If a paddock is not correctly managed or maintained throughout the year, then general wear and tear, which can easily be repaired when kept on top of, can become a larger issue which then requires more extensive treatment.

Daily use from livestock and adverse weather conditions can take their toll on your paddock, leading it to become an unsuitable environment for horses and other animals.

To allow you to keep your paddock in tip-top shape, experts MC Country Services have the following advice.

Harrowing and Rolling

Harrowing should be carried out in the spring and helps to remove dead grass, weeds and bugs – such as worm eggs – which may be present in the ground. This allows fresh growth to manifest and encourages new roots to develop – essential processes for a health paddock. This procedure allows air and sunlight to reach the roots, thus allowing the soil to breathe and improving water infiltration. With the sunlight improving overall ground health, bacteria should be greatly reduced following harrowing.

The ground should be rolled after harrowing to ensure that it is level and improve the rate at which grass becomes established once again. Rolling helps to prevent water from collecting in the hollows made from harrowing. When rolling, the ground should be firm so that compaction is avoided as this is known to limit grass growth.

Soil Analysis

Every two to four years, the soil pH and nutrient levels should be tested in your paddock. This should be conducted in late winter and will assess the quality of the graze that you have, and indicate whether your soil structure and composition is beneficial to your livestock’s wellbeing. Well-maintained soil will provide good grass quality which holds a high level of protein, energy and other nutrients which your animals require.

A sample should be taken from around six inches below the surface, and should be mixed together with samples from across the land so that an overview of the paddock health can be gauged. The ground should be free from droppings and urine when a sample is taken, as this could affect the end result.

Ideally, you should have a soil pH of between 5 and 6.5, which is rich in nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium – essential nutrients for your land and livestock.

Fertilisation

To ensure that a nutrient-rich sward is provided for livestock, fertiliser can greatly improve the grass and ensure that a healthy paddock is maintained. However, not all fertiliser is suitable for all land, and therefore you should seek expert advice on which one you should use in order to avoid causing harm to your livestock and land.

For example, the UK is home to three types of grass, which each require unique fertilisers as they hold different characteristics which have varying needs.

Once a soil pH test has been carried out, a slow-release fertiliser should be applied, as this will disperse nutrients over a longer period, allowing your paddock to benefit long-term.

Reseeding

Between March and September, reseeding should be carried out to improve damaged paddocks. Carrying this process out in the months mentioned, will ensure that there is a good amount of moisture already present in the soil, allowing the seeds to have a greater impact.

Due to the different grass types found in the UK and across the world, grasses may require a range of seed types, therefore advice should be sought. Ryegrass is a seed variety which is widely used as it produces seed easily, with grass and clover seed one of the best mixes for livestock as it provides a good nutrient base.

Spraying and Topping

Weeds are one of the most dangerous threats that your land can face, as they can cause serious harm to livestock in some instances. Spraying is one of the most effective ways to manage weeds, and will ensure that they do not become uncontrollable. Herbicides should be sprayed by a qualified PA1, PA2 and PA6 professional at a time when weeds are actively growing in order for the effect to be maximised.

There is a debate surrounding whether land should be topped or sprayed first, however each has its plus points. For example, if you are unable to see weed growth, then topping is essential so that you can assess whether spraying needs to be carried out. On the other hand, if weeds are present or have turned to seed, then spraying should be carried out before topping. Take care to allow time for the herbicide to penetrate the roots, as topping soon after will remove the herbicide.

Paddock maintenance is a year-round process, and prevention is far better than cure, so ensuring that you stay on top of land management tasks should be a priority so that both your land and livestock remain health and secure.

It is now early November and as luck would have it, by far the most logical point to begin a series of articles on the sheep keeper’s year. The lambs born in the Spring will have now been separated from their mothers and will either have been sold off the farm or at least be grazing in a part of it well away from the ewes. The flock owner will be considering next year’s breeding programme and having to decide which ewes to keep for another year – which, unfortunately, can leave you with some pretty tough decisions to make. But a word of encouragement here; as pretty much everyone who reads this article will be keeping sheep as a hobby (not a profit source – anyone who thinks keeping a small number of sheep is going to contribute in a major way to their income is either being wildly over optimistic or is far more savvy than I am) you can always just pension off your old favourites, keep them well out of the way of the ram and let them enjoy a long and peaceful retirement. Chances are that without the burden of rearing a couple of lambs every year the old crone will take on a new lease of life anyway. I have to admit this is what I have done in the past with some of mine.

Stock selection

When it comes to selecting breeding stock better to have a few good ones that are likely to be trouble free than a larger number that are of doubtful quality. Learn how to check the teeth and the udder and find out about condition scoring, which is not quite as complicated as it sounds. Basically a sheep that is nothing but skin and bone scores one on a scale of one to six and a sheep that is hideously obese scores six. Unsurprisingly, your ewes should score somewhere round about three (told you it was easy!). As the sheep is usually covered in a thick fleece, you cannot readily see how they are going to score on this system, so you will have to feel them along the spine, pelvis and ribs.

Don’t breed from a sheep that has prolapsed, or one that has rejected her lambs unless you want the same problem again next year.

If you are doing things in a conventional way, there will be something like five months between the date your ewes were shorn and the introduction of the ram, which gives plenty of time for the fleece to grow. To make copulation between the sheep easier and more hygienic it is common practice to clip away the fleece from round the ewes rear end a short while before the ram is introduced. If a sheep’s dung is wet and runny it does not take much effort to imagine what its rear end can finish up looking like and if this happens on any sheep of any category, it should for reasons of hygiene be cut off as soon as possible. As I have said before, not every job you get called upon to do as a shepherd will be as much fun as bottle feeding baby lambs, but if you are going to keep your animals in a responsible way this is one of the jobs you will have to be prepared to tackle.

In shepherd’s jargon this task is commonly known as either dagging or crutching and although I don’t actually know of any, I am sure there are other less well known terms in use in the more remote parts of the British Isles.

‘Crutching’ or ‘dagging’ a ewe to increase the chances of conception and keep her clean

Just like shearing, you can call in a professional with all his equipment to do it for you and just like shearing they will, understandably, be prepared to do it only for a pretty hefty call out fee. So your best bet is to buy yourself a little pair of dagging shears, learn how to use a carpenter’s type oil stone to get them razor sharp, put on your oldest clothes and spend a pleasant couple of hours clipping away. Oh, and it’s probably a good idea to have soap, a bucket of water and a nail brush handy for when you finish, because the rest of the family are unlikely to appreciate you cleaning yourself up in the bathroom afterwards.

Clockwise from top left: dagging shears, raddle, foot shears (the orange pair are the older style and the green ones are a bit more modern), leg crook, neck crook and nut bowl

Introducing the ram

One ram should be all you need for up to forty ewes, so the ram alone is not a large part of the total cost of the flock. However, your ram is as they say, ‘half the flock’, meaning that 50% of the genetic make up of any lambs born will come from the father. So even if some of your ewes are from rather indifferent stock you can go a long way towards improving matters by shelling out some serious cash for a decent ram.

It should be obvious that it is not good practice to mate animals that are closely related and by the end of their second summer ewe lambs will be ready to breed, therefore, if you do want to breed from them you are going to have to change your ram every two years to avoid matings between father and daughters.

If you bought your ram when he was a youngster and you have used him for two seasons he will still have quite a few good years left in him, so if he is a purebred, you ought to be able to sell him on to someone else and if this is your plan then advertise him EARLY in the tupping season because nobody will be interested in him at the end!

You can use any breed of ram on any breed of ewe and get lambs. In fact, commercial flock owners will most frequently cross breed their sheep, with the result that there are probably more cross bred sheep in Britain than there are pure bred ones. Mind you, they definitely don’t do this in a random sort of way! Hill farmers who’s situation compels them to keep small tough breeds of ewes such as Swaledale, Welsh mountain or Scottish Blackface, that can cope with these harsh conditions, will get a few extra pounds for their lambs by using a ram from one of the bigger and more prolific breeds of sheep, which these days is usually a Blueface Leicester. The ram lambs from these matings will just go for meat of course, but the ewe lambs can be sold on to commercial breeders in the lowlands and the South, who will then mate them to rams from one of the specialised ‘meaty’ breeds,such as a Hampshire Down, Suffolk or Texel in order to get the lambs that will be most appreciated by the butcher and therefore sell at the highest price.

The harsh reality is that ewes in a commercial flock will probably only last five or six years before being sold on for pet food, so anyone who keeps cross bred ewes will have to go to market or more probably a sheep fair every Autumn to buy in whatever replacements are needed. If you are keeping a pure bred flock then you can breed your own replacement ewes and just change the ram periodically as already discussed. I know which I would sooner do.

Doing the buisness

Most flock owners and pretty much all the other texts on sheep breeding that are in print will make it sound like getting ewes in lamb is really difficult: after weaning they need to be reduced on poor grass, flushed on something better, some folk even going as far as to buy concentrates for this purpose, then you need a teaser ram and finally your stud ram will have to have his feet carefully checked and maybe he too will have to be fed a special diet.

If you are breeding sheep for a living you will be working on a very tight margin and will have to use every trick in the book to maximise your lamb crop, but as a hobby farmer your lambing percentage as it is known, will probably be of less importance to you and on a small acreage you may find it difficult to organise the appropriate grazing anyway, but don’t worry, you will almost certainly still get your ewes in lamb without reducing, flushing or teasing as long as they are fit and healthy.

Although I have never kept more than about a dozen ewes at any one time, frankly in all the years I have been doing it, I have only ever had one ewe that failed to get herself pregnant in the first three weeks of the ram being introduced. So chances are that you will have the same result with your little flock and, in fact, you are probably more likely to find that weeks ahead of schedule, your ram has got so impatient that he has jumped a couple of fences during the night and got himself into the ewes field and gone straight to work. If you read my previous article, you may remember I urged all new flock owners to start off their career with some really sound fences; this is just one of the reasons!

Be very careful about keeping two rams together, especially in the breeding season. If you have never seen two rams having a serious fight, I can tell you it is quite something to behold. They start off nose to nose in what seems like a friendly enough way, then while carefully maintaining eye contact each will take the same number of steps backwards, put their heads down and simultaneously charge, meeting head on with a loud and sickening thud. If you don’t separate them it is quite possible they will go on repeating this little exercise until one of them dies. When this does happen it is usually due to spinal injuries, the skull seems pretty well indestructible. Its easy to see where the battering ram gets its name from.

It is very useful to know exactly when or even if your sheep are going to lamb, and the simplest way to get a good idea of this is to ‘raddle’ your ram just before he goes into the field with the ewes. This means simply that you put some coloured marker substance on the rams chest so that when he mates with a ewe he will leave behind a mark on her rump. The modern way of doing this is to put him into a nylon harness that has a marker crayon attached to it. If you are a total beginner, don’t get confused here; you can get things which look like oversized children’s crayons which are referred to as stock markers and you can also get cans of coloured aerosol which also go by this name; neither of these is the same as the square blocks called crayons that you use in a raddle harness and they are not the same as raddle powder.

This last mentioned item is the traditional way of going about the job and you do it by mixing up raddle powder and vegetable oil and smearing it onto the ram’s chest either by hand or with a wooden spatula of some kind. If you are going to do it by hand at least wear a glove, and in either case wear some old clothes and mix it up quite stiff, don’t have it on the thin side or it will go all over the place and, as it is designed to be a long lasting coloured marker, will be quite hard to remove. Finally, whichever method you use, for your own safety, apply the raddle before the ram can see the ewes. Don’t try putting it on him at the last minute when you are standing at the gate into the ewes field, because he will probably be getting quite excited by then and could either butt you in the face or knock you over in his eagerness to get started.

Main pic and above: Applying raddle in a traditional way with a spatula

If you have ever done any painting you will know that a dark colour covers up a light one far more effectively than a light colour covers up a dark one. So, say you decide to use three different colour raddles it’s probably best to use yellow red and blue and to put them on your ram in that order, changing the colour every two weeks. Ewes will only mate when they are in season which is about every seventeen days, and obviously do not come into season again once they are pregnant.

Now your common sense and knowledge of worldly matters should tell you here that, if you go out one morning soon after the ram has gone in and see a yellow mark on your ewe’s rump, she could well be pregnant; if after you have moved on to red raddle a red mark appears on her then she was not impregnated when the ram left his yellow mark on her and, of course, if in time a blue mark appears on her she was not made pregnant at the time the red mark was put on her either. Again it’s a matter of common sense that if you have a lot of ewes and most get a yellow mark but never go on to get the other colours then they were impregnated the first time round, and both ram and ewes are functioning as they should.

If you have just one ewe that goes on to collect the full set of colours, she might be having a good time but she is probably infertile. If all or most of your ewes go through the full set of colours it’s more likely that the fault is with your ram, and of course by the time this sad truth dawns on you, your breeding program for the next year is irretrievably several weeks behind schedule.

147 days to go and counting….

As long as you don’t mind the possibility of a protracted lambing period you can leave the ram in with the ewes until you start feeding concentrates to them. There are two reasons why you need to remove the ram at this point. The first is that ewe nuts contain a high concentration of minerals which are great for pregnant animals but will give male sheep bladder stones if consumed in large quantities; the second is that rams are greedy and inconsiderate blighters, and at feeding time will butt the poor old pregnant ewes in the stomach in order to get them out of the way.

The gestation period of a ewe is 147 days and in my experience they never vary much more than about a day over or under this period. If you have used the raddle method suggested you can at least predict the lambing date to within two weeks , but if you have a small flock of pet sheep that you know by name you might want to be more accurate and make entries in your diary for next year along the lines of :- 28 March ‘Flossy due today’. It’s what I do and find that it helps as you can keep an eye on the relevant animal and are more likely to be aware of any problem developing. But whatever record keeping system you decide to use, you now have just a few months to get ready for the biggest event of the shepherd’s year: LAMBING!!

There are plenty of books and magazine articles which regurgitate information about breeding, feeding, lambing and sheep ailments in a clear, accurate and factual way, maybe far better than I could, but here I have tried a different approach and explain the basics that I have gained from first hand experience – warts and all.

It makes me cringe when I hear people say in a flippant way that they want to keep a few sheep to save having to mow the paddock. There is a lot you need to know to avoid mistakes that can lead to an unpleasant experience for both sheep and owner. Every sheep farmer will have a few disasters in their career and no doubt you will too, but set out below are three little rules I hope will at least minimise their occurrence.

Starting with Sheep; My Three Golden Rules

I am strongly tempted here to add a fourth rule which is ‘Don’t give up the day job’. Despite what you may have read in magazines or seen on TV, no one is going to move out of the city, buy a piece of land a fraction of the size of a commercial farm and live off it. If anyone appears to be making a cosy living keeping a handful of sheep spinning the wool, dyeing it in blackberry juice and then knitting it into garments to sell at the local market there is something they are hiding.

OK, I know I sound cynical, but I’m sixty seven years old and this is only what experience has taught me. I have lived in the country and worked outside in one capacity or another all my life, have been happy doing it and believe many other people would be too. All I am saying is keep a grip on reality.

Rule 1 – Get some experience first
This is definitely the most important of my three rules, even if you choose to ignore the other two, please, please, follow this one!

I read somewhere, I think it was in one of John Seymour’s books, that anyone contemplating keeping sheep for the first time should get themselves a sheep Guru, an experienced shepherd who can mentor them through their early years with sheep. This is a great piece of advice; and if you can find someone like this, who really has a lot of experience and is prepared to mentor you, then you have struck gold. However, you are much more likely to finish up with the opposite, i.e. someone who knows bugger all about sheep but claims to know the lot, plus a load of clever dodges and miraculous home remedies that no one else has even heard of and who just likes an appreciative audience. As the old Taoist philosophers of ancient China used to say, ‘Those who speak do not know. Those who know do not speak’.

What I would strongly recommend is that, before buying any sheep of your own, you spend whatever time you can working with or for someone who keeps sheep in a proper way and preferably on quite a large scale and very definitely get some experience of lambing. Because if you don’t and your pet sheep that you reared on the bottle, gets complications delivering her first lamb at 2am you will wish with all your heart that you had. A book or DVD, however good, just isn’t enough!!

Whether or not you manage to get a sheep guru on hand you will definitely need to establish a contact with a vet who is prepared to come out to you when needed and also a knacker who will take away any animals that die on the farm as it is illegal to bury them!

Rule 2 – Buy good quality stock
This will save you time, money and heartache. Don’t be tempted to acquire old, unhealthy or ‘rescue sheep’ until you have had masses of experience and really know what you are doing. I know of people who have started a flock by buying orphan lambs and bottle rearing them in the belief that their adult sheep will then be nice and tame, and so they probably will, so tame in fact that when they are fully grown they will come charging down the field towards you expecting to be fed and knock you or your visitor flat on your back. Likewise avoid bidding for stuff in a market. This really is the preserve of the expert and is at best a hit and miss affair.

Good Quality stock from a reputable source will pay dividends in the long run

Keep whatever breed takes your fancy, but try to get them from the breeder of a pedigree flock where you can see where they come from, how they are kept, and what you are buying. There is an old farming saying that goes ‘Good stock will make a man. Bad stock will ruin a man’. If you can bear to do so, just ignore the anachronistic sexism inherent in this little homily and just go with the underlying principle and you will find that it holds as good today as it ever did. You will almost certainly get what you pay for and the best will be the cheapest in the long run.

Rule 3 – Build really good fences
If sheep can get out they will; and they are most likely to do it at the most inconvenient time. Lambs will get out because they are curious and playful, newly arrived sheep will get out because they want to go back to where they came from, and rams in the mating season will go to extreme lengths to get out in order to find partners. So before your sheep arrive try to get someone who knows a bit about it to check your fences and do any work that needs doing. Unless you are an experienced fencer or competent DIYer I urge you to dig into your bank account and hire a professional. It is hard physical work, and there are several pieces of fairly expensive kit that you will need in order to do a good job. If you are hell bent on doing it yourself then at least buy a copy of Andy Radfords ‘Guide To Stock Fencing’ – study it thoroughly and follow it closely.

Glossary

Okay, as I said, this article is aimed at complete novices so I am going to start with some sheep farming vocabulary.

EWE – Adult female sheep, pronounced so as to rhyme with new. Sometimes pronounced ‘yo’ in the South West to rhyme with ‘go’ and in parts of Northern England pronounced ‘yow’ to rhyme with cow.

EWE LAMB – female sheep under a year old

GIMMER – female sheep over a year old that has not yet been mated and given birth

RAM (or tupp if you are in Norther Britain) – male sheep

RAM LAMB – male sheep under a year old

WETHER – castrated male sheep

HOGG – sheep over a year old but less than two years, I think though this definition can vary from one region to another.

CRONE – very old ewe

CULL(a verb) – to dispense with live animals that are no longer worth keeping.

WEAN(a verb) – to separate mother and offspring

Feeding

A sheep’s nutritional requirements will vary throughout the year, and will be at their highest during late pregnancy and lactation.

For most of the year they will get all they need to eat from a field of grass. They will need some hay to supplement diet from roughly Xmas to Easter (obviously a bit of common sense needed here, though) and ewes in late pregnancy and those that have recently lambed will need a bit of additional food in the form of ewe nuts. Most flock owners start this supplementary feeding about six weeks before the ewe is due to lamb. You can put this food in a trough but if your animals are outside you can just spread it out on a clean bit of grass. Don’t worry about wastage, the sheep love this food and will sniff around until they find every last piece. Start off with a very small amount each day and build up the ration gradually ; two pound per day per animal is reckoned to be about the maximum safe amount. If there is no decent grass around by the time the ewe lambs you will have to carry on feeding her. Producing milk for her lambs is even more of a demand on her system than the pregnancy.

Ewes will need additional nutrition when they are feeding lambs

Breeding

There is something like forty different breeds of British sheep.
Dorset sheep are the only British sheep that will give birth at any time of year. All other breeds will only do so in the spring, although in practice the definition of spring can be stretched pretty much from New Years Day to the Summer solstice. Unless you have a clear reason for doing otherwise though, it is best to aim to have your lambs born in April or early May. The worst of the winter weather will be gone and the grass that is just beginning to grow will be full of protein and will enable the ewes that eat it to produce plenty of milk.

The ram does not normally run with the ewes all the time and is just put in the field with them during the time you want him to get them pregnant. One ram will normally be all you need to impregnate up to forty ewes.

The pregnancy period of a ewe is a hundred and forty seven days.So, if you want lambs born in April you will have to get your ewes mated in November. It is exactly a hundred and forty seven days from Bonfire night to April Fool’s Day and you can use this convenient fact to calculate the date on which a ewe is due to give birth. It is customary to cover the rams chest in a coloured dye known as raddle. The modern way is to put the ram in a leather harness with a wax crayon on it, the old fashioned way is to just mix up some raddle powder with cooking oil and apply it with a brush so that when the ram jumps onto the ewes back to mate he then leaves a coloured mark there. If you know when your ewe mates with the ram you can work out when she will lamb.

A ewe lamb born in the spring will be about six or seven months old when mating comes around and will be too young to breed from and will have to be kept out of the breeding group for another year. However, a ram lamb born in the spring will be ready for action at six months if not before and this is one of the reasons for castrating any male sheep you don’t want to breed from. This is normally done by placing a rubber ring over the scrotum and, by law, must not be done after the animal is a week old.

Lambing

I cannot possibly say all that needs to be said about lambing in the space of this article and what follows is just the briefest of summaries. Lambing, for most people is the most thrilling and satisfying part of sheep keeping. It is also the most important and demanding part and if it goes wrong, the most distressing!!

Read all the books you can find on the subject and by all means go on a course at your local agricultural college, but there is no substitute for the real thing and nothing will teach you as much as working with a professional shepherd at lambing time in a large flock. Make sure you know how to deal with prolapses, breach births, and large lambs that have to be pulled out. You can also get clued up on treating lambs with hyperthermia and fostering orphan lambs, although I have kept sheep for fifteen years and have never had the need or the opportunity to do either.

However, I have had a ewe that gave birth to quads and we had to supplement the ewes milk with bottle fed formula. I have also had to restrain a ewe still while her lamb suckled from her because she had totally rejected it.

Most people have the impression that ewes nearly always give birth at night and, in fact, a lot do, but in my experience they can give birth at any time of the day or night and in my little flock, if there is a peak period, it is probably early afternoon.

If you have used the raddle as previously described you will know when your ewe is due to lamb and they are very rarely more than about one day late.

When she is starting her labour the ewe will usually wander off on her own to a quiet spot and if all goes well expel her lamb or lambs with very little fuss. After a few minutes the lambs usually struggle to their feet, stumble around for a few minutes more and then after a few failed attempts find the ewes teat and begin to suckle.

You can take a chance and just let the ewes give birth out in the field, but if something goes wrong it is much better to have them in a confined space in a building of some kind and preferably with some decent lights. Most sheep farmers will divide up their shed space into a number of cubicles known as lambing pens with each one just big enough for one ewe and her lambs.

You can try getting the ewe into one of these pens before she lambs but I found that with my sheep this seemed to distress them and leave them very agitated, so during the day I let them graze in a small paddock and at night I confine them to an open yard next to the lambing pens and let them drop their first lamb outside. I then pick up the lamb and carry it into the pen. As long as the ewe can see the lamb the whole time she will follow you in no problem. If she loses sight of the lamb, she will probably get confused, panic and go back to the spot where she gave birth to look for it.

Most of my ewes have twins and there is usually about a half hour interval between their arrival, so that should give you time to get her into the pen before the second one arrives. Once she has her lambs the ewe will be quite happy to stay there in the pen for at least twenty four hours while the lambs build up their strength.

One little fact that none of the books seem to mention is that giving birth seems to make a sheep madly thirsty and once the lambs have been safely delivered you should give the ewe a bucket of clean water. She will nearly always drink most of it in about thirty seconds.

The newborn lamb will have the remains of the umbilical cord hanging from its navel and you should bathe this in an iodine solution as soon as possible to prevent infection.

As I said, there just isn’t the space here to tell all that you need to know and lambing, probably more than any other aspect of sheep husbandry, is the bit you need to get right, so please get some training!

Shearing

Domestic sheep have been bred for several thousand years to produce an abundance of wool that has to be sheared off them every summer. The only British sheep that this does not apply to are Soays and Wiltshire horns who don’t grow much fleece and just shed it naturally. The fleeces used to be a significant amount of the flock’s annual sales figure but these days they are worth very little. You still have to have your sheep shorn though.

You can shear sheep with hand clippers costing about twenty quid, but most folk will find it too hard going and call in a professional shearer with all the modern gear. For a small flock this is usually unpleasantly expensive but you have to do it. Shearing might seem romantic and I and many others find it fascinating to watch, but it is bloody hard work and the guys who do it will earn their money. Most professional shearers, incidentally, make Ross Poldark look like a wimp.

Some commercial sheep farmers house their animals for the winter and will have them shorn so they don’t take up so much room in the pen, but normally shearing will take place in the early summer. The exact date will depend on the breed, the area of the country, the weather and the shearers work load. Lambs are not shorn, so a sheep born in spring will be just over a year old when it is first sheared. Regardless of gender it is then known as a shearling. When, in the following year, it is shorn again it becomes known as a two shear and so on.

Sheep Ailments

Like lambing, this is a vast topic that I cannot hope to cover fully and is like gardening, probably something you continue learning about all your life.

I think it is fair to say, though, that the vast majority of sheep ailments centre around newborn lambs and pregnant or lactating ewes; so, if for any reason you decide to keep sheep but not breed from them, you will be far less likely to encounter a problem.

There are any number of illnesses that could suddenly appear in your sheep and so for this reason you should look at all your animals at least once a day.

