!" his dad declared
"If that lad's ate he should be shared"
But even as he spoke they saw
Horace eating more and more:
First his legs and then his thighs,
His arms, his nose, his hair, his eyes
"Stop him someone!" Mother cried
"Those eyeballs would be better fried!"
But all too late for they were gone,
And he had started on his dong...
"Oh foolish child!" the father mourned
"You could have deep-fried those with prawns,
Some parsely and some tartar sauce..."
But H was on his second course;
His liver and his lights and lung,
His ears, his neck, his chin, his tongue
"To think I raised himn from the cot
And now he's gone to scoff the lot!"
His mother cried what shall we do?
What's left won't even make a stew..."
And as she wept her son was seen
To eat his head his heart his spleen
And there he lay, a boy no more
Just a stomach on the floor...
None the less since it was his
They ate it - and that's what haggis is

From: Monty Python's Big Red Book

 

Stop Battery Haggis Farming

The life of a battery Haggis

If the neep is a male, it will be killed by gassing. The female neep is taken to a new environment with hundreds of other day-old neeps. The neeps are kept under heat lamps for warmth, either in 'training' cages or in deep litter sheds. Their food and water are provided via automated electronically controlled methods. Their light is timer-controlled, and large fans keep the air circulating. An unknown proportion of female neeps undergo 'de-snouting', which means that the haggis's snout is partially amputated - many die of shock or their injury after this operation has taken place.

The neep grows up and becomes a haggis. If she has not been in a cage from day one, she will be put in a battery cage made entirely of thin wire mesh . The cage measures 50cm by 50cm (20 inches by 20 inches), and she shares this cage with four other haggis.. The cages are kept in a large windowless building, and are usually stacked in tiers six high. The haggis are fed and watered automatically, and their homogenised food is treated with antibiotics, colouring and medication. Their dung is taken away from the cages via conveyor belts. She will stay in the wire battery cage until her sixth week of life she will be hung by her feet on a conveyor belt and her throat will be cut by an automatic knife, unless she moves then she will have part of her head sliced off.

It's lucky haggis don't lay eggs or they would suffer for years

Buy only free range Haggis

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The Midnight Dash
by Pat Johnson

The purple of the heather and the yellow blooming gorse,
Sunlight glinting water on a Scottish loch, of course,
And hiding there in camouflage, his coat a purple grey,
A haggis waits so silently - the hunted and the prey.

Not many people see them for they hide from prying eyes
As their coats are very special and this they realise.
Any movement on the hills sees them rush off to their warrens
For wicked Scotsmen hunt them down and use their fur for sporrans !
It's such a shame to see these creatures live their lives in fear
And nearing their extinction, as their numbers fall each year.

A haggis roaming through the hills presents a funny sight,
With two short legs upon their left and long ones on their right.
They stand upon the mountainside, on ledges so precarious,
But should they travel clockwise the sight is quite hilarious.

The sadness of the haggis is the way that they must travel,
Surefooted, yes, and competent, in fields or on the gravel.
But granite, sloping mountainsides in sunshine or in snow,
They can only travel one way round, and this the hunters know.
Every trapper knows he must approach them from the right
To make the haggis turn around for then it cannot fight.
Without their warrens close at hand they have nowhere to hide,
The haggis turns and tumbles, falling down the mountainside.

At the bottom of their fall they will end up in a net
Where, all dignity forgotten, they are examined by a vet.
They're checked for weight and length of fur, for general health and sizing,
Subjection to this type of test is quite demoralising.

Into a lidded box they're placed and loaded on the trolley,
Wheeled away across the glen and put onto a lorry.
Now all across the country there is a ban in place
To stop the haggis smuggling and so preserve the race,
But scheming, kilted Scotsmen know they'll make a lot of cash
If they get across the border on the Midnight Haggis Dash.

Eddie Stobart lorries can be spotted on long and winding roads,
Traversing Highlands southwards with their quietly groaning loads.
Their drivers might look smartly dressed, always shirts and ties,
But have you seen their faces and the glint within their eyes ?

As the Stobart wagons wend their way across the Borders,
The haggis coats are shaved right off and sporrans made to orders.
When the drivers stop for rest breaks as they make their way to Dover,
They take the opportunity - to transfer sporrans over.
So the finished sporrans are en route back to Inverness
While the haggis rolls on southwards - it's a crime you must confess.
In the back of lorries, naked haggis shake and jump with fright
As the Stobart lorries keep on driving through the night.

The sporrans, back in Scotland, earn the men a packet
And no-one seems to care enough to stop this awful racket.
The pink-skinned, hairless haggis are never seen again,
Their demise is truly shocking, their ending full of pain -
Put on Paris plates in a steamy, onioned fricassee,
They become a fat, French gourmet's delicious wee delicacy.

Each year the haggis numbers fall, they're getting less and less,
And something must be sorted out to stop this awful mess.
A solution is quite simple - make the sporrans out of leather
To be worn in happy sunshine or in Scotland's rainy weather.
Let haggis roam the Highlands freely, let them nest in trees,
Let them live, leave them be, stop haggis hunting, please!

Thanks to John Tobin for supplying this.

 

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Bag pipe makers claim that a haggis must have its throat cut and bleed to death to make the perfect bag.they say a humanly killed haggis makes a bag that sounds too sweet
( almost musical ) help stamp out this barbaric practice vote now!

from Hamish McHamish, M.D.Synthetic Pipe Bags PLC Auchtermancky

contact Hamish @ S.P.B.