The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Smallholding => Wildlife => Topic started by: blades on November 21, 2011, 10:17:39 am
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I have 4 acres of land that are currently split into 4 paddocks. Due to work commitments I cannot keep any livestock as I am kept busy mon – fri during daylights hours.
I have considered letting the land to perhaps a horse owner but I think I would prefer to tailor the land to benefit the wildlife more.
The area is surrounded by woodland and I have some large ponds in place already. Any ideas of how to best manage these 4 acres (currently in grass) with wildlife in mind and also to avoid cutting grass all summer?
Cake and eat it springs to mind… but I thought I would at least get some opinions?
Thanks in advance
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if go online, you should be able to finf your local BAP - biodiversity action plan, this should be able to give you some indications of what isues are being addressed in your area.
you may also be able to talk to your local council and they might be able to help you write your own action plan.
not much use
but its a rung in the ladder
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Thank you
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What about your local wildlife trust? They'll be able to fill you in on what's local aswell
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Hi Uppermillfarm- I have posted about an idea of mine for a low-inut management plan in the land-management section which might be Ok for wildlife... or some may say the 'neglect plan' :D I'm not sure if it would work but see what you think? I'll probably be posting how to get rid of some awful weeds in the next few years :D
cheers
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Do you have a sit-on lawnmower hehe
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Hi UMF, pity you aren't in Central Scotland as that is a question that might be asked at the Land Management Course booked with Oatridge College. At the moment we don't have enough 'takers' for it to go ahead, though.
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Do you have a sit-on lawnmower hehe
Sure do :farmer:
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Hi UMF, pity you aren't in Central Scotland as that is a question that might be asked at the Land Management Course booked with Oatridge College. At the moment we don't have enough 'takers' for it to go ahead, though.
Yes would certainly have considered this if I were closer !!
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Trout Farm? Fairly easy, might need to work on the ponds a bit or join a few together. If you go down that route i can give you a bit of help with ideas - your main problem will be the otters that have been released everywhere... Grrrr...
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The ponds round here have low electric fencing round them to keep out otters and the like. people usually put a layer of old lino/carpet under the fence to stop grass growth and have three or four strands to about a foot high!
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Well I am bit biased as I am a keen angler but even so, otters are set to become a real problem in the future. They kill for fun and can take very big fish. They will decimate any lake in short order, and I do mean completely annihilate, before moving onto kill and eat whatever else is available...crayfish, anurans (frogs and toads), birds, invertebrates and small mammals...basically to become a farmers nightmare if he has poultry nearby.
They grow much larger than people seem to think and to keep them out you would need serious fencing, they will also dig like rabbits to get under it, its an expensive job to say the least and usually they will find a way into the lake if they want too. An adult otter needs to eat 20 per cent of its body weight in food every day - about 2.5kg (5.5 lb's). It will kill more than that. They will travel long distances overland and from river to river, lake to lake, in search of food.
Otters breed continuously and are likely to rear eight to ten young every year. Within five years there could be up to fifty more otters locally killing and eating everything that swims.
They basically became endangered because they were such a menace to fish stocks and I am afraid that is still the case. We do not have sufficient stocks for them to exist in the Uk for an infinite amount of time. Forty years of hard work and campaigning by anglers has seen us reach a level of sparkling water quality which is enviable across Europe. The Thames is in fact the cleanest 'big river' in Europe at this time. Wild salmon and trout rivers are currently flourishing.
To have finally reached more normal fish stock levels across the UK - decades of work - releasing hundreds of our most efficient predators into it seems little short of criminal to me. Otter populations will boom until, once again, they have bred like rats and eaten everything in sight - then the pattern will be repeated and they will decline.
I love wildife and otters are beautiful animals - but so are wolves and I don't want them released to roam the Scottish Moors either! I am afraid that I am with the Angling Trust and various other bodies who are on the side of proposing a cull for otters already. One chap I know has had his entire livliehood destroyed, twenty-five years of breeding quality and highly prized specimens, destroyed by a well-meaning but utterly ignorant do-gooder. His life is pretty much over in terms of work. In Scotland, I hear, the problem is already acute in some areas.
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well said.