The Accidental Smallholder Forum

Community => Coffee Lounge => Topic started by: sarahdean_66 on May 05, 2015, 01:01:16 pm

Title: Whats your Bread and Butter!
Post by: sarahdean_66 on May 05, 2015, 01:01:16 pm
Whats your bread and butter, farming type things rather then off site im interested in. :)
Title: Re: Whats your Bread and Butter!
Post by: devonlady on May 06, 2015, 06:12:52 am
My pension ;D
Title: Re: Whats your Bread and Butter!
Post by: Castle Farm on May 06, 2015, 07:30:54 am
Hatching eggs and Lleyn Sheep.
Title: Re: Whats your Bread and Butter!
Post by: bloomer on May 06, 2015, 07:55:23 am
as yet none, its an expensive hobby that puts some meat in the freezer.
Title: Re: Whats your Bread and Butter!
Post by: Factotum on May 06, 2015, 08:02:35 am
Breeding Shetland cattle and selling breeding stock to new keepers and selling grass fed, rare-breed beef to customers locally and further afield...

This year we've had 8 calves so far and all 8 are boys - so we're going to have a lot of beef to sell in a couple of years!


Sue
Title: Re: Whats your Bread and Butter!
Post by: plumseverywhere on May 06, 2015, 09:07:45 am
Husband works for a well known farming insurance company which allows me to stay home and make goat's milk soap which is sold online within the UK and across the globe sometimes  :)
Title: Re: Whats your Bread and Butter!
Post by: Porterlauren on May 06, 2015, 11:50:32 am
Sheep.
Title: Re: Whats your Bread and Butter!
Post by: DavidandCollette on May 06, 2015, 12:47:28 pm
Working wife pension and parish clerk (I'm the only one wot can read and write :-J
Title: Re: Whats your Bread and Butter!
Post by: mowhaugh on May 06, 2015, 01:11:55 pm
Sheep - store lambs mainly, some breeding stock.

Title: Re: Whats your Bread and Butter!
Post by: Caroline1 on May 06, 2015, 01:30:42 pm
I'm with bloomer, I need to work full time to pay for the lifestyle. I sell Chicken/Duck eggs but with only 20 poultry total they just about cover their costs and sell honey, but again after 4 years varying between 2-4 hives probably only just starting to breakeven as setting up is expensive.
Title: Re: Whats your Bread and Butter!
Post by: Lesley Silvester on May 06, 2015, 05:42:40 pm
My pension keeps my goats and allows me to pay my mortgage so I can have the space to grow fruit and veg.
Title: Re: Whats your Bread and Butter!
Post by: Paul Sill on May 06, 2015, 06:10:08 pm
Dairy farmer! Work with my parents and 2 brothers, Running 800 acres with about 850 head of stock.
Title: Re: Whats your Bread and Butter!
Post by: devonlad on May 06, 2015, 06:27:24 pm
Don't often see much butter but the bread is sheep pigs eggs and hay. I do work in agri off site as a crop nutritionist
Title: Re: Whats your Bread and Butter!
Post by: ellied on May 08, 2015, 03:24:46 pm
Just an odd breadcrumb here from egg, produce and young stock sales. 

As I don't have a day job, pension or an earning partner to keep me, I have got used to low cost living, enhanced by the odd massage or sessional therapy income.  I have just sold a second piece of woodcraft work and am aiming for more craft sales to bolster income, it's that or go on benefits and fight for some minimum wage job against folk half my age and more relevant experience.  Or sell up and try what others consider a normal life..
Title: Re: Whats your Bread and Butter!
Post by: Millwood on May 08, 2015, 03:35:52 pm
Fruit & veg on our market garden which we sell through our shop in the next village, supplemented by other local produce, not a lot of money in it but makes us happy, if exhausted! :) :carrot: :apple:
Title: Re: Whats your Bread and Butter!
Post by: Bogtrotter on May 09, 2015, 01:38:31 pm
I don't think I make the money I could if I wasn't such a sap...
I Can't send anything to an unknown fate, so nothing of mine will go through the markets. My sheep I don't keep go to my freezer and I will occasionally sell a half if the timing is right. Normally I'm too tight though and keep it all for me!
I sell spare eggs which pays for the chickens, and the odd bag of rabbit feed.
I can't manage without doing my 2 days in the real world, but strangely get a fairly good income from my aquarium. People BUY my aquatic plant cuttings/ramshorn snails etc. They even buy duckweed!!!! And Alder cones :excited:

I love my fishies :love:
Title: Re: Whats your Bread and Butter!
Post by: benkt on May 10, 2015, 10:41:02 pm
Our bread and butter is the community part of the community farm. This year we have 16 member families getting produce in return for month subscription and two days work a month.
I've gone full time on the farm this year as my wife has gone back to work so I can take some time to really build up the farm. Extra cash comes from Christmas birds, half pigs, a few eggs sales and odds and ends like goat meat or honey that we have spare. This year, I'm building up the educational side of things - we're doing quite a bit of 'hatching in schools' and a lot more talks/demonstrations - I'm at the local WI tomorrow night and I'm just starting to branch out into taking chickens and chicks into residential care homes.
Title: Re: Whats your Bread and Butter!
Post by: sarahdean_66 on May 11, 2015, 07:30:53 pm
Thanks guys some really helpful comments for me. :)