[lazynewt]

Hi there all. Myself/wife and mother have just moved into an old barn conversion/farm . We have 8 acres of good land.. I work in IT but am very hands on at building/outdoor work. We have a 2 year old and are looking to grow our family. In an ideal world my wife would stay at home and raise the family and i would work.. But as the world is even with a decent salary i'm still a few hundred short each month..  so here i am..

My Mission / aim is
- Work my land with an aim raise a few hundred additional £s a month.
- Have some animals so my daughter is able to enjoy interacting/learning about them.
- Keep my wife at home and raise a large family.

Ideally if i can ever get to a place where my smallholding/farm pays more than the day job i would switch.. but i doubt this will happen any time soon.

I'm hard working and capable of pretty much anything.. What im lacking is the knowledge and experience to identify what i can do e.g sheep/cows/chickens.. what will yield me the highest return and  where to start. I will read through the forum and have already read a bunch of posts/sites but im still somewhat in the dark.. If anyone can point me in the right direction or offer advice id really appreciate it.

Nice to meet you all and thanks in advance.
 

[Lesley Silvester]

  and welcome from Shropshire. I am a back garden smallholder so can't give advice on this but I'm sure someone will be along soon.

[Backinwellies]

Hi and welcome

Best wishes with your mission ... most of us here even with up to 30+ acres earn a few hundred a month from other jobs  to keep our smallholding going rather than the other way round!   Many threads on this including http://www.accidentalsmallholder.net/forum/index.php?topic=79493.0.   

With only 8 acres you would be better thinking market garden rather than any sort of livestock. .. though in the right area poultry could do well.

[lazynewt]

Thanks for the warm welcome both  . [member=26580]Backinwellies[/member] I have the option to purchase an additional 22 acres if there was any certainty of a viable income. Also ideally i would be doing as you have said and make farming my main job. However i don't feel that it would pay enough to match my current wage/pay i can earn from IT (the last place i would CHOOSE to be is sat behind a computer screen).

I will have a look at poultry and market garden.. also the link/thread above..  I have given some thought on polly tunnels and growing something like mushrooms or hi value veg.. But whenever i read into anything e.g shitake mushrooms.. it ultimately results in people saying they don't make any money.. Same applies for sheep farming / most livestock etc.. So either people are making decent money and don't want the competition or i'm screwed lol... As ive said im happy to muck in and wouldn't mind  being up till 3 in the morning out in the fields.. if its providing for my family..

Thanks for the advice so far its appreciated.

[YorkshireLass]

What does your wife want to do?

You are a team and the options you choose depends on things like who is around to do daily livestock checks, who has time to tend crops, who is wranging small children at any point in the day, who will be called away to work, or to family emergencies....

The most profit is to be had in tricky crops, where your advantage is being able to nuture them (vs a carrot farmer with hundreds of acres). You could consider polytunnels, but this requires capital investment. Farming media often has case studies of new or small businesses.
Alternatively some sort of processed crop - so make goat cheese instead of just selling milk. Again, time and commitment dependent.

I wouldn't go straight for commercial livestock. I would have a few hens for your own eggs and to dip your toe in the realities of late nights, early mornings, parasites, predators, retrieving escapees.....

Good luck!

[Fleecewife]

Hi lazynewt from Scotland     
You haven't told us where you are based, as this makes a big difference to any rural business you can hope to succeed.  For instance, intensive veg relies on good soil, good climate and a nearby large market, which can be restaurants, box scheme etc.  I must admit that I started off with that intention, but we didn't have TAS back then, so no-one to warn me! In fact ill health decided for me that working myself to an exhausted wreck for tiny returns just wasn't for me.
Our own children were fledging when we came here, but for you, you are doing this for your family.  An exhausted, bad tempered Dad the children hardly ever see, isn't going to make them enjoy their lives.
Is there anything in IT you can do from home?  That way you have a steady income of whatever size you need, you can choose to do the computer stuff when it's pouring outside, and organise your life around the important work on the holding, leaving time for the family. It's important not to take on everything yourself, but to take that little bit of extra time to let everyone else muck in.
From the cash flow angle, whatever you decide, there's going to be a fairly long time between you arriving at your smallholding and actually being able to market anything you produce, so keeping one foot in IT seems an excellent insurance, which can be scaled down as your smallholding income increases.  Think of this as being for your family too - something you just have to do in order to keep the new life afloat.
There is a huge amount of knowledge and experience here on TAS, so you've come to the right place.  Do take time to read all the other threads on this topic, as it saves people the time needed to repeat themselves.
Whatever you decide, keep us in the loop.  New smallholders have so much excitement and enthusiasm that it's great to read about it - cheers me up anyway