Believe it or not, someone asked me once if a sheep would come and tell you if it felt ill. Trust me, they don’t! they are far more likely to sneak off away from the rest of the flock and hide in the hedge. So for this reason, count your flock every day to make sure they are all there and quickly run your eye over each animal and if it is looking in anyway unusual then catch it and investigate.

This is when you will need a handling pen of some sort. You can make a portable one out of metal hurdles or you can build a sort of Wild West style coral out of scrap timber but, contrary to what TV programme makers would have you believe, you will never catch a sheep by chasing it round a large field, even if trying to do so does make good viewing.

Next you will have to get your animal into the pen. Sheep hate being separated from the rest of the flock so it is probably easier to get them all in one bunch and push the lot in. There are three possible ways to do this:

Firstly you could enlist the help of friends and neighbours and form a cordon to drive them in – this can work but there is a real hazard of the sheep trying to break out and knocking over one of the helpers as they do so, probably the smallest one.

Secondly you could buy a trained sheep dog; this would work but it will cost you to get a good one and unless you are an experienced dog handler your dog will gradually pick up bad habits and finish up nothing like as good as it was when you bought it and being a bit of a disappointment.

The best option I can think of for most newcomers and small timers is to get your sheep trained to come into the pen to be fed. This is not the same as bottle rearing an orphan. All you do is buy a bag of sheep nuts and every day when you check your flock put a very small quantity of said nuts into a metal bowl, go out into the field and rattle it and then sprinkle the nuts on the floor, after a few days of this the sheep will all come running when they hear the ‘Nut Bowl’, and at this point you can start sprinkling the nuts nearer and nearer to the entrance to the pen and then each day get them a bit further inside it. As they say learning is reinforced by repetition.

My sheep can hear me opening a plastic feed sack from a hundred yards away and will all come running up to the gate!

As I have already said, I cannot discuss all the ailments a sheep could possibly get. That would be enough material for a large book. All I have space to say here is that there are three routine preventative medicinal treatments that every responsible sheep owner should carry out.

The first is to inject all your pregnant ewes with Heptavac, which will protect the young lambs from a number of disease.

The second is to treat your sheep for stomach worms and there are nearly as many schools of thought on this subject as there are flock owners. I dose all my sheep orally with a product called cydectin. The ewes get it soon after lambing, the lambs when they are six weeks old and then they all get another dose in the Autumn. Our local vet seems to favour doing a worm egg count taken from sheep’s stool samples and then prescribing treatment accordingly.

The third thing you must do is treat your sheep with a fly strike preventative.

Any time from Spring through to late Autumn green bottle flies may decide to lay their eggs on a sheep. For some reason, lots of flies tend to hit on one particular animal. When the eggs hatch out into maggots they will eat the sheep alive. And yes, the reality of this is every bit as horrible as it sounds ! The only good news is that it is almost completely preventable by spraying your animals with products known either as Click or Crovect. One spraying will give cover for about five weeks and newly shorn animals won’t need spraying for at least a month ; so two or three spraying a year is all you need.

If a sheep does get ‘struck’ as they say, you must move quickly. The first signs are likely to be repeated swishing of the tail or maybe frantic biting or rubbing, later it will look dejected and miserable and it may try to hide away somewhere.

There is likely to be at least one dark stained patch of fleece where the maggots are and if you can get close enough you will notice a distinctive foul smell get it into the handling pen, use dagging shears or kitchen scissors and cut off the fleece in the affected area as close to the skin as you can. Scrape off all the maggots with the back of the shears or whatever and examine the sheep all over really thoroughly and pick off every maggot you find. Finally, give the animal a spray with Crovect and check it again after a few hours. It’s not a pleasant job or one that you can do in five minutes, but it’s the reality of keeping sheep so if you are not prepared for both good and bad aspects a shepherd’s life may not be for you.

So when, at the end of last year a friend asked me if I would go with her on a 20 week Beekeeping Course, I jumped at the opportunity. Having a hive of my own one day was high on my lifetime “tick box” list.

We started the course in January (the cost was £125), 10 weeks theory and 10 weeks practical, at a local apiary. The introductory course was for people of all ages to find out more and help decide if beekeeping was for them. The course is held every year in my local area and run by a division of Surrey Beekeepers Association, a part of the British Beekeepers Association and is one of 26 county beekeeping associations around the country. The course included learning about all the different types of bees, types of beehives and bee equipment, bee anatomy, bees and plants, colony management, bee diseases, swarming, queen raising and hive manipulations and honey – hive to jar. Plenty of notes were given (as well as even tea and cake!). We also received monthly copies of BeeCraft magazine.

Each week we found ourselves listening to our speaker, mouths dropping in amazement at all the amazing interesting facts about these incredible species some of which are included throughout this article. Needless to say we loved it.

Interesting fact no.1: Honeybees don’t see flower colours as we see them, their vision is on a different wavelength – towards the ultra-violet end of the spectrum. Bees seem to have a preference for flowers that to us are blue/purple/reddish-purple/mauve.

After the 10 week theory was complete it was time to get hands on. This started on a Saturday morning in April (which is the beginning of the honeybee season) at a local apiary where we were split into 4 groups, each on a different hive. We were provided with bee suits each session, but were advised to wear loose fitting trousers, wellies and beekeeping gloves or kitchen gloves. Unfortunately the spring/early summer was slow starting this year, cold and wet, which made opening up the hives difficult as the temperature should be at least 15 degrees C. There wasn’t so much early on for them to forage for either. Gradually as the weeks progressed the weather improved and we were able to observe the queen in each hive, eggs and larvae, young bees emerging from their cells, and honeybees returning to their hive with their little pollen baskets full of pollen. It was a very satisfying sight.

Interesting fact no. 2: Foraging honeybees need to visit 5 million flowers to produce 600 g of honey. They forage a 4 to 5 km radius from the hive in search of food.

During the 10 weeks of practical we had learned how to do a full hive inspection, monitor for signs of swarming and disease, how to keep weekly records, raising queens, assembling frames, transferring bees and swarm collection.

Some of my colleagues on the course were taking over hives from other people or were various stages of ordering bees, hives etc. I chose not to start anything until I had finished the course and felt more confident.

As soon as the course finished I was very keen to get started so went ahead and ordered my hive from a company called E.H. Thorne, who have a wide range of hives and accessories (there are many other companies stocking equipment too). I ordered a “budget” bee kit, which consisted of hive, frames with wax, hive tool, bee suit, gloves and honey bucket.

Left to right: box containing wax scrapings, hive tool for opening hive, leather gloves, bee brush, for helping gently removing bees from frames whilst inspecting and lastly a magnifying glass to help check for eggs

In the middle of June I was lucky enough to find a nucleus of bees from a local lady who was splitting her hives and reducing the numbers ready to move house. A nucleus consists of 5 or 6 frames of bees with a marked queen (easier to find!). She also gave me a frame of honey to give them enough food to get started. That cost me £100, but you can pay up to £150. I also joined the British Beekeepers Association which will give you advice and public liability insurance.
There are no legal restrictions on keeping bees in Britain, but local by-laws may affect certain urban areas. Some local authorities allow you to keep bees on allotments, some don’t, so it’s best to check. If you don’t have room in your own garden, local farmers or garden centres often have space for a few hives on their spare land for a small fee. Placing a hive in your own garden needs careful consideration.

I had made sure I talked to my neighbours before starting, and luckily they were all interested and encouraging. You would need to place your hive away from neighbours pathways and drives, facing towards the south-east with easy access, dappled sunlight and minimal wind.

Bees fly up and away as they leave the hive. After they’re 5 metres from the hive they’re way above head level. You can keep bees just about anywhere, you don’t need a great deal of space, nor do you need to have a garden full of flowers. They will happily travel for miles to forage for what they need. There are hundreds of hives in cities placed on top of high buildings.

Transferring my new bees to the hive was easy, I collected the nuc of bees in the evening and placed them on top of my prepared hive, and early in the morning inserted the frames into their new home. Before long they were off foraging. It is also necessary to have a water supply nearby. I’m not lucky enough to have a gentle flowing stream cutting through the garden, but have a couple of bird baths and I also placed a shallow ceramic dish nearby with pretty marbles of different sizes in, enabling the bees to stand and drink without falling in!

Interesting fact no. 3: The Queen honeybee is the largest bee in the colony and the only one with fully developed ovaries. She is an egg-laying machine capable of producing 1,500 eggs in one day!

Looking for the queen, larvae and eggs in the brood box

Gradually during my weekly inspections I could see my colony growing larger and busier. Pollen of various shades were being collected and nectar placed in the cells in the super (this is the part of the hive which collects the surplus honey). There were plenty of larvae found each week, although spotting the eggs was always much harder. The queen was doing a great job! I did unfortunately get one bee sting eventually. My fault, I hadn’t worn thick enough trousers as advised. Generally the bees are very calm as long as you don’t spend too long on inspection.

