eliminating bills - homesteading

[baymule]

No scraps for the goats. And when you bag cut grass, is gets hot and starts to decompose. I've tried it with my horses and they turned up their noses at it. Probably a good thing they didn't eat it. Your grass clippings would better serve as a lawn mulch, letting them stay on the lawn. It would protect the roots in the heat of the summer, and don't scalp the lawn, cut it tall. If you have a good layer of mulch on the lawn, then bag a mowing and give to your chickens in the coop. They will enjoy the clippings and will reduce them to compost. I always build my chicken coops with a dirt floor so I can toss in bags of leaves, garden trimmings and practically anything vegetation. What they don't eat, they scratch to bits and poop on it. In a few months it makes a lovely compost.

Excess milk can be fed to the chickens and pigs. Milk had lysine in it which is an essential nutrient for pigs. Eggs also have lysine in them and you can boil them and give to the pigs, shell and all. You might look for a grazing type pig that can forage. You also might want to stay with a small breed so you don't wing up with a 1,200 pound army tank on pig feet. LOL

http://sugarmtnfarm.com/

Raw meat can carry parasites as I am sure you well know, so freeze it first, which will help kill the parasites. I canned bony chicken parts and necks in quart jars for my dogs when we slaughtered chickens last month. They like the feet too!

You might have to get an off farm job. You will have to have money and might not generate enough from your farm. Go to farmer's markets and see what other people are doing. We feed our chickens a non GMO feed which is twice the price of regular feed and have people clamoring for the eggs. Look around your area and see what people are willing to pay for and how much. If there are signs posted at driveways reading YARD EGGS FOR $2.00, then you would have a tough time selling eggs for $4.00.

Maybe you can develop a market for your products. We found out that shelled purple hull peas sell for $35 to $60 a bushel in Tyler, Texas close to where we live. Guess what we will be planting next spring?

Find your niche and concentrate on it. Talk to people and tell them what you are doing. We just moved to our 8 acres 1 1/2 years ago. We bought 4 bred ewes and are picking up 3 lambs from slaughter Friday. We have 2 1/2 of them sold, keeping half a lamb for ourselves. I keep a list of people in my phone of people interested in lamb for the next batch. I sold them for $6 a pound, hanging weight, plus cut and wrap ($85).

Work into your farm, find your customers and meet their needs. If you have to wait tables, work in a convenience store or whatever a few days/nights a week to help support yourself, then so be it. You will be happy because you are doing what you love on your farm.

Welcome to the forum. Be sure to check out www.theeasygarden.com and www.backyardchickens.com and www.backyardherds.com links are to the right of this page. Lots of friendly folks that will be delighted to help you on your way to happiness on your farm.

 

[NH Homesteader]

I don't know much about sheep so I won't comment on them. They don't fit in our homesteading adventure. If you get goats you need to get 2 or more. They are herd animals and will be miserable and some even die when alone. Nigerian Dwarf goats do not give much milk. But it is delicious! It is also high in butterfat so it's great for cheese and putting it in coffee. A bit rich for drinking in my opinion.

Barbed wire isn't good for goats. You need electric fence or regular fencing. If you go to backyardherds.com you will find everything you need to know!

I don't know about taxes, but I know the general rule is the government wants you to report everything! I don't currently sell anything from my farm so I'll also leave that to someone else.

 

[abigalerose]

I have two quarter horse mares, a palomino with Mr.Gunsmoke on her papers, and a sooty buckskin with Two Eyed Jack on her papers, and I have a gold champagne Missouri Fox Trotter mare that I rescued

 

[Beekissed]

With all the information given, I'd say "eliminating bills" is not in your future, no matter how much money you've been given and with a free house and land on which to live,the animals you already possess will be eating a huge hole in your fundage. Continually. All year round.

When wishing to eliminate bills one usually downsizes and streamlines what they own and pay on monthly. Getting rid of extraneous animals is usually one of those streamlining things....realistically thinking, if they don't produce food or money, they gotta go. If they can't go, adjust your thinking about eliminating bills attached to feeding animals that don't earn their keep. That's feed, vet bills, farrier, housing, fencing, machinery/vehicles for transporting said animals and other misc. expenses that come along with horses and a lot of big dogs.

If they are making enough money for you to stay in the black with their expenses, then keep 'em and expand on that idea. Bay had it right when suggesting starting small....impulse buying of animals leads to overwhelmed people who, once owning the animals and becoming attached, then cannot see their way through to getting rid of them when times get tough.

I know this because I have a sister who was given a farm and buckets of money to run it...she promptly adopted herds of "rescue" horses, donkeys, sheep and dogs and then added heritage breed cattle and hogs to it, then chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, etc. Her goal was to make a living off the "farm", with a farm store and all. Years later, many dead animals later, over half a million in debt later, with feed bills charged over $10k and a personal debt that would rival the national debt, she's yet to make a penny profit on her "farm", has killed more tractors and animals than anyone I know, and will not get out of debt in this lifetime or any other one.

No need to go hog wild when given land and money, especially if you intend to keep both and live a debt free life. Just start slow and low, see if you are actually going to be able to turn a yearly profit, then add as the land allows. Seven acres isn't much, so keeping stocking figures really low will keep you from ruining your soils and pastures. The horses alone will overwork 7 acres of pasture.

I echo Bay's thoughts of getting into chickens and rabbits, both are profitable ventures and can provide much meat, if you don't let sentiment rule your farming methods.

 

[abigalerose]

Mostly I meant eliminating my bills - like electricity, groceries, etc. and lessening then animals feed bill. I know that horses will never pay for themselves. I'll only be keeping 2/3 at my farm, and if I need to keep them stalled with feed and only turn them out a couple hours - half a day to keep my grass from going to fast I can. But a dairy cow would help provide feed for myself, chickens, and hogs (if I ever decide to get any), and can be kept out to pasture, a dairy cow won't ruin 7 acres.. I don't think anyways. And then chickens provide eggs and they can free range most of the time. I'm not against looking into rabbits, I had a family member one time that raised them and sold them for meat, so that's not a bad idea. I might be better off considering rabbits before pigs. And maybe I shouldn't do either.
And as for the big dogs, well they should easily pay for themselves, and hopefully make a little extra. But if I end up pouring buckets of money into them, even though it'd be hard, I can force myself to scale back.
So *hopefully* one day the only thing I'm really spending money on is a couple horses. And I guess like health insurance and stuff since it's mandatory.
I probably won't ever get rid of all my bills but I hope to live fairly cheap.

 

[MoonShadows]

I would love to have pigs and goats, but I keep getting "out voted". Just a matter of time before I ware them down to my way of thinking.

 

[abigalerose]

Just joking about the bacon anyways
And I don't doubt that they're not anymore expensive than horses, I just can't afford both! Lol. And even though horses don't have much use, they win over goats for me because horses are what I'm passionate about.
Horses don't always have to be as expensive as everyone says, this is something I learned from my grandpa. I do spend more on the horses than my grandpa did when he was in charge of the horses we use to have (I was too young to pay for things back then). He kept the horses for.. well free pretty much. Aside from the cost of the horses (2 green broke geldings at $400 each, the market was pretty low then, and a mustang gelding that I got $200 for, for showing him in a 4H show, so that one was more than free lol), he didn't really spend anything. For feed they had grass. In the winter he gave hay but it was hay that he grew and baled himself (for the cows), and he just didn't bother with grain. Also being old cowboy that he is he didn't get their feet or teeth done. And I will say, their feet actually looked fine, I guess we have a good combination of rock and grass here that keeps feet wore down. And I'm not sure how often or if he even wormed them at all. Maybe he did once a year. Actually I know he did when we first got them, so I figure he must have wormed them every year when he worked the cows too. So basically he spent about $25 a year total on caring for three horses. Except for the year that a piece of pipe fence went all the way through ones neck, he had a vet bill that year lol. And the horse lived, not even a scar.
Maybe that's not the best way to take care of horses, but that's how he did it and that's how a lot of people around here do it, and the horses were in good shape, not ribby or over weight (although the mustang did get pretty hefty at times and we had to put him in a less grassy area), they didn't have any troubles with their feet, and they were happy horses. I spend a little more because I'll have to buy hay in the winter, at least this year, but I know people who have hay and I can get it a little cheaper, and I feed grain sometimes in the winter, but I get that cheap too from the anish community, and it's good quality! I worm twice a year, and I have someone that will do their feet for free. So I have a little more up keep and spend a little more money, but it's not as crazy as people on the internet make it out to be. If you research before buying a horse it's probably just gonna scare ya because there's people that say "board is $200 a month, feed is $200 a month, you need to put shoes on them for $100 every 6 weeks, worm with every changing of the season and get their poop tested for parasites.." and so on and so forth, but realistically, I don't know ANYONE who spends that much on horses and does all that. Not in Missouri anyway. No one here would have them if you had to spend $500 + on them every month. I'm sure some rich upper class horseman would be disgusted with the way I care for my horses, but on the other hand I'm 10x the owner as some of the other horse owners I know, and even their horses are healthy and happy.
And I do have an emergency fund set aside for them, btw

 

[baymule]

Personally I'd rather have pork chops or have the loin as a roast. As a roast I rub the loin with powdered ginger, then orange marmalade and bake.

 

[NH Homesteader]

How cool! I love it. My husband is thinking about it... I have all winter to convince him! He hasn't really liked sheep in the past. But maybe they're different enough he'll change his mind. He loves my goats! And the pigs. If I can find friendly sheep that will earn their keep he'll be happy.

 

[Beekissed]

Oh, these are friendly...and they are that way without being bottle lambs. Very moochy, sweet and docile. Follow you around like a dog, want to have their noses in everything you do, snuffling your hair, etc.

And no sheep stink...they smell like horses do. Hair sheep have way less lanolin in their fur, so they don't have that rank smell like a woolly breed does. It also sweetens their meat in the same way...no strong flavor, no matter how old the sheep. I've had woolly sheep meat and then hair sheep and there's really little comparison....one was greasy and strong in flavor and the other so mild and sweet, so tender it barely had to be chewed.