You’ve decided you want to become a smallholder. You’ve discussed why and what animals you’d love to provide for so now you need to know how to be successful. Aside from having a thick stomach, a good sense of humour, being financial stable and knowing when to take a break and ask for help, these are just some of the key points in becoming a successful smallholder.
Plan and Research
Having a plan is the best place to start, although this sounds obvious, you’d be surprised how much can go wrong if you’re not prepared. Doing your research on informative websites like Wynnstay is a great place to begin your plan and research before taking a step into the world of smallholding. Your plan can help you determine what it is that you want to grow and produce and exactly where you’ll sell it. You don’t want to produce food and other offerings without anywhere to sell. Your research and planning will help make you resilient, a lot of hard work and effort goes into being a small holder, fail to prepare, prepare to fail!
Equipment
The equipment you need largely depends on what it is you’re going to stock. Ensuring you have the best equipment for the safety of your animals is a good place to start. Providing electrical fencing in addition to your wooden or metal fencing is important for additional safety measures from potential trespassers to harmful predators.
In addition to taking safety measures, you need to ensure you have all equipment in place, from housing, bedding, feeding, and watering, cleaning, and maintaining as well as space for the animals to live and enjoy exploring.
Image Credit: Wynnstay
Natural Growing / Polytunnel
If you’re looking to grow your own vegetables to sell, you should look to invest in a polytunnel. Polytunnels are cost effective ways to grow vegetables and plants inside, in all seasons, providing you take the best care possible ensuring the right ventilation system and watering. If you’re unsure where to start, take a look at Wynnstay, the product offering for smallholders and growing your own will ensure you’re left knowing exactly where to start. After all, growing your own has become so popular that the products are now endless and so widely available to everybody. Once you’ve established your polytunnel you can look into what you’ll grow. The beauty of having a polytunnel is allowing for yearlong growth as there is ample protection from all weather conditions, so you can pick and choose exactly what you’ll grow and come to sell, this is fantastic for business.
Location
Ensuring a good location for your small holding is important. If you haven’t got land at home you can look to renting or even buying some land elsewhere, but just be sure that it’s enough land for the animals you’re looking to care for. Following from this, you then need to ensure there is enough space for the animals to enjoy the land once you’ve placed your housing and equipment in, if this takes up all the room then the chances are it’s not big enough to home your animals and you’ll have to reconsider. Make sure you plan the location of your small holding as well as possible as it can be a costly affair to rectify any mistakes.