For those of you with a bit of experience wanting to spread your wings, get more ambitious with your range of smallholding activity and breed your own stock.

Who would benefit from this course? This course is for smallholders with some experience of looking after land and livestock who may be feeling in need of a refresher or are thinking of scaling up in some way; this might include starting to breed your own stock, increasing the numbers or varieties of stock you keep, or adding to the amount of land you manage and wanting to make the best of it. Anyone who’s been on our Introduction to Smallholding course and wants to know more will also find these two days a good next step.

Course content: an update on current legal and statutory requirements and available grants; making your handling facilities work better for you; land management and layout; is it time for a tractor; a look at the costs of breeding your own livestock; breeding your own poultry/waterfowl, sheep and pigs. We always allow time to answer a raft of questions and aim to leave you feeling confident in making your next smallholding decisions. If you have anything specific you want to cover we will do our best to accommodate it.
Who are we? Debbie Kingsley and Andrew Hubbard have lived at South Yeo Farm West on the fringes of Dartmoor since 2005.  They run the farm themselves, and raise native and rare sheep, pigs and waterfowl.  Debbie is also a professional trainer specialising in the arts sector and writes a regular column in The Landsman on life in the country, and Andrew now works full time on the farm having spent many years developing software. They have been smallholding/farming-on-a-small-scale together for nearly two decades and before that worked in their spare time on a farm for a number of years

Day one:

• 10.00 Introductions. What smallholding activity are you doing at the moment and what more do you want to achieve on your smallholding?
• Legislation and grants: a refresher on what’s new and what it means for you
• Making your handling facilities work for you: sheep, pigs and poultry/waterfowl
• Lunch
• Land management and layout: grass management, drainage, soils, wildlife habitats, making sure the layout works for you
• Cream tea and Q+A – picking up on all those questions you really want answers to
• 4.45 Finish for the day

Day two:

• 9.30 arrival, coffee/tea, picking up on any outstanding questions from day one
• Is it time for a tractor?
• Costings for rearing and breeding livestock
• Breeding your own poultry and waterfowl: incubation and rearing
• Lunch
• Breeding and rearing sheep
• Breeding and rearing pigs
• Cream tea and Q+A
• 4.45 Feedback and finish

This course is limited to eight people. Do bring: outdoor clothes, clean wellies, waterproofs and probably a change of clothes if it looks like rain.

Cost: £150 per person including homemade lunch, Devon cream tea and refreshments on both days. There is a 10% discount for two or more people booking together for the same course (e.g. £270 for two, £405 for three people etc).

Dates:
Saturday 2nd & Sunday 3rd July 2011
Saturday 19th & Sunday 20th November 2011

Booking: Booking is simple. Just send us your name, address, phone number and email address indicating which course you want to book with your preferred date, and we’ll send you an invoice (payment is required in advance), directions to the farm and any other information you might need. And don’t forget to tell us if you have any dietary restrictions.

Full details on our website here or contact Debbie on 01837 810569 or debbie@smallholdertraining.co.uk