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Hi, I am new to this but I am thinking of keeping a couple of pigs in the field I own next to my house. Can anyone tell me who I have to inform apart from regiistering them, such as councils, or planners or neighbours etc ?. Thank you.

Ooh! Ooh! Miss! Me miss! I know this miss!

I've been finding out about this in preparation to actually doing it so I'm not an expert at all but I have a few notes written down.

You need a holding number to identify you as a livestock owner in the system. You get that by phoning the rural payments agency on 0845 603 7777. It's free and you'll get your number pretty quickly (within a month). You need this before you get any animals.

Then for pigs you'll need to be registered with the animal health office - 01785 231 900. They'll sort you out for eartags, flock & herd number, welfare codes, movement records that sort of thing. The same people also do sheep and goats and stuff. Cows is different.

If you'll be putting up any kind of structure to house your pigs you'll need permission from the planning office at your local council. Don't fool yourself that it's just a temporary structure and doesn't need permission. It's permanent if it's there for more than 28 days.

As far as I know that's it but I wouldn't be surprised if I've missed something important. I'm still in the information gathering stage myself.

And good luck.

Chickpea wrote: If you'll be putting up any kind of structure to house your pigs you'll need permission from the planning office at your local council. Don't fool yourself that it's just a temporary structure and doesn't need permission. It's permanent if it's there for more than 28 days.

sorry, butting in here, but is this the same for chickens too?

Kirsty (still thinking!!)

Just a quickie... firstly the rules might be slightly different in Scotland (you need to contact Seerad rather than Defra - no doubt Stoney will be able to give you even more info.

Not the same for chickens.. although if you keep more than 50 birds you will be required to register them.

You need planning permission for a henhouse just the same as a pigpen. There was a story on the news a year or so ago about some little kids who were ordered to pull down their wendy house because it didn't have planning permission. Most people don't seek planning permission for wendy houses and most kids aren't prosecuted. I think planning laws are often ignored and mostly there's no problem unless you have arsey neighbours.

depends on whether it's a mobile henhouse surely...??

thankyou for all the replies,
Funny I was thinking of getting a couple of chickens and maybe a goose or 2. As to the pig house I was going to build them one of those triangluar houses Iv'e seen. As to the planning, well surely living out in the country, no-one can moan about trying to be more self sufficient
It all looks like quite fun, a field segmented into bits for different animals.