Hello from (ye olde) England

[Nat(wasIxy)]

Sorry I should have introduced myself before posting maybe!?

I’m 22, female, and rent some land where I do all kinds of livestocky things with sheep, cattle, chickens, geese, ducks, turkeys – you name it! I ave my own ‘livestock services’ business, at the moment I’m on a long calf-rearing contract but I want to branch out to milking, shearing, lambing, foot trimming etc etc.

At the moment I have two oxen, a simmentalXfriesian – Angus – and a brown swiss – Boeing – (inseperable but poorly matched so not worked as a team!) and am due a herefordXdairy heifer, a dairy shorthorn bull (third ox hopefully), some herdwick lambs and a bunch of soay and boreray rams, and some water buffalo. also got various poultry on the go.

I’m attempting to do the joel salatin style grassfed system – I like that a lot – and the oxen turn out to be pretty handy for it – you have your lead animals to move the herd with, they can tow water troughs on wheels and with the right implements, move large bales around. 😎 I’m not interested in being a historical re-enactment, I just think they arevery appropriate for the modern smallholding…peak oil worries me. I worked with horses for 13yrs but would never go back since working oxen, it’s so much more relaxed with an ox…

[Carl Russell]

Welcome Ixy. Glad to know something about you. Sounds like you’ve got a good start. Please post some more details about your current and future farming enterprise. We like to know that animal power is futuristic, not just historic.

Oil is Over, Carl

[sanhestar]

Hello,

welcome to this forum. Where are you located in England?

[Rick H.]

Best of luck to you. It is great that you have a good vision for your life at a young age. Stick with it, I’m sure it’ll be a great journey.

[Nat(wasIxy)]

@sanhestar 8791 wrote:

Hello,

welcome to this forum. Where are you located in England?

at the moment, lincolnshire, although by the end of the year I hope to move to my partner’s farm in yorkshire 😀 just want to make use of the summer grass down here first 😉

as for farming methods – for me its all about making as few big investments as possible – no machinery and massive buildings…get the cattle to feed and water themselves, get other animals and organisms to sort out pests and pasture maintenance = I have no work to do 😀

Using electric fencing I move (or try to) the cattle/buffalo onto fresh pasture every day so they leave their droppings and worms behind. They skim off the lush grass, then i follow them with sheep which neaten it up and then follow with chickens and turkeys which scratch and spread the droppings and eat any parasites they find. I’m also hatching a plot to build swallow and swift housing to encourage them to hunt flies and midges around the cattle. This should cut down on the wormers and fly repellents i need to buy.

I’m also finding this makes much better use of the grass than just letting them run across one big field – that way you get overgrazed and undergrazed patches, and weeds – this way every scrap is eaten and weeds dont get a chance!

[Nat(wasIxy)]

ahh i love it up there – dont know about all the gates though, we’ve had cattle grids for years now so you must have been somewhere REALLY out of the way! roads are narrow but hey, sheep can’t graze tarmac! 😀

[Nat(wasIxy)]

ah Dent yes, i know it very well – beautiful…still not sure about the gate thing though!

[Author]

Posts