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After a very long search and months of negotiations we finally completed the purchase of our land in January this year. It is our aim to keep traditional breeds of sheep pigs and cattle for meat and also to run a small free range egg business. Other ideas keep popping up along the way, but at the moment we are focusing on sheep and chickens.
After much research and deliberation over the last 6 months, we decided on Wiltshire Horn sheep and after several weekends of back breaking preparation and fencing, the first sheep arrived last Sunday in the newly purchased, but rather antique, 12ft Ifor Williams livestock trailer. The journey wasn't without incident. On the way home a fuse blew in the landrover taking half of the bulbs with it (fortunately I carry a lot of spares). Finally getting to the field where we discovered that one of the tyres had blown on the trailer, but as it is double axle I hadn't noticed. We discovered the blown tyre when the land rover got stuck in the field towing it. Sadly the fuel economy was not what it should have been on the journey and the fuel guage is somewhat unpredictable and so we ran out of diesel whilst stuck in the mud in the field. It is times like that when you find out who your friends are! Our new neighbours very kindly donated a couple of litres of diesel and a good firm push saw us free of the sticky clay.
The sheep are happily chewing grass, the ram is a lovely little two year old who is definately a lover not a fighter and takes great pride in looking after his girls. Best of all, one of the cream legbars has come back into lay so we have lovely blue eggs again!
We currently have two 28 day notices in, one for a barn and the other for a track. Decision date is the start of next month. Fingers crossed!
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A Farm is Born
Started By
Darkstar
, 18 Feb 2011 15:09
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#2
Posted 19 February 2011 - 18:09
Darkstar
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- Book Owners
-
- 47 posts
Duckling
Another long day starting with an expensive visit to the Ag Merchants for sheep hurdles and feed. Lambing kit has now been bought and we are ready for the due date, although one of them looks like she may pop first. She is a first time mum and from the size of her you would think she was expecting a baby elephant! After a somewhat gloomy start the weather cleared up for us to have a sunny picnic surrounded by curious sheep wondering when theirs was going to be served. Solar panel installation for the electric fence went well until we realised that the supplied cable was too short. Oh well, trip to the electrical wholesalers next.
#3
Posted 24 February 2011 - 19:35
Darkstar
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- Book Owners
-
- 47 posts
Duckling
In spite of being very generous with the trough headspace allowed for the sheep we were still finding some were being bullied and so we have doubled up on trough space. Now there is plenty of room and no shoving (well, less shoving anyway). This involved yet another expensive trip to the Ag Mearchants so I thought I would get the rest of the sheep hurdles whilst I was there. With all of that weight on top of the Land Rover I ended up buying another 10 bags of feed to act as ballast on the way home.
The sheep are now feeding happily inside the wide open pen, so now we will just close it up a bit each day until they are used to going in and then maybe I can catch hold of them when it comes to foot trimming time!
We have also completed our business plan and statement of need for the planning consultant, courtesy of New Landowner who have been very helpful. First site meeting with our consultant is next week so fingers crossed that he thinks we have a good case.
Single Farm Payment Entitlement has now been agreed and we will be all set to go once the cheques clear and the RPA do their bit.
The sheep are now feeding happily inside the wide open pen, so now we will just close it up a bit each day until they are used to going in and then maybe I can catch hold of them when it comes to foot trimming time!
We have also completed our business plan and statement of need for the planning consultant, courtesy of New Landowner who have been very helpful. First site meeting with our consultant is next week so fingers crossed that he thinks we have a good case.
Single Farm Payment Entitlement has now been agreed and we will be all set to go once the cheques clear and the RPA do their bit.
#4
Posted 07 March 2011 - 13:28
Darkstar
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- Book Owners
-
- 47 posts
Duckling
First clash with the planners over our 28 day notices.... Fortunately there was no discussion over whether or not we needed the barn or track, just where to position it. The planner wants us to submit another 2 28 day notices. At £70 each that is not going to happen. We are having another chat tomorrow about a potential alternative site. Fingers crossed.
In the meantime the sheep are very happy, plump and very very pregnant! They were joined in an ajacent field yesterday by another 12 ewes from a commercial organic farmer that he needed to get rid of in a hurry as they had run out of grass. After watching the farmer drench and mark them for us, we decided to have a go at spray marking ours once we got home. Penning went well, thanks to the feed trough training we had done, but our lightweight sheep hurdles turned out to be no match for our 12 feisty ewes. I managed to spray and record over half before the pen collapsed. What I wouldn't give for a sheep race! Now we have lots of pink sheep where they rubbed up against each other while the spray was drying and some backwards numbers where they transferred onto each other. Most of the numbers are still clear enough. I am sure it will all be fine!
Lambing start date T-3 and counting....
In the meantime the sheep are very happy, plump and very very pregnant! They were joined in an ajacent field yesterday by another 12 ewes from a commercial organic farmer that he needed to get rid of in a hurry as they had run out of grass. After watching the farmer drench and mark them for us, we decided to have a go at spray marking ours once we got home. Penning went well, thanks to the feed trough training we had done, but our lightweight sheep hurdles turned out to be no match for our 12 feisty ewes. I managed to spray and record over half before the pen collapsed. What I wouldn't give for a sheep race! Now we have lots of pink sheep where they rubbed up against each other while the spray was drying and some backwards numbers where they transferred onto each other. Most of the numbers are still clear enough. I am sure it will all be fine!
Lambing start date T-3 and counting....
#5
Posted 11 March 2011 - 08:38
Darkstar
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- Book Owners
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- 47 posts
Duckling
Meeting today with the planner on site to agree a building location. Wish me luck!
Yesterday I decided to add to our flock of chickens and bought 8 new cream legbar hens. Introductions with the current flock seem to have gone well with only minor posturing.
