Can you earn a living without having a farm?[emoji848]

Depends what you pay in rent for what sort of ground I suspect.

@Tim W

Yes---in many ways it can be easier as a grazier rather than a tenant ---no fences to upkeep ,no weed control etc
Downside? You never know how much land you may or may not have ---short term agreements are just that , short term and unpredictable

I manage and so do plenty of others ---just be prepared to be flexible, sell stock when you have to and always be on the look out for new ground

The thing i regret is not being able to invest in the land ---not in a financial sense but rather i can't plant a hedge if i think it would be of benefit , i can't re-seed a ley or make any long term improvement
But you can't have everything in life

Depends massively on the size of the blocks of land available and the distance between them.
We make a good 50% of our living out of the sheep doing it on bits of land all over the place we do have a bit of home ground available (30acres) that helps having said that the biggest block of land we rent would be 50acres and the road time and constant moving of stock is really doing my head in to the point that if something doesn't change soon we might change what we are doing.
We run 600 ewes it's a full time job doing it without a big block of home ground but as said above my wife and I still have to do other things. If you could rent blocks of 80 plus acres that could be a game changer imo

We've something like 14 landlords for our sheep ground, it's all 'fly grazing' on a verbal agreement we come and go on their instruction. If any of them mention the notion of rent they are politely told "ask again and we will invoice you for keeping your grass down". It is all crappy bits of ground though.

Location is key, you want to be able to look round your stock before work, not take all day

I looked in on this thread because the title confused me. I thought it should read ‘can you earn a living with a farm?’

I am assuming you mean short term keep?Location is key, how much livestock is farmed in your area? Higher numbers, higher rents, less potential for the system to work. How many sheep would you need to make a living wage? How many areas would you require to keep them? Whats your back up plan if there is a drought or similar, you end up with no feed and market value falls as everyone else is selling for the same reason?

I do it as a sideline, I rely on my wife's help as I can't physically do day to day check and work elsewhere, I spend my "time off" shifting/drenching etc etc. But I would much prefer a more permanent arrangement, even on a smallish area so I would have storage at least without borrowing it off others.

Others do it elsewhere, but I don't think I could around here in Cornwall, there wouldn't be enough land available locally, and the cost of driving around would soon eat up your profit.