the daydream fund challenge thread

alfie_1

It's something we can just mull over for a while. As you say, it's hard to estimate what the demand would be like, but I imagine advertising would be a major & ongoing cost.

one of the best places to advertise is in the feedstores, where most people go now... a card on the wall??
round here there is quite a demand for "small " animal holiday homes!! rabbits and guineas, hamsters, birds etc. i know this sounds like a bit wussy but it pays ! i know one lady that has a garage divided into squares around the walls, [breeze block] with little dog kennel type houses, sawdust and as mentioned hanging veg and mini hay racks and she is always full with rabs & GPs.. charges £2 a day for GPs and £3 for rabs....just a thought !!!

Davesnave

Have to say, of those 2 ideas I like the retirement home one best. I don't believe DW and I would have enough empathy with the guinea pigs and rabbits, judging on past performance looking after others' pets at holiday time.... I think a genuine interest is vital.

Can see which would pay best, though!

alfie_1

i am soooooooooo excited ...my chooklets are a comin !!:T i will give my lot a pep talk tomorow !!:)

im working on the railway tomorow...lots to do b4 the open days [4 days this time:( ]

mabel has had her fence line all sythed down [BF !]as it was shorting the electric fence... most pigs would destroy the ground they live on! NO not mabel:o she has her mud hole, her sunbathing hole and her house and she eats,sleeps and bathes....but DOES NOT eat down the vegetation ....we have to strim it !! :p lazy great lump !!:)

rhiwfield

Retirement home maybe, but dont like the hen hotel idea for the reasons others have mentioned. When we bought ours we looked at 2 sellers properties and decided not to buy from there due to disease implications (one was clean but hens were being brought in from all over so transmission of problems was very likely...in the end we bought from a farm on top of a mountain above Stanleytown!

Neednt have worried about leaving GH vent open the other night, even though the heater didnt kick in min temp was 10C.

And 4mm of rain yesterday :j. Enough to cool things down and wet surfaces, but not enough to add to butts or penetrate the soil surface. Expect we'll get a fair bit more over the coming days. CTC, how about a few welsh blanket shawls for the weekend, people might be glad of them and who knows, a bit of iffy weather may increase your sales. Mind, not sure if that'll work out the same for the Sunday car boot.

Lotus-eater

lostinrates wrote: »

What about a retirement home for non layers instead? country home how you keep yours possible and nice, less risk! (steady income too!)

In the nicest way possible, I would have thought this market was anything from tiny to non existent!

I think the rabbits and Guinea pigs are the best idea by far

lostinrates

Lotus-eater wrote: »

In the nicest way possible, I would have thought this market was anything from tiny to non existent!

I think the rabbits and Guinea pigs are the best idea by far

For smallholders like us? Yes for the back yard keepers.....well, a lot bought hens like people used to buy dogs: just for Christmas. They want eggs they want to see hatchings...they don't want to deal with boys and they don't want to eat them, and they feel sentimental enough to want the old hens to be killed but they want the three hens they have room for to be productive in a ''good life'' way. These people would proably do it.

You could do a part exchange deal....new pullets for old hens and a fee for their keep.....(or dispatch fee )

Lotus-eater

lostinrates wrote: »

For smallholders like us? Yes for the back yard keepers.....well, a lot bought hens like people used to buy dogs: just for Christmas. They want eggs they want to see hatchings...they don't want to deal with boys and they don't want to eat them, and they feel sentimental enough to want the old hens to be killed but they want the three hens they have room for to be productive in a ''good life'' way. These people would proably do it.

You could do a part exchange deal....new pullets for old hens and a fee for their keep.....(or dispatch fee )

Yes for smallholders like you! I would have thought that the rabbits and guinea pigs idea would be a easier and more profitable way of making money.

I don't think there is money in the rest, however that's just my opinion.

ukmaggie45

Got loads of little hellebore seedlings under the established hellebore in the back garden. :j Think I might try and pot them up as we've got a shady bit where the huge bush came out. We've planted a climbing rose there, but it was such a huge bush there's still plenty of empty space! Initially I'll just pot them up, would be nice to see flowers before planting, but not sure how well they'll survive in pots, my mother always used to say they don't like their roots moving. Any advice?


