Perhaps you have always dreamed of escaping the rat race and running your own smallholding or maybe you would just like a few colourful chickens laying fresh brown eggs in a pretty little hen house at the end of the garden. Maybe you have always wanted to look out of your window and see newborn lambs grazing happily in a field outside or have wondered just what it takes to look after a hive of bees.
More and more people are becoming interested in where their food comes from and how it is treated. Attitudes towards food and where it comes from have changed considerably, fuelled by rising prices and frequent food scares.
The easiest way to do this is to produce your own, but only if you know where to start… We are here to help. We start right from the basics—no knowledge is needed and all questions, however basic, are welcomed! We will show you how you can participate in producing your own food and keeping your own livestock, even if you are working.
We run a wide range of courses run by our team of highly knowledgeable and approachable lecturers.
Courses include:
- Smallholder Taster Day - a chance to sample everything and find out what it takes to be a smallholder
- Complete Guide to Keeping Pigs
- Starting with Hens and Ducks
- Sheep for Beginners
- Bees for Beginners
- Bee Improvers
- Orchard Creation and Maintenance
Details of course dates can be found on www.mumbleysfarmhouse.co.uk/Dates.html
How We Got Started
Husband and wife team, Simon and Jules Moore, bought Mumbleys Farmhouse in 2001 and started with two overgrown fields, a pair of ducks and a couple of hens.
With our two sons, two dogs and two cats, we have built up a thriving smallholding of approx 12 acres, consisting of four small paddocks with a barn, a wildflower meadow with a pond teaming with bugs and beasties, a productive vegetable patch and a terraced garden full of flowers to attract butterflies and bees. We have planted over 500 native trees and shrubs and put out boxes for bats, birds and hedgehogs. We are part of the Countryside Stewardship Scheme, maintaining our land for the benefit of the environment , as well as for production.
We now keep a variety of chickens, including Orpingtons, Araucanas, Cream Legbar and our own hybrids; Runner and Silver Appleyard ducks; Honeybees; Grey Faced Dartmoor, Southdown and a few commercial sheep, Oxford Sandy & Black and Kune Kune pigs and Shetland Cattle..
When we first started, there were no courses and we learnt by experience and reading books (none of which the animals had read!). We hope that by providing these courses, we will give you the confidence to take up this enjoyable and rewarding hobby and maybe even make a business of it!
We want you to learn everything you need to know; to start you off on a new and exciting life—living that dream of the ‘good life’.
You can contact us on 01454 415296 or jules@mumbleysfarmhouse.co.uk
