Hello
I'm Jake - me and my better half, Helen, have recently moved to a friend's farm near Wirksworth and are now the proud owners of 5 purebred Gotland ewes which are due to lamb in May, 2 Gotland/Teeswater cross ewes and 3 hybrid hens which have just come into lay. Our black lab, Beryl, keeps us all in order. I've wanted to keep sheep and pigs for a long time and we have the opportunity to develop, over the next few years, a flock of 30ish permanent ewes which we'll keep for fleece, pelts, lambs and hogget. I'm hoping to get a couple of breeding sows next year (possibly Mangalitzas?) once the sheep have settled in and we know a bit more what we're about.
Helen and a couple of friends spin and felt so will be using some of the fleece but we hope to also sell some cleaned fleece and I do charcuterie (curing, smoking and airdrying meat) so hopefully we can add value to our produce ourselves. In between all of this, Helen works full time as a teacher with kids who've been kicked out of school and I do bits and bobs of gardening, woodland management, coppicing and charcoal burning - yes, we like to keep busy!
We got our sheep from the very lovely Amanda at Pedwardine Gotlands (who has been wonderful from start to finish - highly recommended!) and financed them by crowdfunding lamb futures amongst friends and family. I'm now in the process of making, begging, borrowing and threatening to steal the kit I need. I've built a small (5x4m) shelter/lambing shed with a handling pen which looks like some sort of medieval stockade but should do the job until we can build something better.
That's about it for now - I'll be on plenty for advice and reassurance! Anyone local doing similar stuff, I'd love to hear from you, it'd be nice to have a local network of people I can turn to if need be
Cheers, Jake
Topic: Ay up from the Derbyshire Dales (Read 5843 times)
