8 | SMALLHOLDING

MEET THE SMALLHOLDER

INCREASING YOUR LIVESTOCKMeet Jack Smellie who is excited about building her first mini-flock of sheep

We are smallholders because we love the life, we love eating our own food and we are passionate

about developing really positive relationships with the animals we keep.”

First tip: ALWAYS take advantage of the animal’s natural behaviour. Herding chickens is extremely hard because chickens are not ‘herd’ animals, herding sheep on the other hand is very easy because sheep naturally flock - if there is a straggler at the back, always give her a chance to ‘catch-up’ rather than trying to ‘herd’ one individual animal!!

First up: sheep! We moved with two sheep and their lambs, two alpacas, four goats, forty-four assorted poultry, six dogs and two cats and as we opened the gates and allowed them onto our very grassy ten-acre holding, they, like us, could not believe their luck!!! We moved last July – the most perfect time of year to take on a new holding!

Having been ’slightly’ overstocked previously, we were now in the amazing position of ‘needing’ to buy more stock to keep on top of all our lush grass – this

being a major reason for the move!!! Cows were definitely on the list –

although as ‘newbies’ LOTS of research and visits were needed here - so sheep felt the ‘safer’ option to start with. Why sheep at all? Well, they are fabulous grazers, easy to bucket-train (some breeds more than others), the meat is great, they provide both wool and fleeces, require little in the way of housing and in our experience, they have very few health problems. Plus we like sheep!! They do make wonderful pets, some have fabulous characters and when treated well, are very easy to handle.

The wonderful Badger Face For six years we have had the pleasure of Mrs Brown and Mrs White, two Badger Face ewes (one is a Torwen

Moving from a one-acre moorland smallholding in Cornwall to a lush ten acres in the North Devon countryside, has given Jack Smellie and David Chidgey the chance to increase both the numbers of livestock they keep as well as the types! In this new series Jack describes how she and David have chosen their new livestock and are learning to manage the ‘larger’ numbers, alongside applying lessons and experience from previous years!!

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[white belly] and the other a Torddu [black belly] - the names ‘were’ meant to be temporary!!) who have reliably given us twins each year and are wondrously tame and delightfully healthy. It would have been easy just to buy more Badger Face but with so many breeds out there and the space to have more than one breed, we decided we would explore a few more options. In the delightful world of ‘social media’ (!!), all it needed was a posting on the fabulous Devon Smallholders’ Facebook page – within hours we were inundated with suggestions and offers!!

With our two faithful Badger Face already in situ, it was important that if we were going to buy in another breed, that the two would be compatible. We weren’t necessarily interested in

running two separate flocks with all the implications of fencing, rotating pasture, housing (for lambing), breeding etc. Rather we wanted one flock that we may or may not have separate rams for, but for most, if not all of the year, could live together. By compatible we meant similar size (for possibly sharing a ram) and similar(ish) behaviour.

Badger Face are essentially quiet, friendly, easy to lamb, good mothers, pretty hardy and produce small but fabulous tasting joints. Typical weights for ewes are 40-55kg (our two girls are 55kg and 58kg).

We gained some valuable advice from various friends and fellow smallholders as to how to make a choice: ‘go for what you like the look of’ being the most popular words of wisdom - not as daft as it sounds!

From two to a mini-flock We ended up choosing Shetlands (Jack liked the look of these) and Whiteface Dartmoors (David’s choice), three of each. The Shetlands are in so many ways very similar to the Badger Face, smaller (ewes are typically 40kg) but just as pretty, and as with the Badger Face, easy to lamb and naturally very friendly. Whiteface Dartmoors are a similar size to the Badger Face, very hardy but perhaps not quite so naturally biddable and easy going.

Now sheep, unlike goats, are very accepting of new animals joining their flock, usually a quick sniff and that’s it, heads are then back down, eating away. (If only our dairy goats had accepted our new Boers as easily... but that’s another story.) However, what was particularly interesting was that our new Shetlands �

Badger Face lambs

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MEET THE SMALLHOLDER

merged with our Badger Face girls (and their lambs), the Dartmoors took themselves off to the bottom of our six-acre field and kept themselves very much to themselves. Now, we cannot possibly draw any firm conclusions from this but suffice it to say that we ended up moving the Dartmoor ladies on and buying in another three Shetlands. We now have a VERY happy, united flock of ten: the eight ewes and Mrs Brown’s two lambs that we chose to keep.

