I just love the fact that you are not too proud to share your mistakes. Too many RUclipsrs would like to portray whatever they do as perfect, and over time they come across as false and insincere. You and Hugh are the genuine article!
I've just stumbled across your Channell because of my interest in Chickens and am slowly discovering your videos: a lot more than I expected and much more comprehensive with a lot of sound advice, all nicely presented with not too much superficial chatting. And I love the way you treat your chickens. Genuinely kindly, as it should be.
Dear Fiona, I am working my way through your videos. I love them. This programme on what you have done and how you now do it differently was superb. Thank you for such a fine and informative presentation. No questions! Sincerely, Larry Clarence Lewis London, Ontario, Canada.
I would urge people to use only the best quality padlocks. At work once I helped a maintenance person open up a locker as the person who had it passed away. It was very simple for us to cut open the padlock with a strong hand-held boltcutter. Seeing that taught me to not just consider your belongings secure with a padlock. You need a high-quality padlock, and preferably a secondary locking device as shown here on their gate pin. Rural crime is on the rise, and it affects all types of things you own: animals, vehicles, movers, etc ... anything the thief can sell for cash. The Ring cameras in this video work very well, and the clarity of the images do indeed help the police in their investigations. High-quality trail cameras typically have to be taken to your computer and the images downloaded. And you often do not get a good image for the police. But, you can use trail cameras to see what animal predators are stalking your livestock. Great video with lots to consider.
Thank you so much. I wanted to show what we would change if we had our time over in the hope it would help someone else on the same journey. You make a brilliant point about paddocks. You are so right. The phrase in our house now is " Buy once, cry once" so buy the best quality first time around and it will be far less likely to let you down and it will last MUCH longer
Thank you, Fiona! Your video is very helpful. Do you also have peach trees? Your English flower garden is beautiful, and your chickens look happy. If you need a FEW bees, you can plant certain flowers among your veggies which attract bees and butterflies, both good pollinators. ( I plant marigold, nasturtiums and borage.) Thank you again; I learned a lot!
Hi Karen, we have a number of resident native bees - tawny mining bees, bumble bees & hover flies. We've tried nectarines & apricots but sadly our climate has frosts a little too late for them, which is a pity as we would love them
Fiona and Hugh, thank you so much for sharing your journey. We have been at our small Homestead in the US for just under three years and though we have made much progress there is of course much to do still. We also took this property over when it was in poor condition and there has been much to do to the home and property; as you know a very overwhelming task at times. We have had some miss steps along the way and learned from them; sometimes these moments are more discouraging than others as I’m sure you know. Thank you so much for sharing some of your learning opportunities; it is always affirming to learn from others who are a few years longer in their journey. We truly Enjoy your content!
Amazing, i love the down to the ground attitude, i'm sharing this with my wife for our future project, thumbs up for both you and the invisible hardworking husband too, thumbs up mate you both are doing so well!
Hi I am a Firefighter and last week did a fire safety visit to a chicken processing factory, Phew! not a pleasant place to spend an hour I can assure you. This is to say your chickens look so healthy when compared with those poor specimens going to slaughter. Also your chickens look happy! Lol and thats not a bad thing.
What a beautiful property with lovely people doing neat things! New subscriber here from the US (Idaho), looking forward to watching more of your videos.
Thank you very much, you are very kind 😊 Tomorrow's video will be using our home grown mustard seed to make a variety of types of mustard, including American style hot dog mustard 🙂 We hope you enjoy it!
What I was trying to say is that it's OK to make mistakes but every mistake can actually make things better. Being a smallhokder is rewarding but very hard work. Attitude is so important. Thanks for being so kind!
@@EnglishCountryLife thanks for the reply. We are finding its a steep learning curve. Perhaps because we've set off running with a few different ventures. Really enjoying learning new things and seeing what works. I'm spending alot of time watching RUclips videos like yours and it really helps. So thank you 🙏
Thankyou so much for making this video. I'm sorry it too me so long to respond. We arrived back in Hungary this morning at 7am. After a long drive. I was itching to watch it but couldn't as I'd got no data left. It was a really helpful video and I'll be going round my place making my mistakes video too. I'm hoping to not make so many mistakes at our now place as I did before. "Bee kind forest farm"is a huge project and so exciting moving to our new off grid permaculture site. Your video will help me think on before doing something's. Take care. X
I'm so glad that it's helpful. We're careful to say it's "our mistakes" and not say "You should do it this way". Everyone's circumstances are different.
