changing way of farming

Smallfamer

Looking for some advice. Moved home and took over the farm about 10 years ago. 18 acres of wet land with a 3 bay slatted house and 2 bay hayshed no other buildings really. Had very little experience of farming as I had left at a young age. Started off buying heifer weanlings in April or May and selling on as stores the following spring. Now I never really went farming to make a profit more of a hobby and if I was losing a small amount yearly so be it. Last few years those type cattle were very expensive so starting buying stronger bullocks and finishing them.
Am at the stage now where I'm a bit more experienced with livestock and have bought bits of machinery year by year. While I still don't want to make a fortune out of it I would like the farm to be more productive and if I made a few pounds all the better.
I also work full time so not looking for a drastic change of system. My plan was to get into sucklers in a very small way along with what I'm already doing and gradually as I get more experience of calving etc build it up a small bit at a time. A long with this I was thinking of getting about 10 sheep as well for breeding.
My main problems /concerns are that I know nothing about calving or lambing, haven't great facilities, and don't want to go investing a lot of money. With this in mind my plan was to fence 2 small acre and a half fields professionnaly for sheep including a way of pinning them. Buying a breed such as llyen and give them a easy lambing ram. They would have to lamb outside as the sheds I have are limited.
With the cows I was thinking of starting with 3 cows giving them an easy calving ai and converting 1 bay of my hayshed for calving. The hayshed is currently used for turf but over time with bits of profit I could maybe build a new turf shed and convert all the hayshed so that it could be used for calving and lambing.
Sorry for the long winded post! So the question is am I mad? !!!!

Username John

Sure we're prob all a bit mad...

You are about 2 weeks too late with your post re sheep fencing. As the grant for sheep fencing closed 2 weeks ago

I know nothin of cattle, but reading the threads here suggest keeping suckers is not very profitable. And keeping 3 would seem to be more trouble than it's worth... But totally open to correction there...

Know a small bit about sheep as we have a few. Fencing is the big thing, they are easily kept after that. Depends how much fencing on the 18 acres you want to do... Have you experience of handling sheep? Some lads hate em, not sure why, but be good to find that out before you buy em

memorystick

If I were you I'd try bucket feeding. Few calves. You feed 20 on a few minutes. The best advice I can give you is to get friendly with a good farming neighbour for advice. Best of luck and avoid the negative ones.

tractorporn

I wouldn't rule out all sheep if you have a gra for them. Easy to get into, low initial capital investment and a quick turnaround on lambs you would have lambs to sell in the first year. You will need good fencing but apart from at lambing they can be low maintenance if ran right. I can't stress strongly enough that you have to like sheep or they will drive you mad!!

tomwaterford

tractorporn wrote: »

I wouldn't rule out all sheep if you have a gra for them. Easy to get into, low initial capital investment and a quick turnaround on lambs you would have lambs to sell in the first year. You will need good fencing but apart from at lambing they can be low maintenance if ran right. I can't stress strongly enough that you have to like sheep or they will drive you mad!!

They are extremely low profit

But you can do make a profit at them. ...once you keep them alive/in

farmerjj

Sorry for being negative but with 18acres of wet land it doesn't really matter what type of farming you do, there will be virtually zero profits. So pick a type of farming you feel happy working with and go with that.

jimini0

Hi smallfarmer. I'm in the process of changing from sucklers. I had 6 suckler cows. Down to 4 now once these get served they will be scanned and out the door. Only 2 calfs born this year😢. With working full time I missed alot of heats so only 3 cows got in calf. No bull here just use Ai. One cow got dry cow mastitis nearly lost her. Then One cow through out dead twins. That was a very sad day for me. I was rushing to work in the morning so only seen them from the road.
Anyhow I'm keeping my 2 calves and buying in 6 more. Keeping them over the winter. Selling off the strongest ones in April or may and buying in more. Then in the back end selling the strongest of those and replacing those with weaker ones.