Handling and Moving Before we moved the Dartmoors on we tried our hand at a sheep race and collecting pen, made from the fabulously versatile sheep hurdle (would you believe we had acquired 81 on our one acre back in Cornwall!!). The Dartmoors had arrived ‘bucket-trained’ (they weren’t) and so a rattle of the bucket was not quite cutting the biscuit for them. Our success (eventual) with the race and collecting pen was as a result of firstly training the Dartmoors what the bucket meant, and then always having Jack or David ‘at the back’ (the sheepdog) in case they looked like they might want to break rank, turn tail and run away from the pen! We were in essence using a mixture of ‘follow me I have food’ and ‘hey you’re a sheep so time to flock’. The pen was set up in a corner and used to feed them in and then the race looked like it was leading them back out into the open field. The secret always is to design your pen and race such that the sheep think that by moving forward they are going to get a treat (food), or are going to be able to escape the annoying

person behind them who is making them move forward in the first place.

Now we have our mini flock of just Shetlands and Badger Face, we simply rattle a bucket and within seconds we can have all ten in the field shelter, barn or collecting area and penned in as required. We prefer to move our sheep with feed like this. It feels kinder and less stressful for us and for them. The other advantage to animals being bucket-trained is that if we need to examine an individual animal in the field, a handful of feed on the ground or in a trugg can act as a fabulous distraction, giving us enough time to then get hold of the sheep and examine whatever it is we need to examine

This makes the whole process super quick and a great alternative to having to get the whole flock in/rounded up just to look at one of them.

Tupping, Winter Care and Health We bought in a Shetland ram when we purchased the second set of three girls (despite wanting to run just one flock, we are keen to breed ‘pure’ so it’s Shetland this year and maybe a Badger Face next) . ‘Muntjac’ was remarkably Badger Faced in his looks (he was actually a Grey Katmoget) and he set to work very quickly and very successfully. We have had no ‘returns’ and all our sheep are in lamb.

As lambing now gets under way, we hope all the winter care has been good enough to produce a bumper crop of happy healthy lambs. All the sheep have been vaccinated against Clostridial diseases and Pasteurella and we have regularly checked body conditions. We do give some concentrates and we have also had an energy block available so that we know the sheep are getting enough protein to help produce the milk they need. Hay, as with all our stock, has been available ad-lib although it is interesting to note that even in the dark winter months, grass will still have a higher nutritional value than hay, simply by virtue of it being a living plant. Grass will continue to grow in the winter and only if the temperature falls below 5 degrees, will it stop. If you have a hayrack in your field, as we do, it is advisable to move it every few days otherwise you can kill off the grass underneath. We rake up the spilt hay for the same reason. Grass that turns brown under your hayracks

Lamorna one of our very pretty

Badger Face X Beltex lambs

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after just a few days (due to lack of light) becomes dormant but will grow again in the spring. Just before lambing starts, we perform faecal egg counts. Adult sheep should be fairly immune to worm burdens but in late pregnancy, immune systems can weaken, resulting in the small number of worms the ewe naturally carries laying a lot more eggs. A check just before lambing is thus important but crucially, if the ewes are out on grass, this should NOT be the same grass that they get turned out into AFTER lambing. This is because it will potentially be full of eggs/worms just waiting to be picked up by the 3-4 week old lambs as they start to graze. In our case, our sheep have spent the winter in

the cow field so any eggs they do expel, will be consumed by the grazing cows (who are totally unaffected by them). We highly recommend the SCOPS website for worming advice but will say loud and clear here: Never worm your sheep without doing an egg count as at best it may be unnecessary and at worst it can cause mass resistance to any worms that are present.

All ready for Lambing We lamb inside, so the first job is to give the bare earth floor a generous dusting of lime to help kill off any nasty bacteria and then hose down and disinfect the gates and hurdles, before fluffing up several bales of dry, golden straw.

When it was just our two Badger Faces we became quite relaxed about checking them (they just got on with it year on year). Now with nine sheep to lamb, seven of whom are new to us and five of whom are shearlings, we are back to two/three hourly checking. The lambing box is primed and ready (colostrum, bottles + teats, gloves, naval spray, lube, thermometer, feeding tube), the vet’s number is in the phones, the straw and hay supplies are still full!!! It is all very exciting!!!!

Read Jack’s daily blog at www.relaxedathome.org.uk where you can also find livestock for sale and details of their ‘Relaxed’ smallholding courses.

Skerry the Shetland enjoying the September sun Mrs White sitting pretty on a frosty November morning