Selfsufficientish.com

hi maggie, thats just how we started and have never looked back :lol: we get hours of pleasure from our piggies and love eating them :mrgreen: we're on our third lot now and all i can say is don't keep them too long as i'm told they put fat on. keep them dry and give them a good wind proof sturdy sh...

well thats our 4 old spots away :cry: 3 of them sold and buster in our freezer :wink: but the 4 tamworth gilts arrived on tuesday and they are beautifull wee girls.think we will keep 2 back for breeding this time. does anyone have any thoughts on a good hardy boar to cross them with or should we sti...

do you have to have specific livestock trailer to move livestock - ie are the regs on this sort of thing? :( no i don't have a specific trailer but i do borrow a corker. wish i could find a piccy of it. it's about 8x4 with fold down sides and a lift off roof. it's got a loading ramp on the back wit...

hi purple, the reason my turbine is so far from my battery bank is that the world has gone mad! there is a perfectly good site 25m from it. indeed i had another rutland there on a telegraph pole for a year as a test (infact the pole has now been there for 6 years) but this is not on land that i own ...

hi purple, just tried to post you a picture there but it went pear shaped! anyway ours is a 6.5m self supporting tower, though i have fitted 4 guys as we do get some ferrocious gusts. the proven is in a good spot but it is 160m from the battery bank so requires very heavy cable (70mm square) the tru...

hi purple, we live off grid and have a 'proven WT2500' it's been up and running since sept last year and i can't praise it enough :cheers: before that we had a 'rutland FM910' which only finaly died this year! though it was up and running for about 17 years in total, it had had many mods/repairs. th...

hi guys, anyone got any thoughts on how long to hang a pig or even if it's necessary. we have some going away on monday and one of them is going to the butcher on thursday, is that long enough?
cheers paul

whatever batteries you end up with, you'll need to get the wiring right to ensure their longest possible life - there is a very common mistake made, which can shorten a bank's life considerably - here's how to do it right! http://www.smartgauge.co.uk/batt_con.html :cooldude: i have to go out now an...

hi stoney unless you can get these batteries alot cheaper than a conventional deepcycle lead acid i wouldnae bother. because they are all costly variations of the same thing. gel is just stiff acid which is fine in a sub, lifeboat, or landrover that may spend some time upside down but the gel does n...

morning stoney just a few of my thoughts/experiences with batteries here. if you're going to use an inverter/charger steer clear of gel/carbon/spiral/sealed batteries as they don't like the high charge rates. you need deep cycle lead/acid traction batteries (as in forklift truck, golf cart, and prob...

hi stoney, nothing wrong with 12v i lived with it as my primary power source for 20years. running a lister twice a week to do the washing and top up the batteries when my rutland 910 was struggling. nowadays you can get 12v everything as i'm sure you know. things have moved on for me now the rutland...

hi christine, someone told me that lime was not good for potatoes, dunno if thats right. i'm busy spreading seaweed on my future spud patch but i don't suppose you get much of that in sheffield

get the petzl mate, bomb proof, fits in yer pocket, runs forever on 3 AAAs, and it's not made in china! think i got one same as yours, petzl copy £5.99, fell apart when it came out of the box. stuck it together with tape cos i could not bare the thought of it flying back to hong kong so someone c...

hi guys anyone know anything about turkeys? my wee boy was practicing 'ole macdonald had a farm' the other day and said we've got everything except cows an turkeys dad. i told him we were definately not getting a cow but it did get me thinking about a turkey for christmas! and what happens to all th...

hi guys paul and barbara here from a very unurban northwest scotland. came across your wonderfull site looking for piggy info and i was most impressed by stoneheads input (specialy the 'egyptian' fencing trick). been on the road to self sufficiancy for about 17 years but kept getting distracted and ...