Countdown to Freedom

Eager_Elephant

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS wrote: »

Morning Eager Elephant, thanks for replying, I have the feeling you may be receiving a lot of interest

On average per year, how many vet call outs do you have, and if you don't mind sharing, what's the average cost per visit?We very rarely need the vet, we tend to look after our own animals using various treatments. A few years ago some of our chickens got a cough/cold so we took one to the vet who diagnosed a bronchitis illness and gave us a some medication to go in the chickens water (so everyone got it). That trip cost us about £70 but the following year when it happened again we didn't have a consultation and were just allowed to buy the medication which was about £15.
We use things like cider vinegar in their water as a pick me up tonic and if they get scaly leg we treat with ointment that you can pick up from most feed merchants.
If any go really down hill and we don't know what's wrong we bring them home for a few days so they have a little run and are away from all the other chickens to recuperate but if it doesn't work then DH will kill them.


We did have a call out from a vet once for our lambs, some old mad lady in the village took offence as we used to send batches of lamb to slaughter. She used to ring DEFRA all the time about their welfare and they used to come and check on them and then come to our house to have a quick chat - we were friends with the DEFRA guy by then as he came out so often:rotfl:
Anyway some of our sheep died and we didn't know why, one day I caught the old lady feeding biscuits to the sheep:eek:
Obviously anyone knows that sheep don't eat biscuits but she tried to tell me that her friend was a shepherd and fed all her sheep biscuits:eek:
So we took the sheep for an autopsy but they didn't really know what was wrong so to be on the safe side a vet came out and injected all the sheep with something just in case they had an infection - I think they only charged about £100 for the call out and injections but the autopsy was about £70.
(That was only one year in owning sheep and we had sheep for 3 years so not much cost really)
If you buy lambs from a reputable breeder they will already be vaccinated but if not you can buy the stuff from the vets and vaccinate them yourselves.


To end the story about the old lady, after about 10 complaints DEFRA got fed up and reported her to the police as a vexatious complainer and the police visited her and gave her a warning for harassment and interfering with livestock and we never had a DEFRA visit again (we knew none of this and thought she had got bored but once day the local PCSO told my DH this is what had happened)


How many animals do you need to keep your family and friends in meat? I'm thinking here of the sheep you keep occasionally. I'm going to investigate how much meat a pig yields - now I need to find a butcher to talk to. Goodness, this MF journey certainly spans multiple topics :rotfl:We tend to buy 10 -15 lambs at a time and send them off at 4mthly intervals. We have a ready market for the joints so whatever we offer we can sell. Our last batch we wanted for ourselves (3 sheep - they were 2 by the time they went to slaughter so no longer lambs) so they all went in the freezer.
A pig yields so much meat you wouldn't believe - I reckon when we do pigs we will sell whatever we have as people love free range pork.

More questions to come - I have the same amount of land and its split into sections, which would enable me to have a poultry area, my fruit and veg, then around a 2.5 acre field for something else.

The fruit and veg area needs a lot of work, although the trees are well established now, the whole area needs more work but as we are not there it is tended twice a week on average. We will definitely be picking fruit and veg 12 months of the year once we move:) Make sure your pigs do not have access to your fruit trees as they will strip the bark and ruin the tree.

I'm looking at some courses for us to consider - as we are planning ahead here, we have time on our side to learn and explore.Do you have a smallholding group near you? It's a shame you are not in Suffolk as I am a member of one and they run some amazing courses and also visits to other holdings to talk about animals and fruit/veg etc.
Membership is usually really cheap - £10 - £20 per year whereas professional courses are probably £30 per head.

Best wishes Tilly x x

Sorry I went on a bit there.


Happy to answer any other questions.

Eager_Elephant

Poppy_Golightly wrote: »

I've thought about a smallholding too. I couldn't raise any animal to be slaughtered as I am an animal lover and vegetarian. So I would probably keep sheep for wool. Knitting is big business these days and British wool is making a well deserved comeback. I know they would all end up with names too . I also suppose I'd have to learn sheep shearing as well!

Also free range chickens for eggs.

I am also an animal lover and I was vegetarian for 19 years.
I became vegetarian when I was 11 and did a school project on animal cruelty. By my late twenties (and living with DH)we had chickens for eggs and DH decided to branch out into Turkeys so we did.
After a few years I thought about eating my Turkeys as my animal cruelty argument did not wash. We hatch all our own turkeys and we kill them ourselves so we know where they have been all their lives and there is no cruelty involved. So I started eating Turkey.
Then when we got lambs I ate them as well, the people we buy from are reputable breeders and treat their animals well. So again I knew from birth to death that they had a good life so was able to eat them.


I do not eat any other meat, I won't eat meat from another smallholding even though the likelihood is that it has been well treated. I actually tell people I am vegetarian as it is easier than explaining all the above.


We only have rare breed Turkeys so we are actually helping to increase the population by keeping a breeding stock and also encouraging people to buy free-range of our breed means we they grow in popularity and the breed continues.
We also only have rare breed lambs/sheep.


You won't need many sheep to get your wool from - one sheep produces so much wool it will last ages:rotfl:

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS

I'm in a mega rush to get out of the house so will read posts later but THANK YOU Eager Elephant

Tilly x x

Karmacat

Eager_Elephant wrote: »

I am also an animal lover and I was vegetarian for 19 years.
I became vegetarian when I was 11 and did a school project on animal cruelty. By my late twenties (and living with DH)we had chickens for eggs and DH decided to branch out into Turkeys so we did.
After a few years I thought about eating my Turkeys as my animal cruelty argument did not wash. We hatch all our own turkeys and we kill them ourselves so we know where they have been all their lives and there is no cruelty involved. So I started eating Turkey.
Then when we got lambs I ate them as well, the people we buy from are reputable breeders and treat their animals well. So again I knew from birth to death that they had a good life so was able to eat them.


I do not eat any other meat, I won't eat meat from another smallholding even though the likelihood is that it has been well treated. I actually tell people I am vegetarian as it is easier than explaining all the above.

Elephant, I'm one of the veggies, and I'm just posting to say I *totally* agree with where you're coming from. I don't think I'll go back to eating meat the way things stand at the moment in the world, but if the economy imploded for some reason, I'd have no problems keeping meat animals and eating them.

We only have rare breed Turkeys so we are actually helping to increase the population by keeping a breeding stock and also encouraging people to buy free-range of our breed means we they grow in popularity and the breed continues.
We also only have rare breed lambs/sheep.

Small scale smallholdings like yours are really important for that, its a great service you're doing to the ecology.

You won't need many sheep to get your wool from - one sheep produces so much wool it will last ages:rotfl:

I didn't know that! I bought a spinning stick and weight earlier this year, I don't see me using it often, but it was too beautiful to resist

Eager_Elephant

Karmacat wrote: »

Elephant, I'm one of the veggies, and I'm just posting to say I *totally* agree with where you're coming from. I don't think I'll go back to eating meat the way things stand at the moment in the world, but if the economy imploded for some reason, I'd have no problems keeping meat animals and eating them.

I know we are very lucky to have some land where we can grow our own animals, plus my children have learnt where meat comes from. DD didn't eat turkey for a few years when she saw how they were killed, plucked and gutted. She eventually came round and realised how well treated our animals are and how tasty the meat is compared to supermarket meat (even their free-range is not what I personally class as free range - I tell people mine are super free-range :rotfl:)

Small scale smallholdings like yours are really important for that, its a great service you're doing to the ecology.

Thank you - I try to do my bit.

I didn't know that! I bought a spinning stick and weight earlier this year, I don't see me using it often, but it was too beautiful to resist

We don't shear our lambs as we don't have them long enough to need to but other members of my smallholding group do shear and turn the fleece in to wool. It is mesmerising to watch them with their spinning wheels doing it all. A small amount goes a long way.


See if you can find a smallholding group to buy a fleece - fleece are not worth much at the moment. One of my fellow members told me last year that they can get £5 for a fleece from a manufacturer but the cost of postage is much more so not worth it.
We often have stalls at shows and we sell fleece's for £5 to people who make their own wool.


Plus the lanolin in the wool is the best hand cream ever - all the people I know who make their own wool have lovely hands :rotfl:

Alchemilla

Another veggie here.
Would love a smallholding but it would be full of gee gees.

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS

My feet have hardly touched the floor this weekend and the same goes for this week, and the coming weekend. Thankfully, apart from the weekend, it's all either free or low priced.

I've loved reading about small holdings and Mr T and I will take some time over Christmas to walk around our land 'oooh get me' and have a think about what we could do.

Regardless of any other plans, our house in the UK, will be going up for sale in the Spring next year.

I'll catch up with everyone diaries over the next few weeks but if I disappear for a couple of weeks, no need for a search party - in the words of Schwarzenegger "I'll be back"

Tilly x x x

Goldiegirl

Ooh, so you've reached a decision on the downsizing.

All your planning will start to come to fruition:j

greent

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS wrote: »

Regardless of any other plans, our house in the UK, will be going up for sale in the Spring next year.


Tilly x x x

How exciting!!


Don't wear yourself out too much in the run up to Christmas xx

Watty1

Loving the small holding advice. And off to look for a small holders group near me