The Poultry Keeper

sasha.p · Joined: 04 Sep 2005 Posts: 472 Location: gwent

hello again latest development i took my dogs up to the land earlier to have a good look around there are so many brambles and dead ferns i cant even make out where in gods name our boundaries are Shocked

I'm all for getting goats up there if they will clear that all without damaging the habitat anyway i had a good snoop round the two foundations which are there but did not realize the asbestos building was an extra one! which is covered in ivy has solid breeze block walls and sides and roof are asbestos anyway then my German Shepard started to bark at something so i went back onto the path and a gentleman who lives in my street was walking down i knew he had lived here for some time so i asked him about the buildings he told me they had been there around 50 years and apparently he had complained to the council about the planning on the ground next door so i thought what the hell if i mention to him what we intend to do with our land its up to him if he objects but at least i tested him to see what his reaction would be i don't think he liked it Shame on you

as he said he doubts we would get any planning as the settlement boundary ends with next door .well when i got in just now it got my brain going again Idea

i was given a number for another planning officer the other day when i went there so i rung him to ask if they will be moving the boundary any time in the near future he said no but then i brought up about another query regarding the buildings and said we want to put goats up there and they need shelter etc and would we get planning for them seeming there are already building foundations and he said probably Anxious

but then that would mean you having to live on site to manage them too depending on the amount you intend to keep. so now I'm thinking oh god how many would i need to keep to get permission?and more important could i manage to keep them all happy and well looked after I'm completely new to this and now I'm a little worried anyway I'm going to go and see the manager of the sanctuary this afternoon and have a word to see how many goats they have and to find out if they would be happy to help and in return we help by providing them with ground to forage on for free.i really could not see any other animals living on the growth up there apart from deer reindeer

or something as its mostly brambles and ferns.i did also mention to the planning officer would we be likely to get planning for a caravan he said no and also mentioned managing the woods and needing somewhere for our equipment etc and again he said the livestock would be the only reason .anyone got any advise to help me out i would appreciate it I'm not going to let this beat me I'm only just starting i will get there also he said in 18 months time there will be a local development plan and we can have our say as to why we think the boundary allowance should be changed so that's another thing to our advantage as they also said the plan will be reviewed in 6-7 years time and the boundary may be moved thumbright

which is not really a long time to wait when i consider we would like another baby soon as ds is 18 months old the timing would work out to be about right i think. Smile

mojo · Posted: Wed Mar 22, 2006 5:56 pm Post subject:

dont know about this stuff but i wish you all the best.......we went rural in france and have not regretted it one moment

Spana · Joined: 30 Apr 2005 Posts: 2064 Location: North Cornwall

When you say the settlement boundry, do you mean the piece of land you are hoping to buy is or is not in the village envelope.

summayah · Joined: 14 Apr 2005 Posts: 4289 Location: luton

Good luck with all your plans ~ I hope they come how you would like them to.
The only thing that rang all the alarm bells was an asbestos building. When I moved to this house there was an old greenhouse (I mean really old). The old man had built his own shelving etc in it. As it was unsafe we had to take it down ~ the shelves were made from asbestos and you can't just toss that away. It's very damgerous if it gets broken and the dust inhaled. The council took ours away but we had to securely bag it in case it got broken on the way to the specialist place that deal with it.
So please be very careful around the asbestos sheeting.
Apart from that good luck

Issy · Joined: 22 Nov 2005 Posts: 371 Location: somerset

Good luck with your project I am afraid it is outside my experience but it is going to be really informative to hear how you get on as we are trying to buy the 6 acres next to ours and then we should have enough ground to make a living from (in theory) Laughing

sasha.p · Joined: 04 Sep 2005 Posts: 472 Location: gwent

well there goes the idea of using the sanctuary goats they only had Severn there and they were all pretty ill and on their last legs DH does not want the cost of having to vaccinate etc if we were to get our own.does anyone know how much it would cost to get a license of defra to keep goats?I'm trying to work out now what the annual coast of keeping a goat would be to see if we could afford to own some ourselves,or do people rent their land to goat owners?or is it just grazing pastures usually?we have not even looked at cost of fencing yet can anyone recommend somewhere good to get fencing from? Smile

milkmaid · Joined: 19 Apr 2005 Posts: 6919 Location: isle of lewis

it costs nothing to get a holding no from defra ,fencing is very expensive ,goats can make a mockery of most fences Twisted Evil

,but so can sheep ,if you get in touch the british goat society they might know of a few people that will have young goat wethers ,if people don't eat them they are usally give away or sold very cheaply ,believe me 7 goats is plenty to start with is plenty they are hard work Twisted Evil

