If you had a spare million or two to buy/ build your ideal farm, what would it have on it? im not talking gold-plated parlours, but things that are on your 'wish list' to maybe have one day yourselves....

My ideal farm would involve great big huge airy bright cattle sheds, barrier fed and easy to clean out, with walls that are almost impossible to knock down with my telehandler! concrete yards everywhere and a top notch cattle handling shed-with electric that doesn't keep fusing when im in the middle of clipping cattle, and a sink with hot water for calving.... o, and some internal stables in a nice big shed for the nags!!!

 Some purpose built youngstock buildings, with slopping/draining floors.( for me )

Fields that have natural shelter and water supply.( for the sheep )

And a nice big brand new New Holland Tractor. ( for the Hubby )

£1m will get you a 4000ft sq grain store, a delapidated bungalow, and 100ac of heavy old land. Buy a cheap crawler, discs and drill. Do up bungalow.

I would take the money over to Romania or elsewhere in the east and start there. No facy sheds - its all about the land for that budget.

I'll have to get back to you on this one. The possibilities are endless...............

As its a dream, can I use things that money just cant buy?

A barn full of hay and my neighbouring farmers hot daughter of 20 next door.

I saw the Monty Don programme on Your Dream Farm. This week it was about a Marketing Executive from London who had paid £200k for 14 acres in Warwickshire on which to breed Alpacas. She had erected a log cabin without planning permission in Green Belt and seemed surprised that there was local resentment.

Monty did a fine job of advising her as to the business angles but time and again questioned her comittment to 'the land.' You cannot be a farmer he said without a comittment to the land and having a 'sense of place.' At the end of the programme he told her to sell the land and, because she loved alpacas, set up a business making and selling products made of alpaca wool.

All in all an interesting programme but, as with all the others I have seen in this series, he ends up by saying that the people had better make a living from selling products other than or in addition to those produced on the farm.

l have watched the same programme, it is enough to make you weep.

Why do people think they can make a living out of livestock on so few acres.

 Either an extensive cattle ranch in a politically stable tropical country, with enough water stored in dams to counter drought effects, or a private game reserve in Botswana.

For me it would have to be a large upland beef and sheep unit, about 2500 acres, 3000 ewes and 150 sucklers. The land would be more level than I have now and in one unit....to save me from running around like a headless chicken. I would have a Fleet of tractors / vehicles that never broke down and all the staff would not only be very compitent, but also be female, blonde and have big.......well you can guess the rest !

I'd want as many acres as you could give me in a ring fence with no footpaths crossing through it or any rabbits. Stick up a dairy unit equidistant from each paddock, lay down some really good 20ft wide tracks with sheep fencing along the tracks and single strand in the field hooked up to a reliable mains fencer, and a water trough in each one. The parlour would be the size needed for however many cows I could have, with ADF and auto everything please. A circular yard with backing gate and water turbine to it also cleans after milking as well. A race with 2 footbaths (one to clean, the other with the chemical in it) that are easy to fill and easy to empty. A vet race with herringbone framework the same length of the parlour. A nice concrete pad to put plenty of calf hutches, and another for the silage pits. Spacious cubicles (11ft long by 3.75ft wide) with sand bedding. Stick as many houses as needed for me and my staff just down the lane a bit so I don't hear the cars roaring past, but far enough away from the dairy.

Autumn block calve the herd. Spend the winter working in nice sheds, and enjoy the summer milking cows with all the work done. Lovely!

well anythings better than ive got now.

I would by a 7/800 acre sheep farm with a small ish dexter cattle herd on Exmoor.

I would need some smart new buildings,a good mixture of old stone buildings an a nice farm house.

A landrover would be necicery as well as a few good tractors,e.g. mf 3080,mf 370,mf 290 and an mf 35x for mother to use,as well as a fordson major e27n like fathers back durin the war and a leyland 272 syncro as projects.I would aslo require a new quad bike either a kawasaki klf 300 4x4 or a honda 420.

the ground would have to be a mixture of flat easy going land and a few slopes.I would have a nice large flock of Exmoor mules and exmoor horn ewes with several texel rams.all the feilds would have to be fenced as im getting fed up of retreving sheep.

