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I was just wondering how many of you out there have allotment tenancies that allow the keeping of animals? if so, what type do you keep and how do you cope with vandalism etc? I've read several times in mags that some plots allow animals (mine doesn't) and I'm deadly jealous and would love to hear from you how successful it is - You never know it might even tempt me to look at other plots!
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Our allotment in Coventry won't allow livestock point blank, but I am tempted to see if we would be able to have bees. -
Our local alloments have animals on them. We don't have a lottie though.
We walk past them sometimes on our way into the town itself and someone there has about 10 hens on one plot and another plot actually has 2 goats on it.
The hens and goats are obviously fenced in but the whole allotment itself is enclosed on 3 sides by a high dry-stone wall then the entrance side has just a 6' high fence and gate.
Not sure what type of security they have, and we have never walked past them at night, but we have seen a few large spot lights that have been set up.
It wouldn't take much for someone to get over the dry-stone walls but as far as I know the allotments don't seem to fall victim to vandals and whoever is keeping hens and goats has done so for the past 5 years, which is how long we have been living here.Comment
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Three seperate lots of chickens and bee's on our site.Gardening ..... begins with daybreak
and ends with backache
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We don't have an allotment as such, but a smallish plot on the local city farm. There are, obviously, animals on the farm (sheep, pigs, goats, rabbits, guinea pigs, chickens, ducks, cows and this year a couple of donkeys) and we have been allowed to keep chickens - we've got two black rock hens. None of the other plotholders are keeping animals though, unless you count the wormery! We've only had our chickens a few weeks and already we have plans to build a bigger house so we can have more next year! They are lovely hens, they eat all our slugs and snails, they are a joy to watch scratching around, and apparently will be very reliable and productive layers (ours are still young and are only just getting into their stride, but we already get 1-2 eggs a day even though they aren't fully mature yet).
As for security - both the area where the plots are and also where the other animals are kept overnight are well fenced - chain link at least 10 feet high all the way around - and as far as I know there has never been a break-in or any vandalisation of either. Bearing in mind the location of the farm which is in one of the less posh areas of town, to say the least, on the whole I think people behave pretty decently. There have been occasional problems (e.g. litter in the outer paddocks, once a water trough was vandalised, once someone ran off with a chicken in broad daylight) but I think on the whole it is pretty secure and there are no thieves or vandals determined enough to cause any major worries.
We have been advised to keep the chicken house well away from the outside fence in case somebody decided to "play" with the chickens by chucking stuff over or through the fence at their house, but I don't think this is any more than a precautionary measure - none of the animal houses in the central farm area that are within lobbing distance of the fence have ever been targeted as far as I know.Warning: I have a dangerous tendency to act like I know what I'm talking about.
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It sounds brilliant!Comment
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It is!Originally posted by raine View Post
(Which was all I was going to say but I can't post a message that short apparently. Try again...)Warning: I have a dangerous tendency to act like I know what I'm talking about.Comment
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