Interesting fact no.4: Foraging honeybees can perform a “waggle dance” on returning to the hive to share information with the other bees about the direction and distance of a source of nectar and pollen.

The end of August is the end of the honey season and time to harvest any surplus honey, leaving plenty in the hive to feed the bees during the winter. Luckily for me a very experienced member of our local association invited people who had been on the course to witness extracting his honey. There are plenty of beekeepers out there who are happy to help and advise. It’s now the beginning of September so I will be doing this for the first time this coming week.

If you are interested in keeping honeybees yourself I would recommend getting as much information as possible beforehand going on a course, researching costs, watching YouTube videos and talking to other local beekeepers where possible – there are almost certainly more than you think. I have found that getting away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life and spending time inspecting and watching your honeybees returning to the hive and the gentle murmur of the bees very relaxing and calming.

I’m not sure how much honey I’ll be able to harvest in this, my first year, but they do say that even if you get just a couple of jars, honey from your very own bees is the best tasting. Wish me luck!

The 85th National Honey Show in 27-29th Oct 2016 at Sandown Racecourse, Esher, Surrey where people can buy all sorts of honey, see honey and hive products, beecraft lectures and more. The 2015 lectures show on YouTube channel

Lead image: Checking for honey in the ‘supers’

Herefords, with their red coats and distinctive white faces, are perhaps one of the most recognisable breeds of cattle in the world. They originated, as you might have deduced, in the county of Herefordshire in the mid-1700s and the herd book was established 1878 with queen Victoria as the patron.

Supremely adaptable, the Hereford can be found all over the world in climates ranging from the extreme Russian cold to the hot, arid regions of the Middle-East and Africa. The breed is renowned for its ability to produce a premium, naturally marbled, meat from grass, hay and haylage. It continues to excel as modern organic and economic systems develop and with its reputation for easy calving too it’s no wonder that the beef industry has adopted the Hereford so widely.

Cattle, even relatively compact, low maintenance breeds such as the Hereford, remain a step too far for many smallholders primarily because of the amount of land they require and the cost of feed – especially if they need additional rations during the winter. At around an acre per animal, demands are high. Some also believe that the additional paperwork involved in keeping cattle is a deciding factor although those that do generally dismiss this as insignificant?

Herefords are great mothers and here is a standard cow with her tiny mini offspring

But what if there was an animal that had all the advantages of the large breed in a more compact and a manageable package? Of course the Dexter has been fulfilling this niche for some time and is a breed steadily growing in popularity. However, there is now an alternative that widens the options for smallholders and makes small-scale cattle husbandry a much more viable proposition.

From the land of excess…

At the start of the 1970s, when most breeders were trying to increase the size of their stock, a pioneering selective breeding programme in Fort Davis, Texas, produced a mini variety of the omniscient Hereford. The Largent family had seen a preference for smaller animals developing among both commercial and hobby keepers and by breeding the smallest examples eventually arrived at a miniature version of the large breed – with pedigree still perfectly intact. These diminutive facsimiles have all the same desirable characteristics in an animal less than 50 percent the size.

After 1989, when breeding stock became available, mini Herefords became more widespread in the U.S., Canada and Australia.  Now, thanks to an implantation programme developed by Malcolm Gough and his wife Lesley at Chater Valley Farm, the opportunity to own them in the UK has become a reality.

The story starts about 6 years ago when the Goughs bought their 40 acre holding. They had no previous farming experience but knew they had to find a niche to make the relatively small amount of land pay. “We initially stocked rare breed pigs Saddlebacks, Large Blacks, Oxford Sandy & Blacks, Gloucester Old Spots and our favourite, Mangalitsas”. Malcolm explains. “In our first couple of years we had about eight sows and 2-3 boars, which at peak meant we had something like 120 pigs/piglets on site. Our timing was awful – the price of pork halved just as it seemed the price of pig feed doubled.”

Then, by chance, Malcolm read an article in The Times about the miniature Herefords and the niche they had been looking for became clear – could they stock some of the smallest animals on the smallest farm in Rutland, the smallest county in England.

Initial problems with the programme

Enquiries in Australia and the U.S. encountered problems with the various authorities not being able to agree on a common set of guidelines concerning health and disease control issues when importing the cattle. However, further investigation revealed that you could quarantine them in Canada and then, at the point that they had become Canadian animals, import them directly to the UK. Progress. While looking at the practicalities of this the Goughs were fortunate enough to find a Canadian breeder of Mini Herefords and eventually managed to kick start their breeding programme when she agreed to sell them embryos that could be implanted into surrogates here. Although they could have been implanted into any breed they decided on full size Herefords as “…it seemed the natural thing to do. Herefords were already well known for their quiet disposition and excellent parenting skills and were also of a size that the tiny calf could still suckle” Malcolm explains.

They brought an initial herd of 10 maiden pedigree heifers from the now dispersed Wrights herd in Cambridgeshire. “We realised early on that we needed stock with a proven health status as we wanted our foundation herd to be ‘clean’ and that included the surrogates. This risk also vindicated our choice to go down the embryo route as the health regulations around embryo flushing are very strict, not least when exporting to the EU.” 

“We have implanted once a year (7-10 embryos), and sometimes twice on the same heifer if the first embryo didn’t take. There seems to be some disagreement as to whether you should always use maiden heifers as the surrogate mums. We have re-implanted several of our standard cows but I’d say the success ratio is definitely falling. The best ratio we have achieved was seven from nine in one year; the worst was a miserable two from 14.”

Small wonders

They now have a natural breeding programme running alongside the embryo implantation with Challenger, born on March 13th 2013, being the first UK naturally calved miniature Hereford.

Challenger as a newborn being carried by Malcolm…..

…and at six months old

Five years and a steep learning curve on they have now bred 19 of the miniatures (10 bulls and nine heifers)from 40 implants.

Malcolm is keen to establish the pure miniature variety in this country but there has also been lots of interest in crossing them with other breeds with examples of Highland, Belted, Angus and most popularly Dexter – which produces and more predictable and beefier animal – crosses already roaming the fields.

Crossing the mini Hereford with a Dexter produces an animal with a meatier carcass…

…and this is just cute as hell!

“We originally didn’t want to sell our bulls for others to cross-breed but it’s been a very expensive process and selling the bulls has helped to offset the costs. We have tended to let the bulls go to people who would like to breed the mini Herefords in the future which will help maintain a viable gene pool.”

So can smallholders really keep cattle?

The figures really seem to stack up for small-scale keepers with the miniatures consuming 40% less food but still producing up to 60% (by weight) of the prime cuts. They will generally consume only a third the intake of their larger cousins over winter too so pasture, hay and haylage requirements are all reduced considerably. Saving are also made due to the fact that the breed matures early with a to slaughter age range of between 12-18 months. In general you can expect to keep up to three times as many per acre – with less damage to land and yards – making them much more viable for the small-scale keeper.

Hereford beef is a premium product with natural marbling and great colour with high Omega-3 fatty acid content – all of which are attributed to the grass based diet. It is also considered to have a longer shelf life making Hereford beef a unique and desirable product that should be easily marketable – especially where smaller cuts are required.

You might be wondering if you could milk them making them dual purpose? Well they are traditionally a beef breed and will perform best when kept in this context but there is certainly no reason that you couldn’t if you can find a bucket small enough to go under them.

Without anything for scale they still look sizable beasts but this impressive looking bull is less than half the size of a standard Hereford

Chater Valley Farm currently has mini Hereford bulls for sale as well as semen for insemination. In addition they have also flushed embryos from their own stock with which they have already supplied to a breeder in Norway. Purchasers of bulls will be given priority when heifers become available – something they expect to achieve in around 2-3 years time.

By combining a Tamworth – one of our least diluted British breeds – and a wild boar he produced a pig that had many of the characteristics of early domesticated animals from the Iron Age period.

It is purely a cross meaning it will not consistently breed true if two Iron Age animals are bred together. In fact in many cases the domestic traits disappear entirely in as few as three generations as the wild genetics dominate.

The main benefit of the breed is that you can produce the distinctive gamey pork without the need for a dangerous animal licence – with all the added work that that involves – required for true wild boar.

They can be kept in exactly the same way as other domestic varieties with two or three animals living happily on a suitable half acre of land with a simple ark for shelter. The land is best divided so you can rotate in bad weather to avoid areas becoming too damaged.

Having wild genes they are very tenacious and, even more than other breeds, are well known as escapologists. For this reason your fencing needs to be in excellent order. Good quality, well maintained, stock fencing should do the job but it would be good advice to add a strand or two of barbed wire at low level to discourage them from rooting at the base and disappearing underneath. Piglets are small so present additional problems as they can get through very small gaps.

