The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Introduce yourself => Topic started by: Be11erlife on March 22, 2021, 03:36:43 pm
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Thank you for this community. I bet I will have lots of questions.
I am looking to have animals, some fruit and herbs, perhaps even bees. I love hugging goats :goat:
:sunshine: Anyone doing the carnivore diet on here?
I had to change my diet 2 years a go to save my health (autoimmune) and very much appreciate well-raised livestock.
I am keen to raise my own grain-free animals on a high-rotation system.
Perhaps venture into 'Enterprise Stacking' to bring Carbon management to crop farmers around my area.
I am also into making tallow soap :cow:, medicinal herbs :bouquet:, textile arts :knit: :wave: :wave:.
Please say :wave: hello if you are into any of the things I listed here. :love:
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Hello, :wave:
Only just saw your post, so sorry we haven't welcomed you till now!
We try to be soya-, grain- and GM-free here, rear and breed beef and sheep (hogget and mutton) and rear piggies, plus have ducks and choox for eggs, milk our cows (while they rear their own calves), and spin the fleece of our sheep. All for our own use; we are a community of 24 adults and 12 children on 32 acres in North Cornwall.
We use rotational grazing to limit the amount of wormers we need to use, and because our land is clay and our winters very wet, we house our cattle in winter. (Feeding them hay and haylage from our own ground, or bought in from producers we trust, who don't use insecticides or weedkillers.) It is becoming increasingly difficult to source chemical-free straw for bedding :(
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Hello Be11erlife - welcome to the forum. I'm intrigued !
Would you be kind enough to explain your dietary needs a little more (ref' allergies).
Why is a grain-free animal (I assume not fed on any sort of grain) important to you ?
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Hi [member=211765]Be11erlife[/member] and welcome. I'm not sure what a carnivore diet, specifially, is. When Mr F developed Ulcerative Colitis many years ago, we stopped eating meat altogether and were vegetarians for years, growing most of our own veg on a couple of allotments, using totally organic principles. Then when we moved to our smallholding here in Scotland and began rearing low input sheep, we gradually began eating meat again, but only that raised here. We feed the males small amounts of 'Tup and Lamb' bought-in feed in very small amounts when there is deep snow lying, but otherwise they are totally milk then grass fed, reared to slaughter slowly (16 months) and given a good life. Feeding grain to livestock is known to increase the risk of them carrying certain E.coli strains. It is also known that purely grass fed Primitive sheep have Higher CLA in their fat, which helps us deal with our blood cholesterol levels.
I have not heard though that eating a whole lot of meat would help with autoimmune diseases. Mr F eats meat now as described above, and is less affected by his UC than before, and we believe it is the no-grain/grass diet of the sheep which is making the difference, and very few chemicals given to the sheep, plus chemical free veg, eggs etc. Add to that the relatively stress free live of smallholders, and that's us.
You'll need to explain 'Enterprise Stacking'. It sounds far too 'business-y' for me.
We also grow veg, fruit and herbs for culinary use, and I spin and knit the fleeces of our rare breed sheep, but purely for practical uses, no art :D
We support the local wild bee population, but not honey bees, as there is not enough food for them locally. We have filled our garden and land with flowers and trees for bees and other wildlife, for shelter, nesting sites, insect and bee homes and so on.
We just trundle along here doing our thing, not being evangelical about it, as that's not 'us', but we love our life here, keep ourselves as healthy and content as we can, but inevitably we could do with a lot more hands to help.
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Hello Fleecewife,
I figured out by now that One Planet Development might be my ticket to start my smallholding, I am happy to go low immission, although I am sure it will have its own challenges.
Yes, I am planning to have my meat stock grass-fed as well. This is what they suppose to eat, I wonder what TUP and Lamb are? Do you have one open field or do you move them a lot from one small paddock to the next?
I eat basically a caveman diet, meat, eggs, butter, no spices no veg. I let my animals deal with the green stuff which I can't handle. I believe there are different types of metabolism and I appear to thrive now finally.
Do you sell wool? How many animals do you graze?
Enterprise stacking is a term I picked up in some farming webinars ;)
My 'enterprise' would offer a herd of animals basically 'stack' onto fallow farmland to re-poop and rejuvenate land that has had too much monoculture crop.
Although I am not sure how doable this would be in terms of
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Hello arobwk
Sure thing, in my old life I was a veg grower, with allotment and job as a gardener.
But I had lots of health issue and to keep a long story short I was at rock bottom and found a carnivore style way of eating. It sounded very scary eating just animal product, very little carb but it works well for me for several years already.
It sounds like a fad, but our ancestors aka the caveman lived well enough on it to survive, thrive and make babies ;)
Now I want to make sure that I keep my food security and that the animals have the healthiest happiest lives possible. Grain-free is what the animals would eat naturally and they also deal with less ill-health when moved a lot and reared grain-free.
We are lucky for all those green pastures here in the UK.
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Hi [member=211765]Be11erlife[/member] ,
'Tup and Lamb' is a manufactured sheep food suitable for tups (rams) and lambs of both sexes. We also feed it to our lambing ewes and old retired ladies if they need a supplement in bad weather. It is made up of stuff like squashed maize, barley, peas, some small molassed sheep pencils, but it is low in protein and other stuff which our breed doesn't need. Obviously it does contain some grains and as I agree that non-grainfed is best, we keep the amount down to a minimum.
It's interesting that you have found a diet which suits your body and does not include vegetables. I believe that ancient people did in fact eat quite a lot of vegetables and fruit, as they were 'Hunter/gatherers', not hunters only. In the middle ages, the wealthy classes in England tended to eat a meat only diet, but suffered certain health problems as a result. Still, if you have found what suits you, good luck :yum:
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Thank you very much Fleecewife. :thumbsup:
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Hello :wave:
I'm a fellow soap maker, it started as a way to use the excess lard left over from butchering our pigs. But has left me with a terrible essential oil addiction :innocent: ;D
Welcome to TAS
Karen