That's so kind of you to say Grace. We've come to the conclusion for us that it's inevitable that we'll keep making mistakes, but every time we've made lemonade out of the lemons! We've had to change our attitude to "How do we make the best of this?" and genuinely, normally we've ended up with a better solution.
English Country Life sometimes just changing how you look at things on a second pass makes the difference- so many mistakes are a great opportunity- tarp on the chicken run, spuds in a tunnel, both never again- we adapt and learn as we go- 😊
I am unfamiliar with the term small holding. Is this the British term for homesteading? Watching from Washington state in the USA. I do enjoy your videos
Hi, A smallholding here is a house with land that raises fruit, vegetables and perhaps a small amount of livestock. It's too small to be considered a farm. Homesteading is closer to what we do. Some smallholdings are commercial ventures, but often the owners work as well.
Could you perhaps speak about the difference between keeping rescued Battery Hens and keeping (and raising) chickens from eggs? I hear that battery Hens don't live for very long . . . but the idea of rescuing a bird and giving it a pleasant life for the rest of it's days is pleasing. Do you have a website /facebook page where I may buy some fertilised eggs next year, please?
Battery hens are illegal in the UK but hens can still be kept in "enriched cages" which is essentially still a cage albeit with a bit more room. These hens are generally breeds that have been bred for high egg production. The downside is that producing eggs does take a lot of energy and as a result in general these breeds have a shorter life span. More pressure is put on commercial hens through artificial lighting as most hens will stop laying in winter which gives their body a rest but adding artificial lighting fools their body into thinking it isn't winter (their bodies recognise the onset of winter by reduced daylight hours). Artificial lighting means their bodies keep producing eggs putting more strain on them. I am torn where caged birds are concerned. I think giving an ex caged bird a better life is admirable and a wonderful thing to do for them. However it also can mean that the commercial farms have a better financial model they no longer have to pay for slaughter so indirectly it assists this way of producing eggs to continue. It's a really difficult one for me as there is no good answer while the eggs are still purchased. We don't have a website where we sell eggs but if you're on Twitter or Instagram send me a DM when you're ready @TheFloofLady and if we have any we can arrange to get them to you. We don't have them all year round so it will be a case of drop me a note. I hope that's OK.
@@EnglishCountryLife Thank you for the information. I understand what you mean regarding the ethics of caged birds. Providing I can purchase a property within the next few months, I will get some eggs from you next year. I wish you well ♥
@@buddhistsympathizer1136 I'm going to suggest that you try to hatch 2 breeds. Orpingtons are very broody birds so can be off lay a lot in spring/summer but they will lay all through winter. Mist other breeds lay from Spring to autumn and stop in winter. A combination should have you in eggs all year round.
Do you grow your potatoes in paper feed sacks or plastic? My chicken feed comes in paper but id be worried they would just melt in rain before the potatoes grew and I know chicken feed can come in plastic bags too
Hi! We use and save plastic sacks. Some of our feed does come in paper sacks (which we prefer for environmental reasons) but we save all the plastic sacks we see from feed, fertiliser etc. We show our method here ruclips.net/video/y1jSbTbQ-e0/видео.html
Interesting video. I had wondered why you didn't have bees too - sorry you became allergic. That's a serious thing and, obviously, you were right to dispose of them. I am a beekeeper and have quite a few hives out on farms. My wife is allergic though and is undergoing desensitization - which is a long process. I don't want to portray too many negatives though as there are quite a few positives too. All that honey is useful for a start! Think of all the things you can make with it! Your hens are adorable creatures and clearly give you a lot of pleasure. We have a few hens in our garden too (rescue hens at the moment). They are worth it just for the entertainment value - they are such funny characters! This brings me to the end-of-life question: how do you handle that?
I did love keeping bees but my GP counselled against desensitisation treatment. My reaction was so fast in its progression he was concerned. The last sting had caused my whole arm to swell so quickly that it formed it's own burn scars on my forearm. I didn't even know that skin had this capability until it happened to me.
@@EnglishCountryLife My son died from anaphylaxis after a bee sting so I am not minimizing the risk at all. It happens very quickly so you really did the right thing! On the subject of hens, I have to admit that I'm a real softy. I've buried each hen in my garden and planted a shrub/fruit bush ontop so I don't disturb the spot. They're so cute that they almost become one of the family. We've avoided having a cockerel as I didn't want to have to deal with all the surplus male chicks. How do you deal with that? We did end up with an Orpington cockerel by accident though. He was among a batch of POL "hens" we bought quite early on in our chicken-keeping so we didn't really know what we were doing. Fortunately, a farmer-friend of mine was able/willing to take him for a batch of hens he had that didn't have a cockerel.
We chose Buff Orpingtons becasue they are the perfect smallholder chicken. As utility chickens they are great egg producers and great table birds so the cockerels that are hatched are the primary table birds. It would be irresponsible of us to breed chickens and not have a plan for the males. For a lot of breeders including a lots of breeders of egg laying chickens the males are normally destroyed at hatch. With us you can see that all of our birds are allowed to grow to full size. None are ever destroyed at hatch and all of them have a purpose. We have a video very recently that tells how we set out our chicken breeding plan ruclips.net/video/JDaMa8FawvM/видео.html
@@EnglishCountryLife Do you grow them on separately or allow them to run with your flock? When we had "Charlie/Charlotte", he was kept in his place and hen-pecked quite a bit when he was younger. It was only when he began to crow at 5am that we thought it was time to give him away. Despite living in a small village on the edge of the greenbelt, our neighbours were not amused at their early morning "alarm call" at weekends!
@@ApiaryManager if you fool my Twitter account @TheFloofLady you'll be able to see that they are all running together as one flock. The beauty of our low density model is that the broodies with chicks have a HUGE area to roam in so if another adult gets too close, the two separate very quickly and can stake a claim to an area without impacting the lives of the others. The chicks are taught flock dynamics early on but never in a way that causes injury. If another adult chastised a chick too enthusiastically the brood hen steps in but generally if it's a gentle tap they allow the interaction.
It's all opportunistic theft. There are far fewer house burglaries in our rural area than our neighbourhood when we lived in towns but we have noticed that we and our neighbours have had small things stolen so clearly not planned thefts. We haven't experienced any problems since installing good security cameras on the property simply because it's no longer an easy task!
you have a beautiful smallholding. we have been looking for around a year for a house with land. the prices at the minute are a little out of our budget, what part of the uk are you in? we are looking around norfolk area
@@EnglishCountryLife we have been looking at Lincolnshire as for our budget we could get what we wanted there. unfortunately we got put of when we went on a forum and asked people from Lincolnshire what the best areas were etc. most people on there told me not to move to Lincolnshire as its boring, the people are set in their ways and small minded and the schools are really bad. this was disappointing for us as we had seen a few properties we loved. can you recommend any good areas?
@@kaylag5158 I completely disagree with the forums. I've lived and worked all over the country from Cheshire to Hampshire, Bedfordshire to Scotland and a number of other areas and I chose to come to Lincolnshire. In my own experience the only people who are insular have moved from outside of Lincolnshire and are not used to saying hello to neighbours. If you knock on neighbours doors when you arrive and say hello, offer to help when people are in need, you will be welcomed with open arms. Like all counties there are high performing and poorly performing schools so research is the key. The best value properties can be found across a wide area so I'll name a few places to look at the surrounding countryside from North to South: North Somercotes Louth Alford Market Rasen Spilsby Wainfleet Stickford Stickney Sibsey Friskney Wrangle To set your mind at rest we live in a very rural area with very few houses. We have made the best friends we have ever had which include a farming family who are known to have been here for over 400 years over the generations and a couple who moved here 30 years ago. The only people we never see were a family we helped when they first moved in. We have never had a thank you or have even seen them since. If you say hello and thank you you'll fit right in.
@@EnglishCountryLife thank you for all the information. we are a very friendly family and currently live in a bedfordshire village. so its very good to know that people are friendly. its so difficult to get an accurate opinion on the forums as most the people had moved away from Lincolnshire many years ago and had nothing positive to say about their experiences. thank you for letting me know some good areas and thank you for letting me know your experience. :)
@@EnglishCountryLife i really like market rasen and alford but unfortunately the houses i liked there sold very quickly! i also like louth alot. do you have any experience with utterby? (sorry for all the questions)
The Nigerian dwarf goats don't eat much. They prefer weeds and browse to grass, but they do eat grass. A couple of females could give you a pint of milk. They are very efficient for their size and very friendly.
Great video guys! If I made a video about all my smallholding mistakes, it would last for H O U R S! Some of my toughest lessons involves foxes, badgers and rats :(
I just love the fact that you are not too proud to share your mistakes. Too many RUclipsrs would like to portray whatever they do as perfect, and over time they come across as false and insincere.
You and Hugh are the genuine article!
Awww! I am so flattered! I am blushing. Thanks Alan.
I've just stumbled across your Channell because of my interest in Chickens and am slowly discovering your videos: a lot more than I expected and much more comprehensive with a lot of sound advice, all nicely presented with not too much superficial chatting. And I love the way you treat your chickens. Genuinely kindly, as it should be.
That's genuinely a lovely thing to say. Thank you so much.
Dear Fiona,
I am working my way through your videos. I love them. This programme on what you have done and how you now do it differently was superb. Thank you for such a fine and informative presentation. No questions!
Sincerely,
Larry Clarence Lewis
London, Ontario, Canada.
Thanks Larry, we are so pleased that you are enjoying them ☺️
Thank you for the excellent areas to pay attention to as you start building your smallholding. Buff Orpingtons are lovely hens.
Thank you Sue. They really are lovely birds
I would urge people to use only the best quality padlocks. At work once I helped a maintenance person open up a locker as the person who had it passed away. It was very simple for us to cut open the padlock with a strong hand-held boltcutter. Seeing that taught me to not just consider your belongings secure with a padlock. You need a high-quality padlock, and preferably a secondary locking device as shown here on their gate pin.
Rural crime is on the rise, and it affects all types of things you own: animals, vehicles, movers, etc ... anything the thief can sell for cash. The Ring cameras in this video work very well, and the clarity of the images do indeed help the police in their investigations. High-quality trail cameras typically have to be taken to your computer and the images downloaded. And you often do not get a good image for the police. But, you can use trail cameras to see what animal predators are stalking your livestock.
Great video with lots to consider.
Thank you so much. I wanted to show what we would change if we had our time over in the hope it would help someone else on the same journey.
You make a brilliant point about paddocks. You are so right. The phrase in our house now is " Buy once, cry once" so buy the best quality first time around and it will be far less likely to let you down and it will last MUCH longer
Thank you, Fiona! Your video is very helpful. Do you also have peach trees? Your English flower garden is beautiful, and your chickens look happy. If you need a FEW bees, you can plant certain flowers among your veggies which attract bees and butterflies, both good pollinators. ( I plant marigold, nasturtiums and borage.) Thank you again; I learned a lot!
Hi Karen, we have a number of resident native bees - tawny mining bees, bumble bees & hover flies. We've tried nectarines & apricots but sadly our climate has frosts a little too late for them, which is a pity as we would love them
Sending some love from the States. You have a beautiful place there and some good looking birds.
Thank you so much 😊
Some good-looking birds?. She is the best looking bird on this video.
Fiona and Hugh, thank you so much for sharing your journey. We have been at our small Homestead in the US for just under three years and though we have made much progress there is of course much to do still. We also took this property over when it was in poor condition and there has been much to do to the home and property; as you know a very overwhelming task at times. We have had some miss steps along the way and learned from them; sometimes these moments are more discouraging than others as I’m sure you know. Thank you so much for sharing some of your learning opportunities; it is always affirming to learn from others who are a few years longer in their journey. We truly Enjoy your content!
Thank you so much Christie. It can be awfully frustrating - but no way would we return to our previous lives!
Amazing, i love the down to the ground attitude, i'm sharing this with my wife for our future project, thumbs up for both you and the invisible hardworking husband too, thumbs up mate you both are doing so well!
Thank you and I'm glad you found it useful.
Hugh makes a lot of the videos for the channel so have a browse. I promise he's not invisible :-)
This is wonderful, thank you for sharing your experience.
So glad that you enjoyed it Dan 🙂
Hi I am a Firefighter and last week did a fire safety visit to a chicken processing factory, Phew! not a pleasant place to spend an hour I can assure you. This is to say your chickens look so healthy when compared with those poor specimens going to slaughter. Also your chickens look happy! Lol and thats not a bad thing.
Thanks Frank, we do try to give them a good life
What a beautiful property with lovely people doing neat things! New subscriber here from the US (Idaho), looking forward to watching more of your videos.
Thank you very much, you are very kind 😊
Tomorrow's video will be using our home grown mustard seed to make a variety of types of mustard, including American style hot dog mustard 🙂
We hope you enjoy it!
Loads of love can be seen in what you do... well done 👍 keep up the good work
Thank you so much. Just glanced at your channel & noticed you grow ginger! I'll be watching that later! Hugh
All very honest of you and really helps people like me and my family. We are just starting out on our smallholding adventure. Thank you.
What I was trying to say is that it's OK to make mistakes but every mistake can actually make things better. Being a smallhokder is rewarding but very hard work. Attitude is so important.
Thanks for being so kind!
@@EnglishCountryLife thanks for the reply. We are finding its a steep learning curve. Perhaps because we've set off running with a few different ventures. Really enjoying learning new things and seeing what works. I'm spending alot of time watching RUclips videos like yours and it really helps. So thank you 🙏
We found it a steep learning curve too so you're not alone.
Loved it. Thanks for sharing!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Thankyou so much for making this video. I'm sorry it too me so long to respond. We arrived back in Hungary this morning at 7am. After a long drive. I was itching to watch it but couldn't as I'd got no data left.
It was a really helpful video and I'll be going round my place making my mistakes video too. I'm hoping to not make so many mistakes at our now place as I did before. "Bee kind forest farm"is a huge project and so exciting moving to our new off grid permaculture site. Your video will help me think on before doing something's. Take care. X
I'm so glad that it's helpful. We're careful to say it's "our mistakes" and not say "You should do it this way". Everyone's circumstances are different.
Smallholding sounds like an incredible life.
It's hard work but very satisfying
Once again - fantastic, thank you- these are so helpful to hear in mind when setting out 😊
That's so kind of you to say Grace. We've come to the conclusion for us that it's inevitable that we'll keep making mistakes, but every time we've made lemonade out of the lemons! We've had to change our attitude to "How do we make the best of this?" and genuinely, normally we've ended up with a better solution.
English Country Life sometimes just changing how you look at things on a second pass makes the difference- so many mistakes are a great opportunity- tarp on the chicken run, spuds in a tunnel, both never again- we adapt and learn as we go- 😊
So true!!!
Much love and respect to you all there from across the pond
Thank you so much!
Super video as always. Really interesting.
Thank you so much Orlaith. I'm so glad you're watching!
Thanks so much for this, very heartfelt and sincere
Thanks for your comment - it isn't always a bed of roses!
I am unfamiliar with the term small holding. Is this the British term for homesteading? Watching from Washington state in the USA. I do enjoy your videos
Hi,
A smallholding here is a house with land that raises fruit, vegetables and perhaps a small amount of livestock. It's too small to be considered a farm. Homesteading is closer to what we do. Some smallholdings are commercial ventures, but often the owners work as well.
Hobby farming, small scale Homesteading.
@@mwnciboo Yes, probably closer 👍
Thank you , great tips.
That's very kind of you ☺
Thank you for the awesome info.
Any time! Its lovely to hear from you 🙂
Great video- many thanks!
That's very kind of you to say😀
Could you perhaps speak about the difference between keeping rescued Battery Hens and keeping (and raising) chickens from eggs?
I hear that battery Hens don't live for very long . . . but the idea of rescuing a bird and giving it a pleasant life for the rest of it's days is pleasing.
Do you have a website /facebook page where I may buy some fertilised eggs next year, please?
Battery hens are illegal in the UK but hens can still be kept in "enriched cages" which is essentially still a cage albeit with a bit more room.
These hens are generally breeds that have been bred for high egg production. The downside is that producing eggs does take a lot of energy and as a result in general these breeds have a shorter life span. More pressure is put on commercial hens through artificial lighting as most hens will stop laying in winter which gives their body a rest but adding artificial lighting fools their body into thinking it isn't winter (their bodies recognise the onset of winter by reduced daylight hours). Artificial lighting means their bodies keep producing eggs putting more strain on them.
I am torn where caged birds are concerned. I think giving an ex caged bird a better life is admirable and a wonderful thing to do for them. However it also can mean that the commercial farms have a better financial model they no longer have to pay for slaughter so indirectly it assists this way of producing eggs to continue. It's a really difficult one for me as there is no good answer while the eggs are still purchased.
We don't have a website where we sell eggs but if you're on Twitter or Instagram send me a DM when you're ready @TheFloofLady and if we have any we can arrange to get them to you. We don't have them all year round so it will be a case of drop me a note. I hope that's OK.
@@EnglishCountryLife Thank you for the information. I understand what you mean regarding the ethics of caged birds.
Providing I can purchase a property within the next few months, I will get some eggs from you next year.
I wish you well ♥
@@buddhistsympathizer1136 I'm going to suggest that you try to hatch 2 breeds. Orpingtons are very broody birds so can be off lay a lot in spring/summer but they will lay all through winter. Mist other breeds lay from Spring to autumn and stop in winter. A combination should have you in eggs all year round.
I like the Ring cameras but I struggle to get the wi-fi coverage. How did you get the wi-fi coverage so far from the cottage?
We have a BT "whole home" series of WiFi extenders - they work very well here
We decided to switch from chicken houses to garden sheds, easier on your back for cleaning out
There's a lot of sense to that. Our main coops are on tall legs so can be cleaned out without bending!
Love the video. All of us make mistakes. lol
Thanks for sharing.
You are very welcome. Thanks for commenting.
Could also fit the top hinge facing downwards, that way the gate cannot be lifted easily
Good tip that
Do you grow your potatoes in paper feed sacks or plastic? My chicken feed comes in paper but id be worried they would just melt in rain before the potatoes grew and I know chicken feed can come in plastic bags too
Hi!
We use and save plastic sacks. Some of our feed does come in paper sacks (which we prefer for environmental reasons) but we save all the plastic sacks we see from feed, fertiliser etc.
We show our method here
ruclips.net/video/y1jSbTbQ-e0/видео.html
Interesting video. I had wondered why you didn't have bees too - sorry you became allergic. That's a serious thing and, obviously, you were right to dispose of them.
I am a beekeeper and have quite a few hives out on farms. My wife is allergic though and is undergoing desensitization - which is a long process. I don't want to portray too many negatives though as there are quite a few positives too. All that honey is useful for a start! Think of all the things you can make with it!
Your hens are adorable creatures and clearly give you a lot of pleasure. We have a few hens in our garden too (rescue hens at the moment). They are worth it just for the entertainment value - they are such funny characters! This brings me to the end-of-life question: how do you handle that?
I did love keeping bees but my GP counselled against desensitisation treatment. My reaction was so fast in its progression he was concerned. The last sting had caused my whole arm to swell so quickly that it formed it's own burn scars on my forearm. I didn't even know that skin had this capability until it happened to me.
@@EnglishCountryLife My son died from anaphylaxis after a bee sting so I am not minimizing the risk at all. It happens very quickly so you really did the right thing!
On the subject of hens, I have to admit that I'm a real softy. I've buried each hen in my garden and planted a shrub/fruit bush ontop so I don't disturb the spot. They're so cute that they almost become one of the family.
We've avoided having a cockerel as I didn't want to have to deal with all the surplus male chicks. How do you deal with that?
We did end up with an Orpington cockerel by accident though. He was among a batch of POL "hens" we bought quite early on in our chicken-keeping so we didn't really know what we were doing. Fortunately, a farmer-friend of mine was able/willing to take him for a batch of hens he had that didn't have a cockerel.
We chose Buff Orpingtons becasue they are the perfect smallholder chicken. As utility chickens they are great egg producers and great table birds so the cockerels that are hatched are the primary table birds. It would be irresponsible of us to breed chickens and not have a plan for the males. For a lot of breeders including a lots of breeders of egg laying chickens the males are normally destroyed at hatch. With us you can see that all of our birds are allowed to grow to full size. None are ever destroyed at hatch and all of them have a purpose. We have a video very recently that tells how we set out our chicken breeding plan ruclips.net/video/JDaMa8FawvM/видео.html
@@EnglishCountryLife Do you grow them on separately or allow them to run with your flock?
When we had "Charlie/Charlotte", he was kept in his place and hen-pecked quite a bit when he was younger. It was only when he began to crow at 5am that we thought it was time to give him away. Despite living in a small village on the edge of the greenbelt, our neighbours were not amused at their early morning "alarm call" at weekends!
@@ApiaryManager if you fool my Twitter account @TheFloofLady you'll be able to see that they are all running together as one flock. The beauty of our low density model is that the broodies with chicks have a HUGE area to roam in so if another adult gets too close, the two separate very quickly and can stake a claim to an area without impacting the lives of the others. The chicks are taught flock dynamics early on but never in a way that causes injury. If another adult chastised a chick too enthusiastically the brood hen steps in but generally if it's a gentle tap they allow the interaction.
Scary that security was such an issue . . . . .
It's all opportunistic theft. There are far fewer house burglaries in our rural area than our neighbourhood when we lived in towns but we have noticed that we and our neighbours have had small things stolen so clearly not planned thefts. We haven't experienced any problems since installing good security cameras on the property simply because it's no longer an easy task!
I have a ride on a similar problem. we have a bumpy uneven lawn, which means I have to get the belt changed every year which is so expensive!
Really annoying huh?
you have a beautiful smallholding.
we have been looking for around a year for a house with land. the prices at the minute are a little out of our budget, what part of the uk are you in? we are looking around norfolk area
We are in South Lincolnshire so not far from Norfolk
@@EnglishCountryLife we have been looking at Lincolnshire as for our budget we could get what we wanted there. unfortunately we got put of when we went on a forum and asked people from Lincolnshire what the best areas were etc. most people on there told me not to move to Lincolnshire as its boring, the people are set in their ways and small minded and the schools are really bad. this was disappointing for us as we had seen a few properties we loved. can you recommend any good areas?
@@kaylag5158 I completely disagree with the forums. I've lived and worked all over the country from Cheshire to Hampshire, Bedfordshire to Scotland and a number of other areas and I chose to come to Lincolnshire.
In my own experience the only people who are insular have moved from outside of Lincolnshire and are not used to saying hello to neighbours. If you knock on neighbours doors when you arrive and say hello, offer to help when people are in need, you will be welcomed with open arms.
Like all counties there are high performing and poorly performing schools so research is the key.
The best value properties can be found across a wide area so I'll name a few places to look at the surrounding countryside from North to South:
North Somercotes
Louth
Alford
Market Rasen
Spilsby
Wainfleet
Stickford
Stickney
Sibsey
Friskney
Wrangle
To set your mind at rest we live in a very rural area with very few houses. We have made the best friends we have ever had which include a farming family who are known to have been here for over 400 years over the generations and a couple who moved here 30 years ago. The only people we never see were a family we helped when they first moved in. We have never had a thank you or have even seen them since. If you say hello and thank you you'll fit right in.
@@EnglishCountryLife thank you for all the information. we are a very friendly family and currently live in a bedfordshire village. so its very good to know that people are friendly. its so difficult to get an accurate opinion on the forums as most the people had moved away from Lincolnshire many years ago and had nothing positive to say about their experiences. thank you for letting me know some good areas and thank you for letting me know your experience. :)
@@EnglishCountryLife i really like market rasen and alford but unfortunately the houses i liked there sold very quickly! i also like louth alot. do you have any experience with utterby? (sorry for all the questions)
Nice and informative
Thank you Nicholas. That's so kind of you
Why not use goats or geese so you don't have to mow?
We could but our grass is basically paths so there isn't enough proper grazing
The Nigerian dwarf goats don't eat much. They prefer weeds and browse to grass, but they do eat grass. A couple of females could give you a pint of milk. They are very efficient for their size and very friendly.
Great video guys! If I made a video about all my smallholding mistakes, it would last for H O U R S!
Some of my toughest lessons involves foxes, badgers and rats :(
Lol! I have at least 3 more videos I can make on the subject! I know what you mean
Good info! You talk like a Cbeebies presenter though 😂
Do you watch a lot of Cbeebies? 😁
@@EnglishCountryLife can't get enough of it. 😭🤣
@@jakempenney In that case I'll take it as a compliment 😉
@@jakempenney Evie Pickerill...Oh my...
Love the video. All of us make mistakes. lol