The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Smallholding => Land Management => Topic started by: Taliesin on May 20, 2018, 03:51:40 am
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We are planting a 1 acre orchard this year on our smallholding of 12.5 acres. We have 5.5 acres of meadows and approx 5 acres of woodland. Never had any livestock before and looking find a simple, low maintenance route for managing the grassland, which is a mix of loam on heavy clay and can get a bit wet in winter. The sward reveals the conditions, a mix of different grasses, plantain, and soft rush. We are a vegetarian household and so I don't plan to kill and eat any animals we have onsite. We eat eggs. I've heard that a Shropshire breed of sheep don't bother with trees with leaves over 1 metre high. We cut and use grass to add organic matter back into sward in orchard field. We use it to mulch around thousands of trees we are planting however we don't need too much of it and certainly not in the 1.5 acre wildflower meadow. Be great to hear from anyone with similar interests who have found useful ways to go.
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Sheep are far from low maintenance :roflanim: they need shearing, checking twice a day, chemical pour on to prevent flystrike, hay during winter and on the whole their feet don’t like wet ground. Maybe the most reasonable idea is to cut and bale for hay once a year, if you can find someone local to cut a small acreage.
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As above but if you want livestock you could consider geese. The Chinese ones are quieter than the traditional UK ones I gather. But selling it as a "standing crop" to someone to bale might work out for a few quid?
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I have to say I disagree about the sheep - compared to mowing we find them much less work.
We have 3 wethers on 1.5 acres- so no lambing. Get a shearer round annually, who also checks feet. Yes, we do provide hay in winter but that’s a nice job and any treatments required are no bother with 3 tame sheep.
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Yes, get sheep and learn to spin :) :spin: :excited:
We're not vegetarian here, but along with the breeding flock whose lambs go for meat, there are also non-breeding long term flock members who are pals and who give us a lovely fleece every year :spin: :excited: