Smallholder Training Courses

At South Yeo Farm East we have developed a number of affordable practical one- day training courses for smallholders covering a range of smallholding related topics from keeping your first birds or livestock to managing the land. We know that starting out on your smallholding dream can be daunting so why not come along for a fun and relaxed day to gain a little confidence before launching into keeping your first livestock or digging a pond? Courses have been run at the farm now since 2006 and we always welcome suggestions for new topics; if we cannot run one ourselves, we will find someone who can! If the dates don’t suit or you have a group, do contact us and we can put on additional dates. All courses involve a mix of both practical hands on and classroom sessions in our newly restored cob barn training facility.  We limit numbers to 10 places to allow lots of space and opportunity to ask questions throughout.

The new training room

We deliver most of the courses ourselves: Gillian draws on her experience having grown up on a smallholding, managing the farm livestock and she also worked for 7 years as a Farm and Rivers advisor for the Westcountry Rivers Trust where she delivered environmental training courses. Ian has a lifetime’s experience from growing up on the farm with his family and seemingly had his hands permanently inside various bits of machinery! In addition, he is a professional audio engineer and we therefore also offer a couple of courses on Audio Systems for those who need help managing sound systems in their halls, churches and venues.
Over the last couple of years an increasing number of people have begun to offer smallholder training but there is currently no certification system for delivering such courses, so how can you be sure the quality of the material we deliver is up to the high standard you would expect?

1. We regularly deliver a number of our courses for the Devon Association of Smallholders (DASH). Each of these course attendees submits feedback to the DASH Training Co-ordinator who monitors the tutor’s delivery, content and general effectiveness - we wouldn’t be asked again if we weren’t getting it right!
2. Similarly, we deliver courses for Duchy College of Agriculture; the attendees also submit formal feedback to the College.
3. We have our courses critically vetted by other experienced sheep / pig / poultry keeping friends to ensure content is up to standard - they are not shy in telling us what they think…
4. Finally, we also ask our course participants to complete a feedback form so we can monitor how the courses are received and improve the programme and content with every course that is run. We have been doing so for 5 years now and are continually updating.

Tractor and machinery maintenance training day in action

All the courses are run at our farm and usually involve practical sessions outside, so please bring clean outdoor clothes, wellies, and a notebook should you want to take notes, although appropriate handouts and a multitude of leaflets to take away are supplied. Teas, coffees and biscuits are provided but to keep costs down we ask that you bring your own pack lunch. For individual course details click here and to book click here

* DASH is the Devon Association of Smallholders. Bookings for courses marked 'for DASH' are for DASH members and are taken through their training co-ordinator. See the DASH website for further details.

Individual course summaries: we provide more detailed course outlines upon request and on booking but a brief summary of the content of each one-day course is given below:

Poultry Keeping for beginners - Want to keep poultry but don’t know where to begin? This is an introductory course for the beginner, covering regulations, choosing & handling birds, housing, feeding, daily/seasonal care, eggs, rearing & common poultry health problems - see chicks hatching & our collection of 30+ rare & traditional poultry breeds - including chicken, bantams, ducks, geese and jungle fowl - opportunity to handle birds of different sizes. Touches on hatching and dispatch but these are covered in more detail in our ‘Incubation, Hatching and Rearing’ and ‘Poultry Dispatch’ courses

Poultry Keeping evening - From 7:00 - 9:00pm, this is a whistle stop version of the poultry keeping day course for those who want a quick introduction. Cost £25 per person

Incubation, Hatching & Rearing Poultry - If you’ve kept poultry for a while & now want to start hatching & rearing your own young birds, this course is for you. We cover a brief overview of rearing birds healthily to improve fertility, selecting eggs for hatching, egg storage, preparing and setting eggs, incubation by incubator or broody, hatching, brooding, feeding & rearing young birds. A natural follow-on to our ‘Poultry Keeping for Beginners’ course. You will help prepare eggs for setting, monitor the incubators working, see chicks hatching and the young bird rearing areas.

Poultry dispatch & dressing - A practical one-day course covering humane culling, hand plucking, eviscerating and dressing of chicken & ducks - hands on, bring your own bird or bird to purchase provided - just in time to process your prize Christmas goose or turkey… This course is designed for participants to both gain the skills to quickly and efficiently cull their own birds should they need to for welfare reasons and to prepare their own birds for the table - not for those wishing to sell oven-ready birds on a commercial basis.

An Introduction to Keeping Pigs - Beginners guide to choosing & sourcing the right breed for you, handling, feeding, housing, managing and transporting pigs. Will also cover current regulations (lots!), sending your pigs off for meat, potential health problems and what to do about them, and finally breeding - pigs of various ages on view from our ‘South Yeo’ herd of pedigree Large Blacks & we usually aim to have a recently farrowed pig with piglets to see. This is a full-on day with lots of information to take away.

