People with small holdings...

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Racing_Gal

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Do you make any money out of your land? We have about 14acres, it's just used for te horses, sheep & some chicken. We sell eggs but thats about it, seems such a waste. We have 2 areas of wood land that is fenced off and a river that runs through the land..any ideas what we could do with it?
 
It depends upon your location really...

If in the right location, why not have a small farm shop?

Produce and sell organic vegetables, eggs and local crafts, home baked cakes etc.
 
Paint ball days
Quad bike rally
Rave
Create a nature trail
Expand river to make a lake and offer fishing days ( assuming you hold fishing license )
Section off parts and offer as private allotment space
Sell of some acres you don't use / want
Pick your own flowers business
rent out part for cottage garden industry ie hanging basket garden or herbs etc to a couple who don't want huge outlay
 
I was going to say pigs as well
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If the woodland isnt too wet, pigs would be ideal. They are fairly easy to look after. We have 15 acres too and have 2 breeding sows, gloucester old spots. We breed from them both once a year, you could do more, but we find it becomes too much hard work. This year they had 13 in one litter and 11 in the other. We keep the piglets until they are between 4 and 5 months olds, and then they go for slaughter. We sell the meat to family and friends. We dont factor our time into the equation but do make a small profit
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Wow SS! Thanks for all those great ideas! We are kind of restricted in things we can do as we live near the peak district nat park, the council are a***holes!
 
we rent a good proportion of our acreage non exclusively to some farmers for a yearly amount, couldnt breed anything, could never sell anything once its here lol, and value privacy too much for anything else
 
Do you have much deadwood, you can always sell that. I sell a lot of wood but for the effort it's a lot of work, thank Heavens for chainsaws, tractors and logsplitters! I have a lot more woodland than you do though. I permit the hunters to use my woods, no cash, but turkey and deer meat in the freezer.

I get in a calf, a couple of lambs and a couple of goats in the spring for the freezer, we also sell some meat to friends.

Pigs...reckon in the cost of fencing, and to be perfectly sure they'll stay put it needs to be hot wired about 8" off the ground, but they'll clear your woodland perfectly and be quite happy living there with some well bedded arks.

I've cut down on horses and sell off my excess hay in spring, nice cash crop without (too) much slog.
 
We have a reg smallholding of about 9 acres. We have two horses ( no profit there!!!) We also have a small flock of sheep and sell lamb to family and friends. We keep pigs freerange during the drier months and again this is small scale but makes a profit to be able to plow back into the land. I also rent out a small stable yard and 4 acres. We have a few hens and sell eggs which just about covers the cost of their corn. Everything we do is for love not money as we couldn't make a living out of it but enjoy seeing happy healthy animals. Oh and my husband has created an allotment which produced lots of tasty veg this year. Like Enfys we have also cut down on the number of horses we own and increased sheep numbers.
 
If you are near the National Park ideal - you can do caravanning through the summer and autumn.
Contact the caravan club, for farm sites the arrangements are fairly basic and you can turn a fair profit.

U never know with the credit crunch more people may holiday at home next year.
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We have 4o acres and the only productive thing on it are the 11 Lady Hens.

Apart from that its just 2 horses, 2 dogs and 2 bad tempered feral farm cats.

So I am probably ill placed to advise anyone. All I can say is my poor land management is proving excellent for wildlife and that Ive only been here since March.........
 
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