newbees

Hi all,
T and I will be moving from manukau to Mangatawhiri,to a small lifestyle
2 3/4 acre mini farm and have no idea other than what some people have suggested.what we do the Experts advise us to put or raise on our rolling 2 acres?
Regards,
I.

First have a look at your fences, are the battens of a resonable standard and not rotting. The last thing you need is sheep or any animal making a beeline to the vege patch. Do you have a passion for any species, chickens, sheep, cows? Is there a pony club handy? Check are there many weeds, sorts those out before any animal come to the property. Always start off small, get to know your vet, ask locals about climate conditions.

Hi Jocur, we moved from Manukau to Paparimu so a very similar transition to you. Fantastic move.
We inherited around 35 odd sheep with the property, 2 cows and a bull. I thought that was a bonus but I was wrong really. Sheep are sooooo stupid, they say that once they are born they are always looking for a way to die and I believe that! They are quite high maintenance and for a couple of absolute novices who had never even touched a sheep before it has been a steep learning curve. I am about the get rid of most of them and keep maybe half a dozen or so. I don't think we do them justice and no matter how well I drench them, shear them, treat them for flystrike they keep dropping dead on me!

It would have been much more sensible for us to stock the property ourselves with the animals we wanted instead of somebody elses cast offs. So that is the way we are approaching it now. I have 5 goats (which I love) a bunch of chickens and 4 calves that we purchased and bottle fed. This is what I want to keep. The rest can go to the PGG Wrightsons man!

We have so loved this year in the vege garden harvesting our own stuff. It is amazing. And preparing it for the winter so we can taste our garden in the nasty cold weather too, I think it will remind me of summer!

I say plant a garden and get some chooks. Chooks are pretty easy to take care of and you get lovely eggs in return. A great intro to animal husbandry and fun too(until they eat your vege garden ).

Good luck and welcome to the good life!

Thank you Cucs for the advice have taken on board, so far only looking at chickens in the early stages

Thank you Blimeyvicki,
will be moving to our little farm over easter with no animals other than the cat we take with us,and will probably start with a vege patch and few chickens and go from there.
good advice thanks again.

By the way we are moving to paparimu rd during easter.

Gosh there is going to be a little "gang" of us here is Paparimu It's such a small area and I am now aware of 4 of us who all live within about 10 mins of each other! I am going to be meeting up with another member in the next couple of days. Good luck for your move, let us know if you need any help.