In the yard there would have to be a good workshop, a cattle shed,several steel and stone sheep sheds,and a good pole barn for hay and straw storage as well as lambing space.

There would have to be some stabless for my hunt horses but not to many.

 This is giong to be very hard work for my brother and i to build up, as we only rent 3.5 acres at the moment and are allowed to use 80 acres of equesteran gorund which isnt ideal.

i dont know wether there are any apprentaships running around here for people like myself,who want to get my family back into farming unlike half the people my age who couldnt give a stuff about there perants farms.

My dream farm and what I'd have on it?

Farm workers.

The one i farm at the moment have not seen anything else to match. I cant have large flat fields with straight sides i would fall to sleep and drive i the hedge no good to have dry ground i would have to do something i the winter not just put my feet up in front the rayburn

I'd like all of the above especially the parlour maids with big (you know whats) I guess I'd have to get some milkers for that though.

As to the foot paths that cross over the land well I'd just like some really mad lims, and when the council ask me why I have a sign saying Beware of the Bull instead or Bull in Field I'd allow him to walk the foot path.

So I guess I'd also need a deep slurry pit for all the council foot path enforcers and those walkers who think they have a right to roam

rossymons:

Stick up a dairy unit equidistant from each paddock, lay down some really good 20ft wide tracks with sheep fencing along the tracks and single strand in the field hooked up to a reliable mains fencer, and a water trough in each one. The parlour would be the size needed for however mny cows I could have, with ADF and auto everything please. A circular yard with backing gate and water turbine to it also cleans after milking as well. A race with 2 footbaths (one to clean, the other with the chemical in it) that are easy to fill and easy to empty. A vet race with herringbone framework the same length of the parlour. A nice concrete pad to put plenty of calf hutches, and another for the silage pits. Spacious cubicles (11ft long by 3.75ft wide) with sand bedding

 You paint a lovely picture and I enjoyed reading this. Would this be on the slopes of the Camel Valley between Wadebridge and Pastor by any chance?

rossymons:

The piece of the Roseland I find myself on would be sufficient

Ah, the Roseland Peninsular. We have had a cottage there for the past two years and loved it.

Peter Wells:

Ah, the Roseland Peninsular. We have had a cottage there for the past two years and loved it.

You're not about to tell us you're a second home owner in Cornwall are you Peter?!

You can't beat Cornwall, but then l am biased, my mothers family where all farmers on the north coast round Padstow.

But l do like my bit of Devon!!!!

the cornish ba#t*rd:

You're not about to tell us you're a second home owner in Cornwall are you Peter?!

We rented a cottage for a week each on a couple of local farms. As to a second home, I am happy with the one I have and, probably like most others on the forum, am too busy with work and involvement in local activities to even think of a second home.

We do have people around here though who have 'cottages' in the country. By and large they do not contribute to anything local at all and some even have Ocado deliver their weekend food thus bypassing local shops.

There are however, some people who say that they intend to retire here in due course and, at that point, will start to get involved in local activities. 'Time will tell,' as the saying goes.

boveyfarmer:

But l do like my bit of Devon!!!!

 Cornwall Jr as I call it. People go through Devon to get to Cornwall.

 My dream farm is our communal farm. I am practically living in it at the moment. It's something like a co farmer wakes you up early in the morning and asks you where else to go as they have already completed plowing the area assigned to them ( FYI, they're not even using tractor or any farm equipment).  But if I have 1 or 2 m? It's a house for members who are still sharing rooms with their grandparents. A college plan for at least one in every family. Some renovation of the students' communal house in the city. Maybe a tractor so our carabaos could cry in relief. After spending on the foregoing, I dont know if there are still some pennies left.