Iron Age pigs are slower growing than many more modern breeds and tend to be lean and leggy so they can take as long as 18 months to reach slaughter weight with 8-9 months being a minimum. This is worth bearing in mind as boars are sexually active quite early (4-5 months) when other breeds would be due for processing meaning difficult male behaviour will be fully developed well before they are ready for slaughter. Females are generally docile.

They are perfectly happy on standard pig rations and considering their heritage don’t forage or root as much as some breeds. They are quite hairy and this could be the reason that they aren’t so keen on the rain, or indeed wallowing, although you should still provide an area for the latter as they will dip their hind quarters readily. However they do love a good sunbathing session. Generally they are a hardy breed quite capable of living outside all year long.

Iron age piglets can be ginger, black or striped

Piglets, which may be ginger, black or striped (as wild boarlets are) are cute and feisty however, our suggestion would be to buy in weaners at 6-8 weeks to grow on for their well regarded and gamey pork meat.

Many thanks to Kati Dalgleish (@kati_tamworths) for her help with this article

Man has been involved with honey bees for as long as recorded history. Cave paintings exist in Spain of men harvesting honey from trees that are dated to 15,000 years ago as the ice sheets retreated from Europe. In Egyptian tombs pictograms can be found clearly showing managed beekeeping at least 4,500 years ago. Apiaries are mentioned in the Doomsday Book as an important part of any parish and at that time beekeepers were freemen out of the feudal system.

Beekeeping, up until the middle of the 19th century, used a container made of clay or straw of the correct size to house the bees. This was colonised either naturally by a swarm or by having a collected swarm put into it. At the end of the season the honey and wax were collected by destroying some or all of the combs produced by the bees.

However, in the middle of the 19th century discoveries were made that radically changed beekeeping forever. The simple discovery that if a space of between 6mm and 9mm (called bee space) was left the bees would neither seal it up with a gum like material (called propolis) or try to use the space by building comb across it. Consequently, this discovery led to the design of hives in which the combs could be housed and moved for inspection and is the basis of all modern hive design.
Modern moveable frame hives are by far the most common type of hive used for managed honey bee colonies. There are some design differences and if starting the best advice is to use the hives most commonly used in your area as these will be the easiest and cheapest to obtain. In the UK this is most likely to be the Modified National Hive, a design that was fixed around 1920 and has worked well ever since.

A modified national design hive

Modern hives all consist of a series of boxes containing frames together with a floor, a roof and a few other parts. The main colony is kept in a large box usually at the bottom of the hive and the Queen is kept in this box by a slotted Queen excluder. Additional boxes are placed on top as extra space is required to store honey and some of these are removed at the end of the season, after clearing the bees, to provide the honey crop.

How to Start Beekeeping

Beekeeping is like any other form of livestock management, the colony of bees needs good housing, to be of sound stock, disease free and well fed. Good husbandry requires a sound understanding of bees, their behaviour and their everyday requriements.

In most cases the best way to start beekeeping is to join a local Beekeeping Association who will have beginners’ classes (often early in the year) and will probably have a training apiary where you can gain some experience and meet local beekeepers before committing to the craft. In most cases the only expense will be joining the Association as they will have protective gear to loan and will have bees and experienced beekeepers that will demonstrate and allow the intending beekeepers to handle colonies under supervision. The normal advice is to see one season through in the training apiary before spending a lot of money establishing your own. The Association may deal in new or second hand equipment and will be a good source of local bees for stocking your hive when you decide to start your own colony.

The larger queen can been seen here with the blue dot on her back

Once committed the expense is not insignificant. A budget hive with all parts will cost around £150 and the minimum amount of necessary equipment (a beesuit, smoker, hive tool etc) will add another £100 or so. Bees can cost in excess of £200 from a commercial supplier but will probably be much cheaper from an association and in some years a swarm may even be free if you help a beekeeper collect it.

A good beekeeping book to accompany your training serves as a handy reference tool as you learn the craft.

Other things to consider

An apiary can be located anywhere as long as it is not creating a public nuisance. However, it is sensible to locate a hive where there is sufficient forage for the bees and it does not impact on the general public or neighbours. Many beekeepers keep one or two hives in the back garden or on allotments. Your local association may also have details of people with large gardens who would like to have a hive two but have them managed by a beekeeper. Many farmers are also more than happy to have a few hives on their land especially if they grow flowering arable crops such as oil seed rape or field beans.

There is no legal restriction or requirement to register. There is a voluntary registration scheme run by the National Bee Unit called Beebase which provides a large amount of free information and is the organisation that manages notifiable bee diseases. Through its inspectorate they will notify and check any hives in areas close to disease and this is currently a free service.

On going colony management

Once you know what you are doing management of a colony will take around 30 minutes a week during the period from April to October, in the winter months little time is required.

On going inspections are required April through to September to check for swarming developments, where up to one half of the colony and the existing queen may be lost, and for disease. Bees have many diseases and pests from very minor, needing no treatment, to some very contagious ones that are notifiable and have to be dealt with by the Bee Inspectorate.

In most cases the honey is taken off in the autumn and possibly in late spring if oil seed rape is prevalent in the area. With modern hives this is done by removing the surplus honey in the boxes at the top of the hive and removing the honey from the frames in a centrifugal extractor (these are expensive but most associations have some available for loan for new beekeepers). In a good year a well maintained hive can yield 10kg or more of honey.

A frame containing honey

A colony of bees may not be able to collect sufficient food for the winter in bad years – such as the recent very wet summer – and may need additional feeding. This is normally carried out in August or September, with extra food sometimes needed in the spring too.

The sting in the tail

There are some cons which you should be aware of with the most obvious being that you will occasionally get stung. This will happen more often when you are learning but is inevitable at times throughout your beekeeping career.

You may have to change soaps, shampoos, washing powder, hair products etc. as the perfumes used in some of these are closely related to bee alarm pheromone which will annoy them greatly.

There will be some heavy manual work involved. In the course of inspection the boxes of the hive are lifted off and, if full of honey, these may weigh over 15 kg. Many beekeepers find benefit in working together for this reason.

Your DIY skills will also be tested as most equipment is sold in the flat pack form and may need intricate assembly.

Conclusion

Beekeeping is a wonderful and fascinating craft open to all but as with all crafts it takes time and perseverance to get proficient. It is constantly changing with the seasons and all aspects of beekeeping have to be looked at as part of nature’s cycle during the year which is never the same twice.

Early on most time is spent building up experience – only really achievable through practical work – and this is best done in conjunction with an experienced beekeeper either at a local association or other established apiary.

As with all livestock husbandry education and experience is key to providing the best environment for the bees and most fulfilling experience for yourself. More information is available from the websites listed below.

Further information

British Beekeepers Association for information and contact details of local associations
National Bee Unit for information and contact with the Bee Inspectorate
A major supplier is Thornes whose on line store will give an idea of the range of equipment available and prices. There are many other suppliers.

Keeping your livestock in or out

Some animals are hardier than others but a large proportion of our popular and native breeds will cope with the cold well but that doesn’t mean they like it. Given the choice of standing in a soggy field in the cold and pouring rain or being in a nice dry shed with fresh bedding and a few friends to share body heat with I think we know what they are going to choose. Not everyone has the option of a huge amount of barn space but you should certainly have made provision to help your animals cope with inclement weather before introducing them to your land. If you expect to be keeping them outside all, or the vast majority of, the year, then this starts with your choice of animal. They must be designed to deal with all that mother nature can throw at them, as she inevitably will and many of our native breeds fit the bill well. These breeds often also fare well on poor quality grazing so may be able to utilise pasture that you might not usually consider suitable. It’s far from exhaustive but we have listed some particularly hardy breeds below

Pigs – try these traditional and rare breeds
British Lop
Welsh
Gloucester Old Spot
Welsh

Cattle
Shetland
Belted Galloway
Irish Moiled
Longhorn

Sheep – many sheep breeds are hardy and capable of surviving on sparse grazing. Longwools may struggle in overly wet conditions
Manx Loaghtan
Balwen Welsh Mountain
Shetland
Kerry Hill
Portland

Goats will generally be fine if the weather is cold and the ground firm but most hate getting wet so you should provide indoor accommodation with adjoining hardstanding for times of prolonged wet conditions.

A sturdy field shelter (natural or man made) with the opening facing away from the prevailing wind is essential to offer some respite from freezing wind and driving rain. The potential for animals to injure themselves on slippery ground is hugely increased so areas of hardstanding are also useful for when it gets particularly muddy in the fields. Hardstanding surrounding a sty, shed or barn gives them the option to stretch their legs while they are off the field. If possible position feed stations on hardstanding too as these will be places the animals congregate regularly and a grassy area will quickly become badly poached.

