[Olong82]

Hi as the subject suggests I am new to all this and looking for some advice. I have a field of about 1 acre next to a house (so water is not a problem). I was thinking of starting up my smallholding this winter with a few sheep and then from that developing a bit further (turkeys and pigs ). I have a CPH number coming and from that I will get a flock number and tags sorted. I am trying to start up without spending tons of money and am trying not to make too many mistakes.

Questions I have are:
1. What is a good starter sheep / breed and how many? I was thinking of  store lambs / wethers and keeping them till January time to slaughter and get meat from about 4 so I don't have to feed them too much too.
 
2. Essential equipment / things to do / get? 

3. Anyone got any of the things relating to the above two questions for sale near Lea and Cromford in Derbyshire?

[Marches Farmer]

Get hold of a copy of Tim Tyne's Sheep Book for Smallholders.  An acre is too little ground for a couple of sheep for more than a short period unless you're buying in hay (expensive) and you'll also need to split it to rest the ground (electric fence - also expensive).  Have a look at other posts on here as much has been said about this topic.

[crobertson]

Welcome to the starting point of getting addicted to sheep ! We've only been keeping sheep on our smallholding for a couple of years but in answer to your questions and keeping it low cost ....

1) If you're after meat lambs i would consider something with a texel or suffolk in it but if you're willing to give it longer until Jan them most breeds would be an option, we have some Derbyshire Gritstones and love them !

2) I found our most useful things were a few sheep hurdles, even just 4 to make a small pen if you need to pen any up, a bag of feed and a bucket (we have a bright orange one for feeding) to 'bucket train', getting them used to this makes things so much easier and ours just walk into a hurdle pen. If they are wormed then that won't need doing, if they are treated against flystrike that shouldn't be a problem after the next month or so but I would get some immature fluke treatment and treat in October and December if bad fluke areas and I would just get a couple of syringes for their dose rather than spending extra on a drench gun.
I would get a salt lick which are a couple of quid from our local countrywide store, a marker spray in case you need to identify any you have problems with, we have antibiotics and antibiotic spray from the vets in the cupboard which are very useful to have but we only brought them when needed and now just have them on hand. The other main thing we use the most is electric fencing which for 4 lambs you could split an acre paddock to allow some rotation but for just keeping 4 until January I woudn't bother ! but hay will be needed when the grass quality drops.

3) If your after some for sale Preloved or Sell My Livestock may be useful or local livestock sales. We are staffordshire based all of our boy lambs are sold but I have 2 female lambs left as I can't decide whether to keep or sell as they've very sweet.

[Jukes Mum]

More hurdles- you can never have too many hurdles!!

[twizzel]

Lots of hurdles, a good vet and good fencing ! Most finishing lambs don't need much more than a mineral bucket (always have minerals out with my sheep now since some of our lambs got CCN last autumn), but you will need somewhere to keep them the night before killing so they are dry when they go to the abattoir. You shouldn't need to tag anything unless it loses its tags when its with you- they must come tagged before you load them up to come home.


Keeping sheep in winter isn't much fun though, even more so with limited land; I would suggest giving yourself half a chance and get a couple of lambs next spring and rearing them on until the autumn. Hay is expensive and lambs will normally stall from nov-feb growth wise due to the lack of grass/energy/protein in the diet unless you feed them. I've always got rid of any lambs by the first week of November and breathed a huge sigh of relief at doing so !

[Nelson International]

As a fellow newcomer to sheep, my advice would be to try to find a friend who knows what he's doing (in addition to here, obviously ;-) ). There always seems to be something new with sheep & being able to put your mind to rest without a vets bill is very helpful.

Also, we've found sheep to be much harder than pigs (weaners) for what it's worth.

[PK]

find a friend who knows what he's doing

Or she

[Olong82]

They always know what there doing