,they also have likes about who they will or will not live with Twisted Evil

,if you have local greengocerers they might give you greens over ripe bananas Very Happy

ect no citrus ,with the grazing they should not cost to much as i said i'd give your local vet a ring and ask if he could do it and how much it would cost ,our vet doesn't work the same as other vets around the country and will often carge a few pence if he is doing sheep and has a bit left over Very Happy

suz

sasha.p · Joined: 04 Sep 2005 Posts: 472 Location: gwent

hi again thanks for the advice i just looked at the British goat association website and it has some great info on it but on there they say you can vaccinate the goats yourself how do you get the vaccines though do you just buy them from the vets like wormers etc? I'm pretty confident i would be able to do it as the national diploma i done i was shown how and had practical experience doing a lot with various animals.does anyone on here vaccinate their own?I'm going to ring defra tomorrow been so busy today still have not had a chance i will ask the teachers i know in college as its an agricultural college i go to tomorrow to see if they know any local fence suppliers my hubby wants one of those hole borers for the fence posts now but it would have to be a one man one as most of the land is on a slope its a big job i know but we will do a bit at a time DH helped a Friend of mine put his fencing in along his farm Field and he was digging the holes after that he said never again lol. Laughing

milkmaid · Joined: 19 Apr 2005 Posts: 6919 Location: isle of lewis

sounds like you've got it sussed Wink

,we do our own ,vac from the vet ,
suz

sasha.p · Joined: 04 Sep 2005 Posts: 472 Location: gwent

well things are looking good i spoke to some people who i know who live by the land we bought and they were worried the bloke who has the land to the side of ours had bought it as nobody seems to like him much but they are over the moon its us who has it apparently they a few people who live along there also objected to his planning application but the lady i spoke to earlier said our other new neighbor's will be so pleased to hear its us who got it and she was really impressed as she knows i love the wildlife and don't want to go tearing the place up with diggers and all i said we are looking at getting some goats she said she will be up there all the time lol.i managed to persuade DH its the only way we would ever get our dream home in such a beautiful spot and also how much enjoyment we will get from the goats too i have always wanted my own smallholding Very Happy

also word has got around pretty quick that we bought it another neighbors partner approached us earlier as we were getting back from taking our dogs up there they said they heard we had bought the land and asked if we knew of any more for sale lol and if we do to let them know and also another person told us there's been a few people asking who owns the land,i think we have done the right thing we are going to get some more chickens now too could we sell their eggs to a local shop or supermarket if we did?how do you go about doing things like that?i would love to make the land work for us to create a small income if we could

summayah · Joined: 14 Apr 2005 Posts: 4289 Location: luton

If you're going to sell the eggs to a shop or similar you have to be registered. I believe there is anothr post on here somewhere with lots of detail about that.
http://forums.thepoultrykeeper.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=4550

fenwoman · Posted: Mon Mar 27, 2006 11:24 am Post subject:

Sasha I would advise you to subscribe to the 'country smallholding' magazine. You will find the answers to a lot of your questions and more in there about all kind of animals and growing. There is also a letter page which you can ask all the questions you want and people who have been through it all, kept the animals, fought the planners and now got the T-shirt, will be able to give you good answers.
Join your local nearest smallholder association too for information and support.
Get in touch with the local NFU rep to ask about living on land where you keep livestock. They have some clout you know. Join the NFU even if you only have 1/2 acre and 3 chickens. They really are helpful for all manner of things from helping with planning info, to insuring your car.You may even be able to get a grant to help clear the land of brambles and fern. If it is bracken do not let your goats eat it as it will poison them.
HTH

poultry poofs · Posted: Thu Mar 30, 2006 12:23 pm Post subject:

Hi Sasha
Read your bit about the land and the no obviuos boundaries bit- since you have bought the land the Land Registry should have details of your property boundaries as it is now law that any parcel of land that is owned or let and is transferred has to have a land registry registration and to do that they need to have the exact plan of the land concerned.If they havnt got anything on your land now they will have to come out and survey it and have to look at the neighbouring land owners land to define the boundaries of your land.I am sure your solicitor should have known all of this and told you and supplied you with a plan of your land so that you knew exactly where your boundaries are.If there is no actual feature to mark a boundary you will have to measure it all out yourself.You would be wise to do this now before neighbours come saying 'oh that bit there has always belonged to me'!when it hasnt. The reason I say do it is because the same thing happened to some of my property and it took a couple of years of argueing with solicitors neighbours and the land registry before it was all sorted out and was all over a smudgy plan in my deeds that had no measurements on it.The fact that our family had owned our land in question for over 50 years to everyone else was irrelevent because there was nothing concrete in the plan to define the actual boundary.Fortunately when the Land registry people came to survey it there were still remnants of rusted barbed wire fence still stapled to oak trees so swung it my way but things could have been a lot different.

re the eggs business-if you sell chicken eggs to shops etc they MUST be grade A and you MUST be registered with DEFRA egg marketing inspectors,irrespective of the numbers of chickens you have.You can sell from your home(farm gate) with no such restrictions so long as you have less than 350 chickens and/ or do not sell to shops or restuarants.
If you need the contact details for DEFRA Egg Marketing Inspectorate I can give you those if you want.The regs only cover chicken eggs so you can sell Duck Goose turkey or anything else without regulation.Be careful of the local trading standards though as they always keep a watch for anyone selling stuff for human consumption.All I am saying is its great to do these things but be aware of the people you need to be aware of who could give you a lot of hassle.

rich

poultry poofs · Posted: Thu Mar 30, 2006 12:32 pm Post subject:

Further to the land registry bit,you have a legal right to copies of all your neighbours land registry registrations where their land borders on your own.You can do this yourself or you casn contact your regional land registry office that deals with your area and speak to them direct.They didnt charge but may well now but it would be worth it in the long run for you to know exactly what is legally your land.You will also need to know the eact boundaries and land field numbers etc if you ever need to register your land with DEFRA as a livestock holding which costs nothing.
Your local library should e able to help with large scale maps (6 inch to one mile scale )which they can let you copy for a small fee.You need that scale to clearly see the boundaries field numbers etc.

regards Rich

sasha.p · Joined: 04 Sep 2005 Posts: 472 Location: gwent

hi thanks for the extra advice right regarding the boundary all i have seen so far is the details the estate agent gave me which says 11 acres and has an area marked out in red on an old ordnance survey map which i assume the guy who is selling has highlighted i was expecting to hear from my solicitor last week but no letters arrived this morning so will be on the phone first thing Monday morning to see whats taking so long she did say if its not been computerized she will have to update everything so I'm guessing that's the hold up,we went for a walk up the back of our boundary and there is a barbed wire fence in place but I'm not sure about the sides as its overgrown with brambles and on either side the people have both been working close to where i would imagine the boundary is in fact me and my hubby found tracks and run over trees on what is definitely our land where the one neighbor has gone over it in his digger i have to be honest i am a Little worried one of them may have cut onto our land as we can see it from our house and it does not look like 11 acres my Friend has 15 at her cattery so am comparing it to that but then again its that overgrown its probably hiding half the land .funny enough me and DH went to countrywide to find out how much the fencing would cost not that they were very help full but i picked up one of the country smallholding magazines but there was not much in this one about goats,i don't think we would want more than 50 chickens anyway so not looking at a real large scale selling just something to create a small income .i asked our vets last night when i took one of my dogs for its vaccine about keeping goats and the cost but he did not really give me an answer he just said what one are you thinking of?are they for milking?do you intend to keep them when the grounds cleared?and he said this with a big grin on his face Surprised

and also said what fun what he meant by that I'm not sure but its made me worry a bit lol Laughing

so I'm still none the wiser as to how much its going to cost for general care vaccines worming etc. Question

anyway we have decided to get the boundary sorted first with a good fence we are going to get an architect in then to draw up plans for stables barn and house but only get him to submit the stables and barn first before we get any goats as i would not like to put a wooden shelter there in case somebody decided to set it alight because we do not live there if you get what i mean it would be a danger to the goats and a waste of money otherwise if something did happen as there is a public foot path straight through there,when we are granted planning permission which probably will take a few goes the planning officer i spoke to said depending on livestock there would be a need to live there so we would then be able to apply for a house how much livestock though I'm not sure?surly there some animal care legislation that can prove we would need to be there anyway we need to be able to manage the grounds properly and look after the animals and keep our stuff safe and the only way to do that really is to live there as i cant really see us doing it living a mile down the road even though i can see our grounds i cant see whats going on up there from here Rolling Eyes

anyway i think there is already an electric supply running there to where the asbestos building is but i have to contact my solicitor to ask her to find out it looks like a main cable to me but may need updating but even so at least it looks like there is something there.I'm just hoping my solicitor will be able to sort this boundary thing out for us i don't fancy falling out with neighbor's over it she should have the proper boundary in the deeds anyway so will pay her a visit on Monday i think to see how things are progressing.i will contact the nfu and look at joining but where can i find their contact number would they be in the yellow pages?well i will let you all know how things go got a lot of hard work ahead of us but even more things may get put off a little as have just found out I'm about 6 weeks pregnant with my second child so I'm going to be very busy lol oh well it will probably take ages to get the fencing done let alone anything else but we will get there Smile