The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Pigs => Topic started by: Andy1982 on July 31, 2010, 09:31:20 am
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Hi everyone,
Did.nt know where I should post this but as I plan on getting some pigs first then good a place as any I suppose. My question is who is the body I need to get in contact with for a Herd Number in Ireland? I'm in the process of buying a place in Co.Mayo with 3 acres to start off with and I have to get all my details straight as to who to register with as I'm moving home after spending 7years in Norfolk.
Any help you can offer would be great, also I can get to meet some fellow Irish holders, as I will have a few more questions in time if you don't mind. ;D
Andy
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hello andy.
We are based in donegal.we keep, pigs ,goats, horses and poultry you need to get in touch with the department of agriculture for your pig herd number and all other herd numbers. there is a forum callled the mayo plodders set up for small holders in that part of the country.
www.mayoplodders.myfreeforum.org
www.countrytalkandtips/myfreeforum.org
all the bhest
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You will have to have the area for your pigs set up before you start asking the department of agriculture to inspect you. They want to see that you have a satisfactory place to keep you pigs so a little pighouse and some fencing is in order. I have pedigree gloucester old spots for sale. Some will be ready in 4 weeks others will be ready in six weeks if this helps.
Regards Patrick
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top of the morning to ya andy ;)
im living over ere in tenby south wales but im from trim in co.meath ;)
have been living over ere for 11yrs now we got just the one acre, we produce our own pork ( buy in weaners )
we have two goats to milk when they have their first kids and lots of chucks.
plus the veg garden cant forget that!!!
defra is who we got in contact with, dont know if defra is the same body over with you as it is ere.
hope you get it sorted out soon, fancy a pint ;D
langdon
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Thanks very much for the replies and I will have a place set up for them once the deal goes through. I am making my plans now as to where to start and with what. I will be dividing my 2.5acre main plot up into 6areas of 0.4acres each,so a couple of sows to get our feet wet. Thanks for the offer of the old spots but I don't think I will be near ready at thast point but i wll keep you in mind for the future if that's ok.
I will take a look at the website for holders in Mayo that get the ball rolling to get the feelers out as to a few people in the know, cause I'm uprooting the family from England.
I always fancy a pint btw :o
Andy
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hi andy im also from mayo, its easy enough to get the herd number, not an awful lot of places to get pigs killed around here, there was more 6 yrs ago when i got my first ones a bit of a pain , which part of mayo are you moving to,
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Hi Andy,
Goodluck with the move, we are doing the same, the opposite to Landon. We are moving from Wales to either Cork or Wexford. We hope to breed pedigree pigs, GOS and may be some other breed, so our question was going to be the one you asked, so that has saved us ;D
Hope the move works out well for you, Ireland is a lovely place with lovely people, enjoy the Craic
Cheers
Geoff & Denise
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Nice to hear form you and for sean I think it was I am moving to Arghamore (sure thats' how it spelt) about 6miles from Knock Shrine and it would be good to get out for a beer in the near future. : :yum:
I am from Ireland,albeit from Northern Ireland so as an old advert stated, "the craics great,the beers Bass":) and I hope you also have a good move too.
Not such a great thing that there not much in the way of facilities to table my pigs,but in fairness I thing what me and the wife are planning is to have 3 sows (Tammy's) and breed mainly for a bit of income and keep the freezer well stocked at all times and we should be able to grow a fair amount of food for them. We are also planning on keeping plenty of chickens, once I have a coop built and we are mulling over what else to keep as we would have about .8acre free and 1.2 in total to grow fodders etc.
What would be good for a smallish space? Did think about a tethered goat or Jersey,but for the commitment it would be something we would have later but the piggy's need to get to work on ploughing :).
Anyway Im starting to ramble a bit off topic...
Andy
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It's aughamore -achadh mór - the big field. Gaelic football country, rains a lot. :&>
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well well theres a face i havent seen for a while!
hows is things?
langdon
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fine langdon, how are you? my pigs in trailer outside. Tomorrow morning they cross the shannon to yours and their native province to meet their end.
Slapmarked them this evening, and fed them well.
Mixed feelings of course, but this day was always going to come.
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banbh hope it all
goes went well.
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What slaughterhouse did you use banbh.
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thanks hilarysmum.
I'll get over it. The pigs however.........
davis's in drumlish, seven mile outside longford
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we are doing great over ere ;)
eating our way nicely through our first lot of pigs, we now have more on the holding hopefully will be ready
for christmass.
well done on getting them finished, the pork is going to be awsome.
im sure it will go down down nicly with your favourite pint ;)
we have also trippled our amount in chucks due to our fab little incubator.
longford, will you be staying to collect or leaving to collect?
its a long way aint it
langdon ;) :pig:
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i left 'em there
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are they back with you or is there a longer collecting time than we have ?
all in all im sure your hard work will pay off.
enjoy mate ;)
langdon :pig:
p.s. by the way has that homemade sty lasted, it looked fab?
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Nice to see the thread getting some love and nice to meet a few more members.
Since Thursday when i went to see my new holding (which we have decided to buy with offer accepted :) ) we have 3 good elevated fields running down to a peatish bog which amounts to 2 fields which need some draining and re-trenching as it's been left for 4 years.
I was wondering which,if any animals can be kept on bogland. I'm worried about sheeps feet(don't want any fungal infections due to the wet),but i don't know about pigs, as they live in mud once they have ploughed up some land. Would they be ok to plough this land up or not without any problems? If not, the farmer next door keeps cattle and it seems to be a done thing in the village and surrounding areas, but from my opinion it purely for profit and I would be interested in going off the beaten track and raising pigs amoung other things. If there is need,which I'm sure there would be for rare breed or any breed pork product, I have a market corner to make a couple of squid.
Any advice welcome.
Thanks,
Andy
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hi andy, imo 3 acres is not a lot really especially if some of it is bog, once the pigs hoke it up it will take longer to recover, your best bet is to try and drain it see how it goes, sheep will be fine especially if they have access to bog and green land, your going to be very limited with numbers 2-3 acres ,so id forget the sheep idea, its quiet wet here also, keep that in mind, iv set aside 10 acres for my pigs to hoke up 2 acres,level reseed move to next 2 acres and then let sheep into first 2, etc etc, my point being 2 sows and say 16 young wont be long hoking,
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IMHO 3 acres is plenty for a few pigs but not if its all bog. They will enjoy a small wetland area, but not deep mud as they dont have the feet for it. They need a good large dry area for pooing, eating, sleeping and sunbathing. Ours all have access to some wet areas for most of the year (but not this one its all dried up) but still prefer to tip their water containers rather than to use the damper areas and wallows provided.
A local farmer used to keep cows on our land, they have done untold damage to the drainage on the wet land. We have turned part of ours into a v. large pond on which we keep waterfowl for pleasure and eating. Even thats dry now. But if you have permanent wetland perhaps that could be a consideration?
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Are we talking peat bog with the associated bog plants ie heathers etc or are we talking just a wet soggy area of ground? If it's the former we have pigs on such ground ;and they do far less damage in there than on any of our other fields; winter or summer. They only hoke up areas without the bog plants and even then not as much as normal and it sems to cope really well.We do keep the worlds best diggers TAMS.
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Thanks for the imput everyone.
To clarify, we have 3fields which are all at a slope and run down to the 2 boggy fields,but the top 1/4 of this which joins to the next field which begins the slope is ok and not too much in the way of marsh plantlife. This side i could use to house the pigs and keep them in reasonable dryness. I would like to put them on this first as the better fields will be used for growing crops for them as well as keeping a cow or goat. The other reason being that if i can set the pigs on that after i have redone the trenches and dig in some drainage it gives me some time for the field to dry out and hold some productivity at the same time. I just don't want to put animals on a certain type of land which they can't do well on such as sheep or chooks.
i would then want to reseed the land to see if any improvement has been made and have learned to be with the new :pig: :pig: which my main concern is i want to be eating a bacon roll while pondering the success or lack thereof rather than have an animal that is not thriving due to my inexperience of what will live ok on that type of land in it's current condiction than eating weetabix :(
Thanks again everyone,
Andy
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langdon the sty lasted fine cheers.
andy, you're lucky you have a slope. it rains a lot in the west of ireland and the whole place gets sodden. i'd be tempted to get a couple of sturdy (it blows a lot too) corrugated sheds and stock the land bit by bit to see what it can take. you'll have to rest it by moving them about. stone walls are great for keeping pigs in, if you have them.
you'll find the west of ireland not as developed as britain (imo) for organic markets, or farmers' markets. There is a different social tradition. But if you ask around, bit by bit, you'll find locals who will know a lot about pigs (there was a bacon factory in claremorris) and an awful lot about farming wet land. Also Teagasc are good, the govt farm advisory folk. Twenty or thirty years ago everyone had pigs, they'll be glad to see them come back.
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just seems a lot of plans for 3 acres, imho stick either pigs and crops. a good idea would be to take on few pet lambs, lots of farmers will give them away, i know a man who used to get 10apx each spring and get rid of them at end of autumn, stay away from cows sheep the paper work alone is a pain in the ****,
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I am planning on the sturdy pig ark banbh as i need to change the roof of my dodgy extension which is the lovely iron sheets and been taking some plans down from a few websites and went by our local pig farmer here in Norfolk where i got a few tips.
We were over there last Thursday and I still could'nt believe that no-one opened up shops till at least 10am, we own a village shop and we are up at 6am every day and close at 6pm hence why we are getting our act together and going to where life is as layed back as it is there. I love it!! Oh and the rain, I love the rain as sad as it sounds :). I am going to have a look for our local farmers market orgainic if we can but I would like to seel some of our produce to local B&B's and small restaurant's or cafe's as there is plenty of those round here for the tourists and we are very central to Kilkeely,Ballyhaunis and Knock.
Sean, i do have a lot of plans but that does'nt mean I can follow through on all of those just as space will allow and I will be taking things slow to find my feet. TBH me and the old ball and chain have only agreed on pigs and chickens so far. A goat might come in handy for milk and size and veg are a must including polytunnel and one field split into a couple of sections to grow fodder,kale,mangolds etc.
Andy
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best of luck with everything.