When you run a small farm there are many demands on your money — both from expected costs and those that appear out of the blue. One of the “known unknowns” — to quote a certain American politician — is veterinary fees. You can budget for routine vet visits, for vaccinations and treatments, but there will always be unforeseen emergencies.
As yet there are no insurance policies covering farm animals for vets’ fees in the same way that your dog, cat or horse may be covered, so how do you ensure that you can put enough by for those contingencies without wiping out your savings?
GET THE BOOK
A useful budgeting tool for the penny conscious farmer is the John Nix Pocketbook for Farm Management. This annual publication sets out the average costs and returns for each type of farming enterprise, from goat dairying to glamping, and includes the running expenses for most farmyard animals.
The information is gleaned from official figures from Defra, the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) and other sources, so it is geared to the more intensive farmer, but it gives a handy clue to expected outlay (see opposite, far right).
According to the Pocketbook, a ewe costs the farmer an average of between £8 and £11 each year in vet routine fees — for wormers, vaccines and flystrike and foot treatments. However, farmers with smaller numbers in their flocks will not have the same economy of scale as bigger farms when treating their sheep. Buying a wormer that will treat 50 sheep for £55 is less economical when you only have six to treat, for example. Therefore, the cost to the smallholder is likely to be higher.
ECONOMIES OF SCALE
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Denne historien er fra January 2020-utgaven av Country Smallholding.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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The Good Life captured the public’s imagination when it first aired in 1975. On Country Smallholding’s 45th birthday, Jeremy Hobson looks at this and other programmes with a self-sufficiency slant that have captivated urban and rural dwellers alike over nearly half a century
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In the second part of his mini-series on tools that are useful around the holding, Kevin Alviti takes an in-depth look at the iconic scythe, a thistle paddle and forks that were once virtually indispensable to small-scale farmers
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In an ordinary back garden and single paddock near Kidderminster, Kay Dalloway has created both a thriving smallholding and a successful fibre business — all while working full time for the NHS. Helen Babbs drops by to find out about her ventures
Game on
A little preparation in the autumn months will help to make the transition into winter smoother and put your garden and tools on a better footing come the spring, says Stephanie Bateman
1975 And All That
Country Smallholding is 45 this month. To celebrate, Jeremy Hobson takes a look at some of the changes — both good and bad — to small-scale farming over that near half-century
