The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Introduce yourself => Topic started by: kevkev57 on April 25, 2009, 11:12:36 am
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Hello , I did infact introduce myself back in 2008 , but things got a little hectic around here, so I thought it best to start again !
I live in the Belgian Ardennes, about 10 minutes drive from the French border. I am English , my wife Belgian. One son hs flown the nest the other is clinging on to it for dear life.
Our home is a 20's house, orginally built as a hunting lodge. It sits at the edge of a forest , and we now have 15 acres of pasture land.
We keep sheep, chickens, geese and rabbits. Our aim is to start with pigs as well, but thats kind of slipped down the list.
I am concentrating on the sheep at the moment. Our new borns appear around late April, early may. I never offer the ram to his girls too early. I do not subscribe to the December births. Purely selfish on my part. Sitting in a barn bottle feeding an orphan lamb at -15C is not my idea of fun !
We run at about 25 - 30 new borns each spring. I want to increase that to around 40. I have a ready supply of Muslim customers across the border in France.
I look forward to joining in here, learning and hopefully being able to contribute. Kevin
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Hi Kevin and welcome glad you have come back. Looking forward to hearing about your sheep. Whenver we have had to bottle feed animals (normally piglets) we keep them indoors. There is no way I am sitting in the barn with a bottle at 3 am with the temperature dropping well below zero. Anyway they all appear to love to lie by the fire.
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Hi Kevin and welcome. Your set up sounds very nice, the worst part any live stock is always the cold damp days of winter!
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Or the cold damp days of "spring"! Hi and welcome from a cold and windy Clackmannanshire!
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Cold damp days of spring applies here as well ! The climate is pretty much like parts of the UK , but a little colder in the winter and slightly hotter in the summer.
Kevin
Belgian Ardennes