[Dans]

She's 18 months and still breastfed to sleep. We are hoping to start trying to have Sam be able to get her to sleep without me and I'm hoping she won't be breastfeeding by then but I'm reluctant to book for her to go away until we know that she can settle without me. If it were a year later then it would be fine.

Any recommendations you have could be welcome. I've found a few sitter companies who travel to smallholdings. Looking very very expensive for what would end up being fly out one evening, stay 2 days and fly back one morning.

Dans

[Jon Feather]

We will only be on our second lambing in 2017 so I'll leave the husbandry issues to the others peeps with vastly more experience than me.  All I will say is this: do YOU want to go to Finland?  If the answer is no, then don't go.  You didn't book the cabin in Finland and you have enough legitimate reasons not to go.   I hope that is helpful.

[harmony]

How does Sam feel about it? I think you have to make the decision together. How long are you planning to breastfeed? Until next summer? I am with Jon Feather and if you don't want to go don't. If Sam and Chi can go together let them go and stop the night feeding.

[waterbuffalofarmer]

I think option 1 would be the best. Our family have learn't that we have to put our own livelihoods and livestock above any holiday's. There have been years when things like this have happened and we have postponed it until the next year, when things are a lot clearer. Would it be too much to ask of her to come and stay with the both of you? That way she would be able to spend some quality time with her granddaughter and her son. How would you feel about it though? If not for a weekend, 3-4 days maximum, would that be ok? At the moment with everything going on at the farm I can only talk over the phone to one set of my Grandparents, I only manage to be able to see them once yearly, that is when they come and spend a week with us in August-september. It is rather a struggle, but more so when one of them lives in another country. I hope this helps? And I hope that you can get things sorted soon, it can be very difficult travelling and feeding a little baby at the same time, not only for you but the baby.

[Backinwellies]

I wouldn't consider the travel with a 2 year old for such a short period of time to someone who you could visit in this country... find it hard to believe MIL thinks its a good idea unless she is paying for travel too!    Have her to stay with you and see how much work there is with animals!

[Dans]

I love going to Finland  (even in July with the mozzies) and drove normally I would jump at the chance. I am however incredibly reluctant to go away from the holding in the summer months as there is so much going on, and that is without taking into account a late (first) lambing. It also seems a long way to go for a short time.

My MIL comes up for 4 days every month or so to stay with us. She loves our home grown produce and tells all her friends, buying produce where she can to share with them, but like my mum she doesn't seem to understand that it is constant work (my mum keeps telling me to pay people to do the jobs around the holding).

Unfortunately Sam very much wants us to go. He feels that we haven't made as much of an effort to go to his mum's as we should have and that she is missing out somewhat on her granddaughter. To add some explanation my MIL is from Finland (although she lives here) so this would be her introducing her first grandchild to her homeland. She isn't paying for travel but I imagine she is expecting us to stay for at least a week. She'll be quite disappointed in the shorter stay.

The current decision is we see how it goes. We have left the tup in for now as he was showing strong interest in the last uncovered ewe when we went to move him. We will move him in the week and hope he doesn't break my fences down.  We will get the ewes scanned and see what that tells us and get quotes from sitters. Probably book the sitters and if things are looking nervous around the time to go we will cancel.

Thank you all for your advice and support.

[YorkshireLass]

Is there any chance of moving the dates of the stay at all?

[SallyintNorth]

any suggestions on the best time of year to be away from a smallholding???)

If you have only sheep, then just before tupping.  If you buy a tup in, get back before he comes.  The lambs are away or speaned and settled; the ewes are in good condition prior to tupping, not working, don't need anything except reasonable grass; the hay is made and in; the fly season may be past, else use Clik or Crovect.  Worm everything before you go

Next best is after tupping.  Depending on where you live, risk of getting stranded by weather, however.

If you have other species too, it's harder!  When we wanted to attend a wedding at the end of June, and have a week's holiday afterwards, our planning started in the preceding September.  We didn't AI anything for a month so there would be no chance of any cows calving while we were away.  (It happened to be the year we had no bull.  If we'd had a bull, we'd have run him with the Blue Greys for that month.  They should have been in calf anyway, but if any had returned, they almost never have any calving or rearing issues.). Tups had to be out by the end of December so that all lambs would be at least 4 weeks old when we went away, and I had to be mindful with the pet lambs that they had to be speaned and settled by mid-June; any late ones would have to be sold once they were well established.  And everything was dependant on being able to organise haymaking, shearing and so on, for other times - so right up until two weeks before the wedding, it wasn't certain that ex-BH would be going too.  We were phenomenally lucky to have a divorcing farmer staying with us when the time came, or to be honest I think we'd have been too worried (about flystrike, mastitis, and all the other things that can hit sheep and cattle in summer) to have enjoyed the holiday.

(I hope all the folks who buy their new smallholding and 'want some of everything right away' read this thread!)

[Backinwellies]

Hi. I second SiN comments.   We spent nearly 3 weeks in Tanzania on a build project  last August. ....  but it took a year's worth of planning ...... Sorting time of matings and other husbandry activities so as to free the time away to daily checks plus any emergencies.  Then you just have to go and have faith in your planning and enjoy.

[twizzel]

Our holiday this year consisted of 4 nights away mid week, it was nice though. We went 2nd week of December and took our hired ram back at the same time    the sheep were fine but our in lamb ewe lamb apparently tried to hang herself in the fence... first time she's ever done that-luckily all ok though    we have a very narrow window of being able to go away, my job is very seasonal from march through to november, partner is a farmer contracting from january onwards along with ewes lambing, cows calving. So the couple of weeks before xmas is our best (and only time) to get away.

[Marches Farmer]

We had a nice day out in Aberystwyth last summer .....

[Jon Feather]

We had a nice day out in Aberystwyth last summer .....

What! the whole day? 

[Dans]

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who replied. Decided in the end that I couldn't go away. I would worry too much, we could only go for a short time and it would be unfair on our daughter. We'll go and spend a weekend with my mother-in-law in England in the autumn. Thank you for giving me the confidence to say no. I had been slightly worried I was over-reacting about not going away.

Dans

[devonlad]

I'm secretly pleased although let's face it, I don't know you and to be honest it's none of my business.

We realised long ago that although our smallholding is not our livelihood and is really no more than a hobby, we take the welfare of our animals very seriously and pride ourselves on always putting their needs first. This means that often, what might be a straightforward request, for a wedding, or a holiday or just a day out often takes much advance planning and can often result in us having to say no.
Apart from our dedication to our dependent stock, what also doesn't help is that OH and I are complete control freaks and don't really trust that any one else would look after things properly in our absence.

[Marches Farmer]

The folks that stay in our farm holiday cottage sometimes ask me where I go on holiday.  When I reply that if I went on holiday I'd go for somewhere I didn't have to dress up or watch the clock, where I could spend a lot of time outdoors and be somewhere beautiful and ..... oh, I live here already, some of them get it and some of them don't - just like relatives, really.