Pocket Farm Magazine Livestock

Absolute beginner’s guide to breeding sheep

raddle_1_web

As I said in my previous article, there is already masses of material in print and on the net covering every aspect of sheep keeping in great detail. For this reason I have tried to write my article in a way that will deal with the fundamentals. With ...

How to Maintain Your Paddock

paddock

Paddock maintenance is essential to ensure that you are providing your livestock and horses with a safe and secure environment, as well as a nutrient-rich sward which they can graze on. If a paddock is not correctly managed or maintained throughout ...

Absolute beginner’s guide to keeping sheep

Sheep in the snow

As the title suggests, this article is aimed at complete novice sheep keepers or indeed anyone who is considering it. I am neither encouraging nor discouraging but will do my best to explain what it entails in the hope that it will be of benefit to ...

Beginning back garden beekeeping

Checking for honey in the supers

My interest in bees started at an early age. One of my childhood memories is of being stung by a bee on a train on the way to the beach with my grandma. I had crossed my ankles and trapped a bee and apart from the shock and pain, quickly learned that ...

Mini Moos: The world’s most popular beef cattle ‘repackaged’ for smallholders

Mini Herefords being halter trained

Pocket Farm talks to Malcolm Gough about his journey from fledgeling farmer to one of the UK’s few breeders of pedigree miniature Herefords…and yes, that is their full size! ...

Iron Age Pigs: this boar is no bore

Iron age pig

Iron Age pigs are a distinctive looking cross breed first developed for a BBC documentary by none other than Countryfile presenter Adam Henson’s father Joe. By combining a Tamworth – one of our least diluted British breeds – and a ...

An introduction to beekeeping

Honey bees at them entrance to their hive

Beekeeping is a fascinating craft that can be started by anyone at almost any time of life providing a few sensible facts are considered. As a hobby, one or two hives in the back garden is as much as many wish to manage but it can also be built up ...

Winter livestock husbandry checklist

Cows in the snow

With winter coming good husbandry is even more important. Most animals are okay with a bit of rain (goats maybe not so much) and most are reasonably hardy when it comes to the cold but extremes of either and certainly a mixture of the two and the ...

Working with your vet for happy, healthy animals

Checking a donkey's udder at a city farm

Smallholders generally like to be hands on when it comes to livestock or poultry husbandry and most will be lead, consciously or not, by the concept of the ‘five freedoms’. If you are not familiar with the official definition it is: Freedom from hunger and thirst – by ready access to ...

Take a closer llook at llamas

Llama herd at Llama Land in Cornwall

Llamas are a South American camelid and the domesticated form of the guanaco which live in the Andian areas of Peru, Bolivia and Chile. Other members of the family include the larger Middle-Eastern or African camels and their smaller South American cousins, alpacas and vicuñas. Llamas were ...

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