[Midas]

Hello everyone,
I am from South East England and my small holding was passed to me from my Father.  Although the field had not really been used for many years, it has been kept pretty tidy, topped, hedges trimmed etc.  I have had it since 2014 but have been going there from a very young age.  I did have someone put there sheep in there early 2015 for a couple of months, then a local Farmer had some hay off of it last season, small bales.  Although the sheep are coming back in the Autumn, the contractor does not want to invest the time in making Hay again, which is a shame as the hay was of excellent quality.

I am looking forward to seeing what everyone else is doing with their land and of course to gain as much knowledge from everyone else as possible, especially in regards to good grassland management.

I look forward to chatting to you all.

Midas

[clydesdaleclopper]

Welcome to TAS 

[Jukes Mum]

Welcome!
Is the land near your home and is it possible for you to visit every day? This would obviously affect what you could do with the land.
Did you have any ideas what you fancied doing with it? We keep sheep and chickens at ours and really enjoy them, but it's not everyone's idea of fun!
How much land do you have there?

[waterbuffalofarmer]

Hi and welcome to the forum from mid wales I keep livestock on my land and reserve fields for hay too, but we're farming over 80 acres. We did grow barley as an experiment and it did work out quite well. What type of soil is the land? Like someone else pointed out how far is it away from your house? I'm sorry that I can't be of more help, but please keep us updated?

[duncanbury]

Welcome.....nice to hear about your experiences

[Midas]

My house is less than quarter of a mile away from my field and I do go there everyday. Mu Son has 3 chickens, people biy his eggs and that is his pocket money. I have 10 Acres. I have let someone graze their sheep there and I hope they do the same this year. I work full time so could not dedicate to much time to having my own animals. We had allsorts down there when I was a child, I was always there with my Dad, was lucky to have such a good childhood. I have to get one of the barns fixed up this year but don't have much money to do it, so need to do something which might bring a little bit if money in.

[Rosemary]

Hello and welcome from Carnoustie 

[Possum]

If you are working full time you might just want to raise some lambs over the summer and have a few more chickens. They would only need checking once or twice a day.


10 acres is quite a lot though. Perhaps you could divide your land so that someone else could graze some of it?

[Midas]

Thanks everyone.  Have found the forum so useful already and I have only read a few posts. Such a wealth of information on here.

[Lesley Silvester]

  and welcome from Shropshire. As you can probably guess, I keep goats. 

[Midas]

Hello mad goat woman.

[devonlady]

Hello from Devon. Treasure your 10 acres, you may be glad of every one of them some day!

[kelly58]

Hi from Caithness     We have 21 acres, one goat left, one shetland pony left and a flock of Olde english babydoll southdowns. Also a flock of Castlemilk Moorit sheep. We both work full time and just use our holidays at important times like lambing. As you can imagine weekends are busy in the good weather 
We love it ! 

[Midas]

Thanks everyone, yes Kelly I wil treasure those 10acres. It is a very special place for me. I want to make good use of it. I will have the sheep grazing on it maybe get a few more chickens and manage the grassland to get some hay. The hay from there was bery good last year and in previous years. I have already invested in chain Harrows and in time may invest in a mower, haybob and baler! I can see me getting obsessive grassland disorder!