If you intend to keep your animals on pasture all year you should have enough land to rotate them both in the summer and winter months as this can help control the build up of parasites and protect the land from damage. Badly poached land can cause standing water to build up or conversely flow off and cause flooding. It can also make it considerably less fertile and productive when the next growing season starts, providing less nutrients for your animals with the potential knock on effect of higher feed bills.

Standing around in soggy pasture is also going to take its toll on your animals’ feet, some are more resilient to foot rot than others but constant exposure to damp, muddy conditions will eventually cause problems for everything that isn’t in wellies.

Animals such as pigs which would normally be clean and mess away from their shelter may be tempted to soil uncharacteristically when faced with hostile weather so housing will need to be checked more regularly and cleaned where necessary.

Simply put if you have the option to bring them in during particularly inclement spells then you probably should. If not, try to make the field as comfortable and practical as possible for them and yourself.

Feeding

From October onwards grass will become considerably less nutritious so over the winter you must consider how you will provide the correct balance of nutrients. Feed costs inevitably rise in winter as more fodder is brought in in the form of pelleted feeds (concentrates), hay, silage and haylage. Observe your animals regularly as this will be the best indication of condition and requirements. Milk production, pregnancy, age, size and housing conditions will all affect the amount of food an individual animal requires. As always, all animals will require access to clean water with some consuming a considerable amount. It goes without saying that you should keep water in a sheltered, easy to reach location. If it must remain outside or anywhere it is likely to freeze make sure you check it regularly. Also if you live in a remote area and are likely to be cut off in heavy snow or rain then it is important that you have plenty of feed in stock to tide you over. If you are keeping your animals inside make sure their food is dispensed from a feeder that discourages waste such as a hay rack.

Goats
Goat are more browsers than grazers but when forage ceases to provide enough goodness then goats will require more in the way of concentrates, Alfa A or its equivalent and hay. Additional concentrates should be introduced gradually over a period of a couple of weeks to maintenance level which could be as much as 1kg per day. As always, females in kid require normal feeding throughout the gestation period, increasing during the last six weeks before giving birth and during lactation. For non-producing goats such as wethers, pet females and elderly animals much depends on observation by the keeper, as metabolic rate varies. Feed at maintenance levels throughout the winter and if any animal appears to be putting on too much weight, then decrease the food intake accordingly. In other words, at all times ‘feed according to need’.

Pigs
Generally pigs fare well on a sow and weaner meal and grass pellets over winter and it’s only if it turns very cold that they require an increase in protein content. If you have any spare root vegetables in the ground or stored these will always be welcome additional treats

Cows
Cows are expensive to keep at the best of times and consume an enormous amount of food so estimating exactly how much you need over the winter is vital. Depending on breed and quality of your hay they can consume between 1.5% and 2.5% of body weight a day which is a huge amount over the winter period even if you have just one or two animals.

• Freedom from hunger and thirst – by ready access to fresh water and a diet to maintain full health and vigour
• Freedom from discomfort – by providing an appropriate environment including shelter and a comfortable resting area
• Freedom from pain, injury or disease – by prevention or rapid diagnosis and treatment
• Freedom to express normal behaviour – by providing sufficient space, proper facilities and company of the animal’s own kind
• Freedom from fear and distress – by ensuring conditions and treatment which avoid mental suffering

All of these are essentially common sense and should have been considered even before bringing animals on to your land but how would you react if any of your animals became unexpectedly or seriously ill?

It is always good advice, when taking on animals for the first time, to gain some knowledge about their specific needs with regards to nutrition, environment and health routine and you will find courses available all over the country covering the full range of livestock types so it shouldn’t be hard to track down some suitable training.

Apply the five freedoms in relation to your breed choice and you are well on the way to giving them the best chance of a healthy existence. Animals are creatures of habit so it is vital to observe their usual behaviour and routines as this can be the best indication of when something is wrong. Learn how to spot and deal with occurrences of the most common ailments and this will stand you in good stead.

Keeping your animals happy and healthy is a commitment and having a suitable vet on hand is an important part of that

However, there will always be times when, though sheer misfortune or factors outside your control, your animals will need the attention of a professional veterinarian. For this reason alone one of the first things I would always impress on perspective keepers is to make sure there is a vet in the area with the specific experience you require. You might be surprised how few farm vets are available locally so you need to consider how quickly you can get to, or call out, help in an emergency.

All practices will approach smallholders differently. Some will lump you in with the large commercial farm on their books whereas others will bear in mind the specific needs of small-scale keepers. The difference is where larger farms will be able to afford annual health and vaccination programmes due to their size smallholders will not usually be in a position to do so and this is where it pays to do your research.

Try to find a vet that is happy to teach you how to perform routine maintenance tasks such as foot trimming, drenching or administering injections and one that is happy to give advice over the phone. Anything that may help you diagnose a potential problem quickly and efficiently can save time, money and unnecessary suffering. A good vet will also be able to advise on any health routines and vaccinations that should be administered in order to maintain health in your herd or flock.

Choose the right breed

While there is no substitute for good husbandry there are also certain varieties of all livestock that are genetically more robust or resilient to disease. Do your research and perhaps select animals with these characteristics. Generalisations like – and this is only broadly speaking – ducks are more resilient than chickens and goats more than sheep are worth bearing in mind, but even within types there will be breeds that are more hardy than others.

So what are you likely to encounter?

Pigs, goats and poultry are the most popular livestock for smallholders although small flocks of sheep or herds of camelids are also becoming more popular. There are many, many diseases, infections and parasites that can affect you animals so I asked Lauren Hammond of Hammond Vets in Hertfordshire which she encountered most often.

For all animals attention should be paid to ensuring we can control or manage the diseases we can do something about. One of the most common problems in livestock is parasitism/worms and we should make every effort to avoid a build up of intestinal worms. Regular faecal testing to assess worm egg counts is recommended and then a decision can be made on what is the most appropriate treatment or management procedure to implement e.g. changing to clean pasture whilst resting another. The only worms not detected in faecal samples are tapeworms and the risk and management of these should be discussed with your vet for each individual case.

Faecal testing helps to determine the the best action for worm management in your livestock

Pigs
Heat Stress, lameness, pyrexia (which can be a symptom of many diseases) and respiratory disorders are most common but they can also be subject to mastitis, salt poisoning (due to lack of water), parvo virus and erysipelas as well as a number of notifiable diseases. Small numbers of weaners raised for pork means are a relatively short term project (four to five months) and this will obviously reduce the risk of any disease or infection occurring

Sheep and Goats
General maintenance includes worming, foot trimming and vaccination for clostridial disease (tetanus, pulpy kidney and lamb dysentery) as a minimum along with regular checks for external parasites. You should also be vigilant for flystrike and any general change in demeanour of your animals that could indicate illness. I have met farmers who have told me – not entirely in jest – that it is practically impossible to keep sheep alive but small numbers of the right breed are fairly easily managed and problems spotted early can often be dealt with effectively.

Poultry
The main problem you will encounter with poultry, and chickens in particular, is red mite. These little pests live in the cracks and under the felt of your poultry houses and come out at night to feast on your birds’ blood. They can be difficult to shift but diatomaceous earth – a powder made from tiny prehistoric creatures – works well as a first line of defence. This can be spread liberally around the housing and/or dusted carefully directly onto the birds. There are many other preparatory remedies you can buy off the shelf but you may also consider alternatives to the traditional wooden coop, such as plastic, which tends to be less attractive to mites and is easier to clean in the case of infestation. The use of shredded paper instead of wood shavings as litter may also help reduce incidence. In cases of persistent or heavy infestation you vet may be able to suggest an alternative plan of action.

There are, unfortunately, many other potential health problems associated with the various types of poultry. Respiratory diseases, crop problems and worms are common complaints but good husbandry and good veterinary advice will go a long way in keeping your poultry healthy. However, be prepared that should your birds be unlucky enough to contract a serious and fast propagating disease then, especially with large flocks, often the only recourse is to cull.

If breeders are producing lots of birds they may vaccinate against the main diseases but this is only cost effective in large numbers so check when buying your stock as often this cannot be done when the birds are older.

Cattle
Although cattle are not the number one livestock for smallholders, there are several breeds that make it possible for small herds to be kept on modest amounts of land. Cattle are subject to routine government testing for bovine TB at varying time intervals depending on the disease risk in your area. You should check the testing timetable and visit the DEFRA website for practical suggestions on reducing risk prior to embarking on setting up a new herd. Also, with cattle it is sensible to invest in good handling equipment i.e. a crush or suitable race system (of which there are varying types to suit all budgets) so that maintenance and veterinary procedures may be carried out safely. Cattle are resilient animals but do require appropriate feeding along with routine worming and foot trimming as a minimum.

