[Nortonhillbilly]

G'day fellow farmers
We are Ian and Tania Greenfield, and this is our first post. We are coming to the end of our lambing, just nine more to go, 49, been through the system and 99 lambs to date. 214 sheep - NZ Romneys - on the place as of tonight. Friends with large gardens are friends indeed.. We have lost just four lambs this time, so we are more than happy with that. No grass about of course, so we are feeding hay, ewe nuts and rumevite. Its costing us a fortune and although we are a family of seven, the sheep eat better than we do. I am here today to say follow your heart, chase your dreams. We did and now have 55 acres and a flock of 58, plus followers. We make 6,000 botltes of apple juice every year and heaps of honey - but you can't do it without an income and so we each have 3 jobs plus the farm. Next year the ambition is to spend less , sell more, but I am a sucker for farm gadgets and sometimes they pay off. Best buy this year, a sheep weigher. We started with just a field and so it is possible to grow, you just need belief, a strong heart and some (good) luck. I hope everyone who begins this journey goes as far as they want and has soemof the joy this journey has brought us. Good luck everyone

[Rosemary]

Hello and welcome from Carnoustie on the east coast of Scotland 

We have no grass either 

[LouiseG]

Welcome from sunny but cold suffolk, we're still very small, just an acre, but a little bit of everything, both with full time Jobs and dreaming and hoping for a bit more land one day. Well done with your lambing our two have still to pop 

[Mammyshaz]

  hello and welcome from Durham. Just a couple of allotments here until we find somewhere with a bit of land.

[HesterF]

Wow! 3 jobs each plus 55 acres. You must be exhausted. We only have 8 acres and one job between us and I reckon I'm busy (despite lots of gadgets too)! Sheep sound like hard work though - one day of sheep handling was enough to convince me that grape vines would be easier and pay better. Hope you manage to get a bit of rest now.

H

[darkbrowneggs]

Welcome    - nice interesting introduction - well done on your achievements and good luck for the future   

[Lesley Silvester]

  and welcome from  Shropshire.  Back garden smallholder here but I love it.  Romneys are lovely sheep. I used to live near the Romney Marshes in Kent and so have spun Romney wool.  Lovely.

[Chris63red]

Welcome from Mid Wales


yes more spent on livestock food - makes me laugh when the bags of feed are in excess of the one or two bags of coal to keep us warm 

[Nortonhillbilly]

Thanks everyone for the welcome!! We finished up with 114 lambs, and managed to hit 200% which was great. Everyone is now out and there is some grass, but not as much as I'd like, in fact 40 hoggets whcih i had intended to keep and sell on as ewe tegs in Septmeber had to go last week, and we await the cheque which hopefully will pay the feed bill. Then a stroke of luck, another 10 acres was offered to us for the summer. We walked around it last night and it won't take much to repair the fences....

[lachlanandmarcus]

Very interesting to hear about your progress OP. we are near Aboyne in Aberdeenshire and have little grass too (or rather we have lots but it's in the fields that haven't yet been stock fenced, all the fencing over 40 acres was rubbish so it's a long job). However the lambs and mums have a bit as half a field was left ungraded so they are enjoying that as soon as they lamb.


So far 11 lambs from 7 Shetlands, another 7 to lamb.....Snow forecast for tomorrow....

[Nortonhillbilly]

Hi lachlanandMarcus - thanks for your mesage and nice to hear from you. We were in Aberdeenshire in June and thought it really beautiful; Stock fencing has cost us a fortune too, but its the best long term solution. For a short term and fairly cheep fix look at the 100m long 'instant' eelctric fence kits. Gallgher do one called the Smart fence T4100. We bought it, along with an energiser and its really useful, in tandem with a coupl;e of hurdles (so you can get over without a shock) in a squate fold, like the old shepherds used to do. I'm not sure how Shetlands take to electric fencing mind, but it works well for us. Good luck with the remainder of your lambing