They wouldn't have let us do that 10 years ago!

12 years ago we moved to North Devon! It was always an ambition of mine to own a house in the country with a little bit of land, and after being made redundant in 2002, decided it was time to do that. But it took us a couple of years to decide that it would be quite good to have a few animals.

Vicki is a farmers daughter, so I had an expert in the house, but we started with a few chickens, had 5 pigs for a while, then came the llamas, followed a few years later by the pygmy goats. 2 years ago now, we decided to have a go at fattening our own lambs and this year is our third season and we have got 8 little ones to look after.

Most animals have to have medication and injections. There is the regular six monthly ones and there are the occasional antibiotic as one of the animals catch something they shouldn't, the occasional pain killer if they bruise or hurt them selves in some way.

An expensive business, having to have the vet out to all these injections, but now, the vet trusts us to do it ourselves. We just have to ring up, explain the problem, the vet suggests a remedy and we collect it and administer ourselves. Saves us a lot of money in vet fees, and now that we have got the knack to it, it isn't that difficult.

They wouldn't have let us do that 10 years ago!