Investing in handling equipment makes performing procedures like this blood test simple and safe

Insurance Policies

You might be surprised to learn that insurance policies for farm animals are generally restricted to cases of mortality caused by specified circumstances and will not usually cover animals for routine vets fees where connected with call out charges, diagnosis or treatment. Some offer limited cover of this type but this can be subject to conditions and expensive vaccination programmes themselves. As far as I am aware there are no ‘pet’ type insurance policies that cover farm animals – even if they are kept as pets – although I would be happy to hear from anyone who does offer such a policy.

If your livestock are pets or you are a breeder and your stock is of considerable value then the cost of veterinary diagnosis and treatment, especially if it becomes lengthy, may well be something you have factored in and accept as an unavoidable expense however, the fact is that, if you are running a small commercial concern, then you will also have to consider the best course of action for your business and this, in some cases, may well include euthanising a sick animal.

In summary

Veterinary treatment can be expensive, it is after all private medical care for animals, and it’s easy to underestimate the costs of even routine maintenance so it is wise to talk to other local keepers, and your local veterinary practices, to get an idea of costs. These will vary wildly for call out, diagnosis and treatment across the country so local knowledge is indispensable in these circumstances. Find a practice that understands the needs of both your animals and your business, one that will teach you the skills and confidence to undertake the more routine tasks yourself and one that prices itself sensibly (even if they are not the cheapest) and you will have found a valuable asset indeed.

Hammond Vets is a mixed large animal practice in Stapleford, Hertfordshire, who focus on providing personal, approachable and affordable local veterinary care for smallholdings, farms and equine centres.

Llamas were first introduced into this country, as were many exotic creatures, as a curiosity by the Victorians and since then have had peaks and troughs in popularity as pets and working animals.

The seventies in particular saw a steep rise in interest and, although popularity may have waned slightly in present times, llamas are still widespread with individual ownership accounting for the vast majority of the 3000-4000 thought to be here today.

They are large with full grown individuals reaching 183cm (6”) and large males weighing up to 200kg. They are also ruminant animals, meaning they regurgitate and re-chew food (cud) that has begun to ferment in their stomach. This process is used to obtain extra nutrients from otherwise hard to digest material. From this you will deduce that they are predominantly grazing animals; however, Llamas will happily forage other vegetation including sometimes unwelcome greenery such as bracken, gorse and hawthorn

With all the information so far you may be surprised to learn that llamas (and alpacas) are not currently required to be registered with DEFRA and are not subject to any of the movement paperwork or restrictions associated with other livestock. They are classified as pets predominantly due to the fact that they are not farmed for meat in this country. This means that, although you are encouraged to do so, you don’t even need to obtain a CPH number to keep these magnificent animals on your land.

So why keep llamas?

Llamas are not generally kept for the commercial production of either meat, milk or fibre so you may be wondering why you would keep them, other than as pets, at all. Some reasons we have eluded to earlier, but they have many characteristics that, while you may never make your fortune with llama produce, make them a worthwhile addition to any smallholding.

Land management
As already mentioned, as well as being good grazers, llamas can be used to manage areas of land with a heavy covering of bracken or gorse, as well as overgrown hedgerows. As they have padded feet as opposed to hooves they are less destructive to land.

Fox deterrents
Llamas have long been used to protect sheep and poultry from fox attack. A gelded male is usually chosen for this purpose but females with the right disposition can also be used to good effect. Entire males, while a possibility, are more difficult to keep and should not be kept with sheep as they will try to mate the ewes which can be very dangerous or even fatal.

Pack animals
Llamas are well adapted for life in the mountains and as such are very sure footed. They are also able to carry considerable loads of up to 25% of body weight for considerable distances so are great for trekking expeditions or as an addition to a natural farming system where they can move loads around your land efficiently and cost-effectively. This is facilitated by the fact that they are readily halter trained and very amenable to being led – again castrated males are especially suitable for this.

Llamas can be used as pack animals for serious trekking expeditions or just for fun as above

Fertiliser
Their nutrient rich droppings can be put straight on the garden without burning plants or made into a liquid fertiliser ‘tea’ by mixing one part pellets with two parts water.

Fibre
Llama fibre is more hair than wool and can be variable in quality so if you wanted to use this by-product you should choose your animals with this specifically in mind. Llama fibre is often mixed with wool or other fibres to improve its quality and characteristics. Llamas are generally only sheared once every two to four years, if at all, so don’t expect to make a fortune from fibre products. Vicuña fibre by contrast is extremely fine and soft and its hollow stems make it a particularly good insulator. It is however, very hard to come by as it is harvested from wild animals and then only every three years or so.

Llama husbandry

Talk to anyone who has experience of both sheep and llamas and they will tell you that they are infinitely easier to maintain. Firstly, as mentioned above, they don’t need shearing as often and, in fact, their coats will simply stop growing if left. There is also no need for dagging as the absence of lanolin in their coat means they don’t attract flies so readily and thus the incidence of fly strike in llamas, while not completely eradicated, is vastly reduced.

As they have leather like pads on the underside of their feet, as opposed to a cloven hoof, llamas don’t suffer with foot rot and the ‘toe nails’ will generally need less trimming than with sheep – sometimes as little as once a year. As with other animals, those with lighter coats may need more regular foot trimming and this can be done with the same shears as is used for sheep or goats. Other than that regular worming is the only other health routine required.

Pads on the underside of the feet means less incidence of foot rot than in sheep

Llamas will live quite happily on grass and if you have plenty of good quality pasture this will maintain them all year round with some additional hay during the winter months if grazing runs low. They will always be happy to take treats or forage hedgerows for variation and, although it shouldn’t strictly be necessary, you can supplement with sheep mix if required.

The coat has fairly waterproof guard hairs and although llamas will stay out all year you should provide an adequate field shelter to guard against the most inclement weather and be prepared to bring them in if conditions become too extreme.

Stocking density should be kept at around four llamas per acre but remember that as it is best to rotate them occasionally to reduce worm burden a minimum of two acres for four animals is recommended.

Llamas can have very different personalities so, before buying, it is well worth visiting as many as you can before making your decision. Some will be better for guarding duties while others will prefer to trek or be better on a halter. Either way some traits may not be apparent until they have matured slightly so it could be worth going for a slightly older animal to get the exact characteristics you require.

I addition to their other benefits Llamas also birth easily with intervention only very occasionally necessary. They have one baby, called a Cria, at a time (incidence of twins is almost unheard of) and, unlike sheep who can lamb any time, they always give birth during the day. Llamas can also fall pregnant at any time of year.

Spitting image? Llamas only tend to spit if their space is invaded or they are momentarily surprised

Of course, no matter how hardy an animal, there will come a time when they will need professional medical treatment so you should ensure you have a suitable large animal vet in the vicinity should you need to call on their services in an emergency.

It is not unusual for llamas to live for 20 years or more so they are not a short term project and it is worth the initial effort when choosing your animals. They are herd animals so a good breeder won’t sell you a single animal with most preferring them to go in groups of three or four unless you can prove that there are suitable companion animals already in place on your land. Look for a British Llama Society registered breeder who will be able to help you with your choice and should also be able to provide husbandry advice and any necessary training if required.

A word about spitting

Llama are generally very quiet and gentle, even affectionate, animals but they will react if they feel uncomfortable in any situation. Spitting is a trait displayed by all camelids but in llamas you will generally only see it when they are confined or feel their space is being invaded – you will hardly ever see this behaviour in the open field. You should only really stroke a llama gently on its neck, stay away from the head, and especially the ears, as they will get agitated and may possibly spit in such circumstances. Similarly don’t approach or surprise your animals from behind as this may also provoke a reaction or even a kick. When the ears go down your llama is assessing a situation it is not sure about. They will usually be up again very shortly but be aware of anything you’ve done to confuse or concern your animal.

Some interesting llama facts

1. A female llama sits down to mate. She will do this if ready but may spit at her suitor if already pregnant – a good test to tell if your female has been successfully mated.

2. Llamas are sometimes referred to as semi-ruminant as they have only three stomachs as opposed to the four that more recognisable ruminants such as cows and goats possess.

3. As being pack animals, in their native countries they are used for food and to make leather products.

4. A group of llamas is called a ‘Cloud’

5. The Incas prized Vicuña fibre so highly that only royalty could wear it – the death penalty faced anyone else caught in vicuña cloth.

Tom Tripp runs Llama Lland from Penare Farm near Truro in Cornwall and currently has the largest herd in the country. He is happy to provide advice or you can experience llamas hands on by booking on to one of his llama walking experiences. He also has the only herd of miniature llamas in Europe.