Myself and my husband bought 15 acres of pasture with a large barn near Oakham in Rutland in December 2006 with the intention of starting our own smallholding. We had all ready been on a "Getting started in smallholding" course with NewLandOwner in Derbyshire. It gave us a short taster of what was involved and helped us decide what kind of livestock we might like to work with.
Neither of us had ever had any experience of farm livestock before, though I have always had horses.
Not only did we want to start our own smallholding and run it as a business we very quickly starting to apply for planning permission to live on site.
Within a month we had bought 50 laying hens and our first 4 pigs. NewLandOwner (www.newlandowner.co.uk) helped us with our business plan, which was needed for our planning application.
After battling with the council for a considerable time we decided to introduce alpacas into our business plan to strengthen our position in relation to the financial and functional test which we needed to pass to have any chance of getting consent.
After nearly 2 years we were refused by the council but undeterred we went straight to appeal and finally won giving us temporary 3 year consent with an agricultural tie. That was May 2009.
To date we now have 9 alpacas with more on the way, 54 pigs from a few days old up to our oldest sow at 3 years, about 110 laying hens and my horses.
We also have a polytunnel and veggie garden and I have planted some willow this year and intend to use it to make hurdles, basket, plant supports etc. I have been on a couple of local courses and really enjoyed working with the willow.
There's always something going on here so look out for my updates.
