SMALLHOLD FARM, LARGE UNDERTAKING

The smallholding dream has caught the imaginations of people from all backgrounds since time immemorial – even before BBC’s The Good Life hit screens in the 1970s. But suburban chicken sheds and larks with goats aside, what are the practical aspects that you need to bear in mind before attempting to create your very own slice of rural paradise? Smallholding enthusiast Lisa Williams of the Somerset Smallholders Association gave us some advice on how to get started on this rewarding – if in, some cases, rather fraught – endeavour.

How did you get into smallholding?

I had a firm grounding in husbandry – I worked at Bristol Zoo, and then the RSPCA, as a canine behaviourist, and at a small local rehoming charity in my former life. However, I had never worked with livestock before starting smallholding.

I originally bought three chickens and kept them in the garden. Then I got ducks. Then more chickens. They totally trashed the garden, the ducks got eaten by a fox and I had to move them out to a corner of an acquaintance’s field.

But I really got into it when I raised a few weaners with a friend in her pig pen and we got a couple of orphan lambs together. We had nowhere to keep them (I live in a cul-de-sac) but she did have a big grassy garden so we kept them in a wendy house at night with daytime playing in a large run attached. We now cover three villages with many different plots.

Is it a whole family affair or is it possible to make it work with one person in the couple doing an office job, for example?

I started while working full time as a single parent with an autistic son. It was easier then, as I had a few sheep, chickens and weaners that went off in the autumn, so I could easily look after them before and after work (although it became more onerous in winter). I’m heavily pregnant and have given up working, but luckily my partner has a good job. Before this though, I ran another business and it was incredibly difficult. I am glad to now be the full time smallholder.

Family support is invaluable for when things go wrong. You can do it on your own – I did so

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