I can't tell you how helpful this forum has been, i am so glad i found you all!!
We rent almost 3 acres of land from the local estate which we have grazed our 3 ponies on and a few chooks for about 5 years. They have *almost* given me permission to keep pigs on the land as well. In the meantime we have a small piece of land we are using this year to raise 3 weaners to see how it goes. So all being well this is how i plan to use the land and i'd appreciate any feedback on whether my plan is sensible.
The land will be split into 3 almost acres.
The ponies will be on one acre in the summer and another in the winter.
The third will be split into 4 smaller paddocks for weaners. Probably 2 lots of 4 for a total of 8 months of the year. So 4 weaners in March on paddock a, moved in may to paddock b, then off to slaughter in July. 4 more in paddock c in July, moved to d in september and off to slaughter in November. As the pigs are rotated around the paddocks every 2 months They will be followed by 6-8 ducks with an artificial pond, movable house etc and electric poutry netting to keep them safe for 2 months and then grass seed. The land will then be rested.
The three acres will also be rotated so that the pigs acre will become good quality grazing for the ponies the following season with far less dock and nettles than it has now. In addition we have a roughly 200m sq chicken run which will have about 20 chooks laying various coloured eggs and a very small orchard. The garden also has a small veg plot.
I plan to sell the hens eggs (eggs we already do but have less chooks at the moment) and also duck eggs. We will let the broodies hatch out the eggs of the best egg layers and sell the chicks at POL and same with the ducks. We will also sell the pork and any excess fruit and veg, all from the garden gate. This should keep us largely self sufficient in food and should hopefully make a little profit for pocket money.
How does this sound, is this the best use of our three acres without getting rid of the ponies?? All critisism welcome