An Introduction to Sheep Keeping - A beginner’s guide to keeping sheep including, current regulations (plenty!), choosing a breed, sourcing healthy stock, feeding, annual management, handling, managing the land for sheep, how and when to send off to the butcher and potential health problems -  Also briefly touches on lambing but this is covered in greater depth in our January lambing course. We will collect a group of sheep in from the field and get hands-on with several different ages and breeds (including Balwen, Shropshire, Gotland and Kerry Hill), learn how to trim feet, dag and administer wormers and different types of injections. We point out what you should be looking for (or not) in a healthy breeding ewe and let you have a go yourself…

Lambing - A day spent looking at lambing from preparing the ewe & ram for tupping, care of the in-lamb ewe, preparing your lambing shed, collecting together your essential lambing kit, routine lambing, potential problems with lambing/ewe/lambs, to follow-on lamb care - if all goes well we should be 2 weeks into lambing our Shropshires with ewes & lambs to view and work with

Land Management - You have just taken on your smallholding & want to know how to get the best from your land but also manage it in tune with nature… we cover grassland management from topping, harrowing, rolling, rotations, manure management, soils, pest & weed control, hedges, ditches & watercourses, & field drainage. Lesson 1: It all comes down to timing… Both theory & practical sessions looking at different land use types and machinery in action. We both run this course so you get the benefit of Gillian’s conservation and land management background and Ian’s passion for machinery.

Gourmet Mushroom Cultivation – Learn how to grow a range of Gourmet Mushrooms at home and in your garden, smallholding or woodland. Featuring an introduction to the world of Fungi and basics of mushroom cultivation, we will then go through 3 practical sessions looking at ways to grow gourmet mushrooms easily at home: on hardwood logs, in woodchip garden beds, and in bags of straw or waste paper/cardboard. Suitable for complete beginners, and includes an inoculated log to take home with you. Course run by guest tutor Adam Sayner of the Woodfruit Gourmet Mushroom Co.

Creating Living willow structures - Learn how to plant & grow willow and how to make a variety of living willow features including arbours, ‘fedges’, arches, chairs etc. Practical hand-on sessions & fast growing salix viminalis and/or colourful basketry willow to buy to take away. Whatever the weather, we will create a garden structure by the end of the day and you will see how fun and easy it is to create a little bit of adventure in your garden.

River habitat management for Otters & other wildlife - Learn about otters, how to build an otter holt and how to maximise the wildlife potential of your stretch of river or stream for otters & other native wildlife - practical log holt building session & river walk in the afternoon looking at a variety of habitats we have created on the farm. Gillian’s background as an ex- Farm and Rivers advisor comes to the fore on this course and her passion for protecting the river environment shines through. We’ll have you rummaging through stones in the riverbed to see what you can find living there before you know it!

Wildlife pond creation & management - Have you always wanted to create a pond to attract wildlife into your garden or field corner?On this day we will explore the habitat requirements of various creatures to then enable you to design a pond that will offer the greatest potential for a range of flora and fauna. We will also discuss management of existing or neglected ponds in order to bring them back into productivity, and how to manage invasive and dominant weeds - several local examples of new and existing ponds will be viewed and we’ll get the nets out to see what we can find living in them or not depending on the influences on each. Bring photos or maps of your current or proposed pond site and we can discuss these too at the end of the day so you can apply what you have learned.

Tractor & machinery maintenance - A course for beginners, covering basic maintenance of simple tractors and the most common farm machinery - bring your overalls and prepare to get stuck in! You will see a number of tractors, trailers, livestock boxes, toppers, mowers, balers and more, and have the opportunity to ask all those machinery questions you just can’t find answers to in the books. Just in time for hay making…

Tractor maintenance - similar to the above course but a whole day focussing solely on maintaining your tractor in a little more detail.

Combine Harvester evening (from 7pm - 9pm) - ever wondered how a combine harvester worked? (sadly we cannot rely on the Wurzles for the answer!)  Join us as we prepare our vintage combine for this year’s small scale corn harvest. They have a habit of going wrong just when you need them but are not as daunting as they look… and you too could have your very own home-grown straw and grain.Cost £25 per person.

Audio Systems - For those who manage complicated sound systems and want to understand how they work - eg church & village hall systems. A hands on day with Ian (Professional Audio Engineer)

Testimonials
Don’t just take our word for it, here is what some past participants have said about our courses:

Poultry keeping:
“ Great day. Really good value for money. Amazed at how much we managed to get through in one day. “

“ A most interesting day and I feel better informed and more able to look after my ducks, geese and chickens. Even small things like cleaning out houses - things people don’t think to tell you about were covered “

“ It was a fantastic day - well run and really helpful tutor “

“ Very enjoyable & highly informative. Fantastic value. To be recommended to friends “

Introduction to Keeping Sheep:
“ Perfect course for us! Felt that we could ask any questions without feeling silly. Great to get hands on - even if they were a bit wet! “

Tractor & machinery maintenance:
“ As a tractor ‘novice’ I felt it was delivered at the right level. It has increased my confidence “

Living willow structures:
“ A bit of a wet day but we all enjoyed ourselves and had a good mix of theory and hands-on“

Willow course attendees standing proudly by their newly created arbour

So what’s keeping you? Why not come along to a course and learn in a friendly relaxed environment how to take the first steps in keeping livestock and more!

Coming soon: Training room hire
Over the last few years we have been converting a traditional cob barn in our farmyard as a focal point to use for the training days. Now completed we hope to offer it for hire to groups of up to 12 in number that wish to get away for small conferences, away days, training and meetings where they will not easily be disturbed by the outside world. Owing to the thick walled cob construction mobile reception inside is limited! All the usual conference facilities will be available such as an overhead data projector, flip charts and pads, and refreshments. If interested in using this space, please contact us and we can tell you more.

Courses we don’t offer but that are relevant to what we do and may be of interest to you: