[Nickie]

Hi everyone. Not only am I new to this forum, but I'm new to small holding to. We have just bought a house & 45 acres in North Wales. Land was mainly for the horses I already have, but there's so much of it that we are thinking about keeping some livestock as well, nothing too much work as we have enough of that already!

The pasture land has been grazed by up to 8 horses for the last 10 years, without any work being done, so in places it looks like the Somme. We've been busy rolling, harrowing & reseeding since we moved here (about a month ago). It's all been a bit trial & error as this is the first time either of us has owned land.

We have loads of moss, stones, gorse & bare patches of mud at the moment, but I'm sure things will improve given the right work & time - fingers crossed. We are about 260 metres above sea level, 5 miles from the coast & have very strong winds, although I have been told that we don't usually have many frosts.

Bought a chicken house this week & some electric netting as foxes are a problem here apparently. Also looking for a dog to help with the foxes & also the neighbouring sheep who keep jumping the walls.

Things on my wish list are chickens (black rock, light sussex or rhode island red), & for the freezer a couple of pigs & lambs to fatten up. Views on breeds, advice etc would be very welcome. I also hope to get my veggie plot up & running this year, but trying to find a site which is sheltered, sunny & relatively stone free is not easy!

Anyway, that's me in a nutshell.

[Pomona]

Wow, sounds fabulous    And very exciting too - a whole new way of life beckoning!

Welcome to the site, nice to meet you 

[pegusus pig]

Hello and welcome. Sound brilliant, good luck with all your plans. Where abouts in North Wales are you? we are up in Anglesey. hope you enjoy the site.

[carole]

Hi and welcome from Brittany, keep us posted with your progress, sounds like you will be busy for sometime.

Carole

[Nickie]

Thanks for the welcome.

Yes, I think we could be busy for a while, hopefully we will find time to enjoy it as well. The views are amazing (as you can see from the photo of our tractor).

We are near Llanllyfni (between the Caernarfon coast & Snowdon). We have 12 acres of pasture land around the house & 33 acres of hill side grazing (just a field away) which is in the national park. We've decided to leave the hill side grazing alone for now. It's very rough & hasn't been touched or grazed for a long time & we have enough to do with sorting out the pastures for now.

[Hilarysmum]

Hi and welcome, would you be able to "graze" pigs on the National Park?

[sausagesandcash]

For hardiness, I recommend the Tamworth pig. Hardy little buggers. Well that's my tuppence worth!

Morgan

[catomell]

Hi - studied Animal Management at Bangor (for what it's worth more than a decade on!), would only recommend Welsh Mountain sheep to graze your hillside. Have seen them in action, lambing in the frost and snow (not to mention the rain in North Wales!). Also, perhaps you might think about a coupls of Dexter steers, or a cow and calf to graze alongside your horses, breaking worm cycles etc. I have been told in the past that you cannot under any circumstances run dexters with horses, but completely ignored this information, and have never had a problem, they all mingle brilliantly, and the dexters taste nice too!! Hope this helps. Catherine. PS Can recommend the RIR more so than the Light Sussex, as their laying record is marginally better......

[Nickie]

Thanks for you advise.

After doing a bit of research Tamworths were top of my list due to their hardiness & also I understand that they are really good for clearing ground & rooting up stones. How about Oxford Sandy & Black? I've heard they are a good beginners pig?

I hadn't planned on putting the pigs in the national park. Our pastures are all outside the park as our land is on the border. One of our fields is really rough (even worse than the others), full of stones & gorse. I thought we'd concentrate on the other fields this year, we already have 2 looking much better so the rough field would be a good place for the pigs to do their thing for a while.

Funnily enough, we did talk about Dexters & may give them a go once we have more experience with livestock. I've only ever looked after horses & dogs before, so I won't go jumping into being responsible for any animal without understanding their needs & feel confident that I can meet them. I've been told that chickens & pigs are the easiest to look after so that's why I thought they'd be the best to start with. 

Is the paperwork for pigs/sheep/cattle a real pain? I've obviously never had to do any of this before, other than the horses passports.

[Hilarysmum]

I cant help with the paperwork, being an expat.  My instincts would be to go for tamworths.  They are extremely hardy, the end result is superb, they do make wonderful bacon.  They will require a wallow and a good strong shelter.  Electric fencing should surfice as long as it stays on.  They know the minute the battery fails.  Most pigs will come back to where the food is come tea time.

I have a memory of a smallholder whose pigs lived in their woods, they were fed morning and evening, it was not until a complaint was made about their pigs wandering in the village that they went down to the pigs at lunchtime, to find not a pig anywhere.  Later they found the well hidden escape route.  Pigs were coming back at night and going out after breakfast!

[catomell]

Hello - the paperwork for pigs is not too extreme provided you are just wanting them for meat, rather than breeding them, registering with the BPA etc.... So long as you register for a pig number (VN****), and let DEFRA and Trading Standards know that you plan on keeping pigs, all you should really need is a movement order for them when they move onto your holding, followed by an order when they move off to the abbattoir. As a new keeper, you may be subject to a visit from Trading Standards regarding keeping the pigs. Have a friend who had the same thing - quite painless. But, make sure that you never suggest that you might throw veg scraps at the pigs (even if you plan to), as they don't like this - complete bunkum obviously, but rules is rules! More or less the same for sheep in terms of paperwork. Hopefully the electronic tagging that the EU is trying to inflict upon us will not amount to anything other than hot air! Cattle are different, as they each require their own individual passport, also with the cattle you have TB testing to take into account (although I am fairly certain that North Wales is not such a hotspot as here in North Devon).
I hope that this helps. Catherine.

[Hilarysmum]

I love the way the EU makes rules which no one follows except us Brits.

[Rosemary]

Hi and welcome. I'm sure you'll enjoy the forums. What kind of horses do you have?

[Fluffywelshsheep]

hiya welcome to the board and hope you get it all sorted soon

[Nickie]

Hi and welcome. I'm sure you'll enjoy the forums. What kind of horses do you have?

Hello Rosemary,

I have an appaloosa mare & my OH has an appaloosa X quarter horse gelding. Neither of us went out looking for spotties it's just the way it turned out.