The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Introduce yourself => Topic started by: Culquha on February 23, 2014, 11:37:33 am
-
I am new to the site. I have a smallholding which has Blackface sheep and Scots Mules some in Lamb. :sheep: I start to lamb on 30th March so I am hoping it will be a snow free March this year.
I have some woodland which I would like to put some Tamworths. Does anyone know of a breeder close by that I can buy some weaners from. :pig:
I am making raised beds this year so the veg will be a bit more than just a handful of broad beans!
I have a collie 'Mya' who helps with the sheep :dog: a cat 'Millie' who helps with the vermin :cat: . I also have two wheaten terriers who are wired to the moon, they love to chase the rabbits :bunny: .
I would love to hear from anyone who shares a passion for animals like us.
Culquha.
-
Hello!
-
Hello and welcome from :sunshine: but very windy Carnoustie :wave:
We have two old dogs that drop hair on the floor, three cats, two equine lawnmowers, Shetland cattle and Coloured Ryeland sheep. Like you we start lambing on 30th March, according to the chart. We'll be getting our weaners soon - two Kunekune - and we have too many hens :-) Plus veggies and fruit.
-
Hi from me - I was up and round your way a few weeks ago. Lovely part of the country. Welcome :wave:
-
Hello and welcome :wave: I have a dog :dog: a cat and a mole that is making a lot of mole hills in our garden, Kitty seems to be on strike this year. :( I am a wannabee small holder with a new pair of gardening gloves, a soon to purchase wheel barrow and spade. We live on a farm and the lambs are due 10th March :sheep: :excited:
-
:wave: and welcome from Shropshire. I'm a back garden smallholder with two goats (kids due around 9th May) and three big dogs - one lab, one GSD x lab and one retriever x lab.
-
Welcome from Kinross-shire, my folks live in D & G lovely place.
-
Welcome from just over the border in Cumbria :wave:
We're commercial beef and sheep farmers, farming in a traditional, low-input way along Hadrian's Wall. In truth he's a farmer and I a smallholder, so the occasional pair of weaners :pig: are mine, the funny little primitive sheep :sheep: are mine (and I spin :spin: their and some of the better commercials' fleeces) and the expanding Jersey :cow: herd-within-a-suckler-herd are mine. I handmilk them for the house (and make butter, yoghurt and cheese), for any lambs needing bottle-fed, and rear set-on calves as well as their own.
Useless to try to grow plants here, so my veges come in a weekly organic veg box.
There's a very shy farm cat :cat: who won't come near a human, but she keeps on top of the rodents for the most part. The road's too busy to replace my lovely boy Jacob :cat: :'(. Collie dogs :dog: who work the sheep and my two also work on cattle, and a few native ponies. :horse:. The freeloaders :chook: scratch about the place looking pretty, making a mess and hiding their eggs. We buy corn for a neighbour with a fenced hen run (still plenty large enough to call them free range) and she gives us eggs to eat as we can never find the ones ours lay! :D
Our 'earlies' are lambing now, but it's just a very few. The main flock start nearer the end of March. The commercials are mainly Texel cross and Charollais cross, some Swaledale NC Mules.
My primitives are mainly Shetland and Shetland x, with a couple each of Castlemilk Moorit and Manx Loaghtan. Last year I used a Shetland tup, this year his Shetland x Charollais x Beltex x BFL x Swaledale son - so I'm not quite sure what to expect with that mixture! Because he was running with them all year I haven't any dates for when they'll start, so it could be any time :excited: