Chickens # 7 - New stock imminent!

With the general busyness of work and life we haven't been able to put the plan of buying day old chicks and raising them to POL into practice yet.  However, we do need to get more stock urgently - Jo has been really successful at farm-gate sales and I could definately sell more at work; to solve the problem in the short-term I have ordered 10 more hybrid Light Sussex from Stewart at www.salspurebreedpoultryinwales.co.uk/ and I can pick them up on the 8th September.  They'll be around 16 weeks old at that point, and based on our current 6 chickens, it will take another 4 weeks or so before they start to lay regularly & a bit longer before they get really productive.

So, by mid-October we should be at a pretty decent production level!  Typically our little flock produces 5 eggs between the 6 hens, so if we assume the same level of productivity we should achieve:

16 hens x (5/6) eggs per day x 7 days per week = 93 eggs per week

That will leave around 14 half-dozens for sale and 9 eggs for use at home.  Our sales target will be 10 boxes for 'in-work' sale and 4 boxes for 'farm-gate' sale.  If we can make this level work, we'll step up to a higher level.  You can keep up to 50 chickens without any kind of registration  http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Environmentandgreenerliving/Smallholders/DG_189309 so I expect that will be the next level for us.  Looking forward to it!

Pigs # 15 - The Tymawr Pig Company!

We're full of enthusiasm now, having had great success in the last week with 'farm gate' egg sales, we're missing the pigs and their area is greening up nicely after the application of 'green-manure mega-mix'! These three factors combined mean one thing: we need to put together a plan to buy a LOT more pigs, get organised with our marketing and production and go for it!

There is around two and a half acres of woodland here at Tymawr Farm, and we plan three uses for it:

1. Woodland pigs
2. Yurts / luxury camping
3. A firewood supply (the low capital, high efficiency solar solution!)

We aim to improve the woodland whilst using it, by which I mean: clearing brambles and dead wood to allow air and light into the canopy and the tree-bases, feeding the soil and improving it's texture, and, gradually improving the demographic of the tree species, eliminating any softwood or 'weed trees' like elder or hazel, and increasing the proportion of high-quality timber and firewood trees like Ash, Oak and Cherry.

The Woodland pig element will consist of small paddocks, each containing three weaners, of around 200 sq.m size, and with a pig house of approximately 3 sq.m in size (internal space), with a roof size of 4 sq.m. Each pig can drink up to 1.5 gallons (6.81 litres) water per day http://www.thepigsite.com/articles/3/feed-and-nutrition/1610/). As we don't have mains water in all areas it would be great if the pig's water could come from the roof - we have an abundance of rain water in this part of Monmouthshire!  Using data from the met-office (see below), and assuming an 'opening stock' (IBC?) of 500litres of water, 'self contained' pig-paddocks like this are definately possible.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/datasets/Rainfall/date/England_SW_and_S_Wales.txt
Accessed on 03.08.2012
	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
Days	31	29	31	30	31	30	31	31	30	31	30	31
2008	181	60	133	72	93	61	158	167	125	155	107	86
2009	155	61	63	74	72	63	220	77	42	117	260	138
2010	98	78	91	40	46	35	106	111	116	98	131	47
2011	135	98	28	19	59	103	76	80	99	114	87	172
2012	104	44	30	176	58	182
Av.	134	68	69	76	66	89	140	109	96	121	146	110
All above in mm

Water consumption of 3 pigs, assuming 1 gallon per day per pig
Con.	422	395	422	409	422	409	422	422	409	422	409	422
Above in litres

Water capture based on roof area of 4sq.m
Cap.	538	273	276	305	262	356	560	435	383	485	585	442
Above in litres

Cumulative net consumption (capture less consumption), with 500 litres opening reserve
Net	616	494	348	244	84	31	168	181	155	217	394	414
Above in litres

Each acre has 4050 sq.m in it, assume 20% is lost to pathways, that leaves 4050x80%/200 = 16 pens.  Therefore if we can turn 1 acre of the 2 1/2 over to pigs, leaving another acre for luxury camping / yurtage, we can keep 48 pigs in relative luxury!  As we aim to buy at 10 weeks, and slaughter at around 30 weeks, we should be able to process 2 batches per year in our woods.

In each paddock I'd like to fell 30% of the trees, logging them up for firewood, and after the pigs move on, having left lots of lovely manure and urine, I'd replant them with high quality replacement trees.  The aim would would be to eventually create a surplus of wood for sale, ideally as timber for carpentry and joinery.