The Accidental Smallholder Forum

Community => Introduce yourself => Topic started by: jools on March 20, 2010, 09:30:38 am

Title: Hello from Buckinghamshire
Post by: jools on March 20, 2010, 09:30:38 am

Hi! My name is Jools and I live in Buckinghamshire with my 6month old daughter Florence and my partner Nick.  Nick is a farmer and I'm a Vet nurse on maternity leave.  With my maternity leave end looming and Nick's job in uncertain times we are looking at the possiblity of starting out on our own. 

I look forward to posting and hopefully pick up some tips and inspiration.

Jools  ;D

Title: Re: Hello from Buckinghamshire
Post by: Hilarysmum on March 20, 2010, 09:34:09 am

Hi and welcome.  What would you do ideally?  Livestock, veg other?  Good luck for whatever you decide.  Looking forward to hearing more from you.

Title: Re: Hello from Buckinghamshire
Post by: jameslindsay on March 20, 2010, 09:35:40 am

Hi Jools and welcome from a rather summers day in Fife. I hope things work out for the 3 of you. The press/governement tell us the economy is getting better but I have my doubts!

Title: Re: Hello from Buckinghamshire
Post by: jools on March 20, 2010, 09:39:24 am

Well Nick is very much a pig man.  We're still very early on in planning process but if we get the land we want it lends itself to sheep too.  Nick is just about to start lambing 550 ewes so I think he'd cope ok with 50 ewes to start! Trying to decide how many pigs to start with and doing some market research into outlets.  It feels a bit like chicken and egg, what do you do first source an outlet and get pigs to fit or get pigs and find outlets once you know how much and how frequently you can supply?!

Title: Re: Hello from Buckinghamshire
Post by: JulieS on March 20, 2010, 02:13:30 pm

Hello and welcome from Devon  :)

Good luck with all your plans, an exciting time ahead for you.

Title: Re: Hello from Buckinghamshire
Post by: Hilarysmum on March 20, 2010, 03:40:58 pm

We had a couple of pigs for ourselves, then friends who tried the pork wanted more, so we expanded.  Now we have an outlet, and produce as much as we can whilst not really satisfying demand.  At one point though we nearly went broke because we had too many pigs and hardly any customers.  Its such a balancing act.  Whatever you do have more than one outlet firstly if they go down they take you with them and secondly if you supply to just one outlet they can and will call the tune, demand more for less.

Be confident in yourself and your product. 

Title: Re: Hello from Buckinghamshire
Post by: sandy on March 20, 2010, 07:09:40 pm

 :wave: :wave: :wave: :wave: :wave: :wave: :wave: :wave:Hi, welcome, thee are millions of us in Clackmannan,

at the moment

Title: Re: Hello from Buckinghamshire
Post by: Rosemary on March 22, 2010, 09:44:40 pm

Hi and welcome!