Hellebore seedlings by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

OH dug a potato trench across the rose bed yesterday. We had a sprinkle of rain, but still did some prolonged watering of the crab apple and apple trees. No time to get the spuds in yet. If the rain holds off we'll try and get them in this afternoon. Had a few sprinkles this morning, but the sun's out again now.

Had some of last years shallots lying around, so have put them in deepish seed trays to try and get some roots established before planting them out. Doubt they will split now, but might be able to use them for next year's starters. Need to finish planting the rest of the onion sets if they haven't gone mouldy plus garlic and elephant garlic - prob in the front garden round the new rose bushes. According to one website about companion planting I read recently garlic makes a good companion for roses and intensifies their scent.

Must try and get my flower seeds going too.

Found a nice looking volunteer potato by this year's elephant garlic bed at the back of the garden. Think I might earth it up and see if we get anything from it. We've been pretty good about rotating stuff this year so far, but am sweating a little over where to put the peas and beans and the climbing bean frame. Haven't started them off yet, so we've still got a bit of time in hand.

Almost finished pruning the bush with pink flowers in winter (name escapes me!), has really opened the garden up. Must take some photos. Still has some work for OH to tackle (needs sawing) on the side away from the house, but I think it looks much better already. Spiraea Bridal Wreath needs to go under the knife once it's finished flowering. Tis planted in a rather strange place on the corner of the veg patch, and has grown all over the path! It's very congested too, so will prob take out a lot of wood and then give it a severe hair cut. I know it won't flower much (or at all) next year, but it really is taking over. Will try and get some cuttings going from the prunings in case I kill it completely! :eek:

Coming up to time to prune the 3 pieris I think, and am in 2 minds about the camellias - one is getting quite tall, and I'd prefer to try and do something about it before it gets totally out of reach (it is a bit already) but it's very close to where we put the tit box, so don't want to put off any birds seeking a delightful bijoux residence to bring up their babies in. Good excuse to avoid doing it this year! :rotfl:

Magnolia is a total mess and I don't know what to do with it at all! Will have to have a really good look come the winter and prune it hard I think. There's a lot of crossed over branches (in both the apple and crab apple trees too) so will have to try and thin them. I think the previous gardener just scalped them every year and never thinned out the middle branches when they were small.

Getting some die back of new growth in the apple tree, we're not sure if it's down to lack of water, or if it's some sort of nasty. We had similar last year too. So far we're just pruning off the manky looking twigs back to what looks healthy wood, and will keep an eye on it. I suspect the tree is pretty old now (house built in 1955 and I suspect the tree went in fairly soon after). It's a James Grieves, how long are they likely to live? It's got a TPO on it, so if it's diseased it won't be enormously straightforward to remove it.

Better get up and off to the garden!

lostinrates

Lotus-eater wrote: »

I don't think there is money in the rest, however that's just my opinion.

Sorry, I think ou are right about the money in that the costs of doing it to a decent standard of cleanliness etc would outweigh any income...holiday lets etc.

what I meant about smallholders like us...and I mean lottie growers too, is that we will dispatch...back garden people often don't want to. I am off the opinion there is a god business for someone being a ''dispatcher'' (humane, emergency service, etc etc). Don't know what current regs are on that sort of thing: but I see a lot of potential chicken suffering because people don't wanna do it.....even on this board there was someone trying to sell cross bred cockerals rather than put the in the pot.

Maggie, your seedlings are so exciting!

Lotus-eater

lostinrates wrote: »

what I meant about smallholders like us...and I mean lottie growers too, is that we will dispatch...back garden people often don't want to. I am off the opinion there is a god business for someone being a ''dispatcher'' (humane, emergency service, etc etc). Don't know what current regs are on that sort of thing: but I see a lot of potential chicken suffering because people don't wanna do it.....even on this board there was someone trying to sell cross bred cockerals rather than put the in the pot.

Without looking it up, you are allowed to despatch your own poultry at home, or up to a certain number of birds, or for your own consumption, but once you start doing it on a larger scale, or (and this is the bit) as a business.......... you need to be a slaughterhouse. And I think that's full stop.
Happy to be proved wrong.

Maybe you mean a travelling dispatcher. I can see there may be a possibility of a job there, very very part time and you don't want to go travelling too far I would have thought. Not sure on the legal aspects, but as long as the owner eats or despatches of the carcass themselves, could be a goer. Again, nothing but pin money in it though, I would have thought.