No lambs yet...
Yesterday I decided to add to our flock of chickens and bought 8 new cream legbar hens. Introductions with the current flock seem to have gone well with only minor posturing.
No lambs yet...
#6
Posted 08 December 2011 - 10:58
Darkstar
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- Book Owners
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- 47 posts
Duckling
Such a long time since my last entry and such a lot has happened!
Firstly, lambing went well although we had fewer twins than we would have liked. That is something we plan to remedy with our selective breeding plan over the next few years. We also had a couple of lambs born with deformities. We are going to keep an eye on this next year. The vet thinks it may have been a bit of a mineral deficiency in the early stages of pregnancy before we got them. This year we have had forage analysis done and have supplement blocks in the defficient minerals. Last years 23 ladies have been joined by another 25 bought in and also seven of our home bred ewe lambs who were all well grown enough to go to the ram this year. The ram went in on 1st November and the poor chap is looking ever so tired with 55 ladies to keep him busy! We are hoping to be up to 100 breeding ewes next year, so will have to get another ram and start running two flocks.
I am taking the first lambs to slaughter on Sunday morning and have orders for all except one which we are going to have for ourselves. People keep asking me if I will be upset to see them go. It is genuinely not a problem. They have a fabulous life, the best I can give them, but they wouldnt have been born if they wernt going to be slaughtered and I have enough of them that I havent got personally attached to an individual except for Larry the bottle lamb who has a stay of execution as he is still too small to get a decent carcass from.
On the planning front, we ended up putting in a full application for a temporary agricultural dwelling, barn, track and portakabins all in one. We agreed a location with the planning officer and then submitted our application only to be told that Highways had a problem with it due to visibility splays. This is something I would strongly advise people to look out for when buying a piece of land. You need to be able to see approximately 90 metres in either direction to get a residential access, even though it was an existing farm access. We eventually managed to negotiate an agreement with the help of some photographs and maps.
With planning permission granted and us paying a hefty mortgage as well as our rent on the house we were living in, the race was on to get the place habitable as soon as possible and we moved in on the 10th October. We now have mains electricity, mains water and flushing toilets. We are getting central heating installed in the next few weeks along with a wood burning stove so we have done things a little differently from most on here as roughing it was not an option for my other half!
The biggest hurdle we had to cross was that of mains electricity. We are a very long way fvrom the nearest transformer and so in order to reduce the voltage drop we needed a huge 95mm copper cable. This was fearsomely expensive and we spent a worrying time until it was burried and connected as theft of copper cable is rife around here and the guys from the electricity board were followed out from the depot. Fortunately I have a very large scary German Shepherd who took care of things for us.
Most of the building works are now complete and we are looking forward to Christmas. We opted to use a planning consultant as we worked out that all it would take was a two month delay from us getting a form wrong and that would have paid the planning consultant and he was worth his weight in gold. I firmly believe that we would still be arguing with planning now if it hadnt been for him. The hard work now begins with trying to meet our business plan over the next three years.
If anyone wants the name of the planning consultant we used or wants a link to the application details drop me a PM.
Firstly, lambing went well although we had fewer twins than we would have liked. That is something we plan to remedy with our selective breeding plan over the next few years. We also had a couple of lambs born with deformities. We are going to keep an eye on this next year. The vet thinks it may have been a bit of a mineral deficiency in the early stages of pregnancy before we got them. This year we have had forage analysis done and have supplement blocks in the defficient minerals. Last years 23 ladies have been joined by another 25 bought in and also seven of our home bred ewe lambs who were all well grown enough to go to the ram this year. The ram went in on 1st November and the poor chap is looking ever so tired with 55 ladies to keep him busy! We are hoping to be up to 100 breeding ewes next year, so will have to get another ram and start running two flocks.
I am taking the first lambs to slaughter on Sunday morning and have orders for all except one which we are going to have for ourselves. People keep asking me if I will be upset to see them go. It is genuinely not a problem. They have a fabulous life, the best I can give them, but they wouldnt have been born if they wernt going to be slaughtered and I have enough of them that I havent got personally attached to an individual except for Larry the bottle lamb who has a stay of execution as he is still too small to get a decent carcass from.
On the planning front, we ended up putting in a full application for a temporary agricultural dwelling, barn, track and portakabins all in one. We agreed a location with the planning officer and then submitted our application only to be told that Highways had a problem with it due to visibility splays. This is something I would strongly advise people to look out for when buying a piece of land. You need to be able to see approximately 90 metres in either direction to get a residential access, even though it was an existing farm access. We eventually managed to negotiate an agreement with the help of some photographs and maps.
With planning permission granted and us paying a hefty mortgage as well as our rent on the house we were living in, the race was on to get the place habitable as soon as possible and we moved in on the 10th October. We now have mains electricity, mains water and flushing toilets. We are getting central heating installed in the next few weeks along with a wood burning stove so we have done things a little differently from most on here as roughing it was not an option for my other half!
The biggest hurdle we had to cross was that of mains electricity. We are a very long way fvrom the nearest transformer and so in order to reduce the voltage drop we needed a huge 95mm copper cable. This was fearsomely expensive and we spent a worrying time until it was burried and connected as theft of copper cable is rife around here and the guys from the electricity board were followed out from the depot. Fortunately I have a very large scary German Shepherd who took care of things for us.
Most of the building works are now complete and we are looking forward to Christmas. We opted to use a planning consultant as we worked out that all it would take was a two month delay from us getting a form wrong and that would have paid the planning consultant and he was worth his weight in gold. I firmly believe that we would still be arguing with planning now if it hadnt been for him. The hard work now begins with trying to meet our business plan over the next three years.
If anyone wants the name of the planning consultant we used or wants a link to the application details drop me a PM.
