[Shropshirelass]

So with the New year upon us what's everyone's plans & upcoming projects for the following year?

Happy New Year Everyone!!!

I'll kick things off with mine below:

Hmm 2025 - Sheep - *Trying to up my numbers to 20 breeding ewes, I'm on 15 ATM including a ewe lamb so I'm pretty close, Ideally I'd like a few more Clun ewes to go with my Tup with the 3 I've currently got but it's going to be some in-lambers off a breeder I know I think.
* Trying to sell a few more tup lambs & keep back a few more homebred ewe lambs. Out of 5 ewe lambs I'm keeping 3 back & 2 tup lambs with different breeding.
Poultry - *New incubator (My good old Brinsea ova easy decided to die on me with all my duck & goose eggs in it 🙁 ), runs / breeding pens & eventually a new hen house.
*Investing in more layers & quail & more pure breeds again in my poultry & waterfowl, bird flu as we know sort of buggered everything so the only thing I've managed to build back up is my geese in 2 different breeds & some crosses & a few layers.
General farming - *Trying to sort more grazing & storage - (Hopefully this includes reclaiming some more off the tenants, that I can't to get rid of for many reasons.)
*Clearing out an old cow shed to use for extra lambing space & maybe for a bit of calf-rearing, I've been toying with the idea of a few dairy bull calves on a couple of Hereford x Freisian cows - my grandad calved them & then bought 2-3 calves to rear on each & let them out to grass with his dairy herd each day, but I think the calves were beef / beef x dairy. This saves on milk powder costs, The calves would go off at around 6-10 months as Rose veal, so their smaller & less dangerous. ( Cattle I'd like to do in a small way, something like this & maybe a small pedigree beef herd, just using AI - whether or not I get into Cattle this year is another thing.)
*Goats - I've been looking at a few different breeds for conservation work - tackling areas that the sheep won't or can't - although my natives are far more similar to Goats I'd say in the way of foraging, they like hedgerows, thistles & nettles & they like climbing. I don't want milkers, so was looking at breeds like Boers & possibly English or old English or pygmies. My families had Goats before & it's important to realise their not sheep in many ways such as diet, breeding, needs & to treat them as such.
*Fixing the sheep shed door again that my sheep decided to break yet again by head butting it. It's fixed for now but it's an old oak door that is higgldy piggdly on a nice old oak barn that was built around & I'd have loved to have met the people who built it as nothing is level or straight in this shed. But my breeds hate being indoors for more than a few days & have worked out they can headbutt the latch & knock the pins out of the door, & have now cracked some wood that needs replacing ( Last time I put them in due to the flooding I put a hurdle & bale either side to stop them, which worked on the door but they tried it with a side panel instead! So this is going to be a proper chippy job me thinks.)

[Rupert the bear]

With an eye to the weather,

I'm going back into hibernation now that the goats have kidded !

It going to be each day as it comes for now.

[Backinwellies]

Lambing in March/April.
and put smallholding on the market........  anyone looking for smallholding in SW???

[Penninehillbilly]

Took time out to have a think, Ive worn myself out  .
Happy 2025 to all.

Sheep, to get DOWN to 20 breeding ewes, or maybe 25, I like them all. currently 34 on, inc tup and 4 wethers, 18 ewes, 11 ewe lambs, so need to choose at least 5 females and all the males to go  . Not really enough land to rotate them.
To band the males properly, or maybe it was old rings that snapped? 4 'wethers' were tups.
To sell lambs off as soon as they are old enough, (problem, - tup didn't go in until December, waiting for new fencing finishing, so late lambs.
Get hen hut repairs finished, so I can get rid of the 2 hens living in polytunnel. Maybe get another 1 or 2 hens.
Grazing, get more rushes and thistles dealt with before they seed (I leave them to flower for bees and butterflies) Goats would eat the tops of rushes but sheep don't. Get those brambles dealt with before I finally lose a sheep in there. Replace neighbours rotting fence so lambs don't go walkabout again.
Get a hedge planted between mine and tenants sheep, just finished the double fence.
Grow more of our own veg, hack my way in to overgrown fruit patch, try and protect gooseberries, birds have had them the last few years (fruit cage partially collapsed, I didn't feel safe going under the heavy bars)
Well, that lot sounds more like New Year Resolutions, but for now I'll just go and get another cup of coffee and look at all that pretty (and freezing) snow. Nothing happening apart from feeding beasties.