Just like to say hi, we got a quite small life sentence block of just 2.5 acres, but its enough to keep us busy in our free time. We got a bit of life stock and so far we managed to sort all the usual issues... sick sheep and cattle, escaped pigs etc....
So hopefully I can help out in one or the other way, and get help when I need it.
Cheers fellow life blockers
Hi Holly - we have a similar sized block and it keeps us surprisingly busy! Although ours did come in a bit of a state and with no fencing at all, so that's been our major task over the last few years.
Out of interest, how much stock do you have on your block? We are still working out the perfect number at our place. We have heaps of grass at the moment so we'll keep a couple of the ewe lambs from this year and see how we go with them....
Muddling our way through 1Ha on the Christchurch Port Hills, with flocks of heritage chickens, Silver Appleyard ducks, Gotland sheep, and Arapawa goats.
We have actually 6 sheep incl ram and 7 lambs. 6 kunekune, 3 geese and 6 chucks.
We had 2 beefies before we had the kunekune but they require quite a bit of grass which can be an issue over winter.
We will get rid of the pigs as they really ruin every paddock you put them in... grass eating pigs / no digging hahaha... you should see their paddock, one big mud hole!
I think we stay with sheep and chucks and might get some beefies in one or two years. We can highly recommend Dexters - smaller but easy to handle and finally very tasty.
Cheers
I feel you on the pigs things. We had one back in Aus that destroyed *everything* it came in contact with. That, and it was super aggressive and loved nothing more than chasing the dog and the kids around the yard. Safe to say it found itself being handed over to a new home fairly quickly...
HollyB wrote: We have actually 6 sheep incl ram and 7 lambs. 6 kunekune, 3 geese and 6 chucks.
We had 2 beefies before we had the kunekune but they require quite a bit of grass which can be an issue over winter.
We will get rid of the pigs as they really ruin every paddock you put them in... grass eating pigs / no digging hahaha... you should see their paddock, one big mud hole!
I think we stay with sheep and chucks and might get some beefies in one or two years. We can highly recommend Dexters - smaller but easy to handle and finally very tasty.
Cheers
Thanks for that - we've not ventured into cattle (although belted galloways have already won my heart!!) because I'm not sure we have space, but have read on here a couple of people on about the same size block, that have two, with a calf replacing the oldest each year. Not sure we can get away with that unless we cut down on the sheep numbers, so for the minute I think the sheep flock will gradually grow until the grass management seems to be right. We have 5 ewes at the moment (plus 6 lambs from the 3 older ewes), but we are likely to keep 2 or 3 ewe lambs from this year and see how we go with them. We also have 4 goats that have their own paddock, and chickens and ducks. The ducks actually provide us with a reasonable amount of meat (3 ducks and one chicken sitting on eggs right now!)
I find it really interesting to know what other people have on about the same sized block.
Muddling our way through 1Ha on the Christchurch Port Hills, with flocks of heritage chickens, Silver Appleyard ducks, Gotland sheep, and Arapawa goats.
