Hobby Farming?

[starr80]

I was wondering if there is anyone here who has a hobby farm, too? It would be fun to chat and share experiences!

[razz]

At different times, there have been members who started smaller farming operations and shared their challenges and successes.
Perhaps you could describe what you mean by a "hobby farm". A few chickens and a garden or 100 beehives or a market garden.

[Darryl]

My wife and I have what you could call a hobby farm. We have 60+ hens and 3 goats (one we are milking). Our goal was to become more in tune with our lives, raising more of our food, learning skills that were once common but now scarce. We are now in our third year and are very glad we took this path.

[The Storyteller]

I picture a hobby farm as a pretty showpiece little place, with a few chickens, ducks, horses etc mostly for looks and fun. At least, that's the sense I get from Hobby Farm magazine. I always detested that name, as I'm trying to build a working farm.

But since I haven't made much money at it yet and it could use some prettying up, maybe I should change my attitude. :)

Darryl, I have always thought of what you are describing as homesteading. Semantics, I know.

Starr80, I'm all in. I love talking about farming of any kind, agrarian snob though I may be.

[starr80]

Hi, Darryl. Do you have some land in San Francisco? Such a beautiful area. But so incredibly expensive.

Hi, Storyteller. Thank you for responding. Yes, I guess there are various names that it could be called, and I'm not sure which would be the perfect word to describe each particular situation. Homesteading. Farming. Self-sufficiency. Off the grid. Survivalist.....
What projects are you trying to make money on? I've been talking to some people around my area, and they do all kinds of things. Some raise alpachas for their fiber. Others sell farm-raised meat to city folks. Others train horses. Some grow fruits and vegetables. One woman told me she is going to be tanning hides. And so on and so forth.

have a wonderful day, everyone!

[The Storyteller]

Well, right now I'm selling meat chickens, turkeys (both heritage and broad breasted beasties), and eggs.

I'm toying with fish production to feed my family, but if that is as promising as it looks on paper (although what is?), I may branch into selling catfish some day.

[Joyous_5]

Ooooh, good thread. Semantics aside, let's just call it farming for fun and/or profit! :)

I have dreams (who doesn't?) about that "perfect" acreage in the country where we have forests to walk in and gardens to keep, animals grazing while I work away on my next book and survey the farmstead through my office window.

Then there's reality: a life so busy between a four-year old and my writing career, aging pets, church, extended family and other outside time needs where I can barely catch my breath! However, we have been moving in the direction of self-sufficiency, however slowly. My main issue? Fear. I can read all I want to about raising animals in a book, or re-finishing a chair or whatever, but there's always that underlying fear that I'll fail at it and also waste money/time in the process. So I'm trying to start small: this year I'll be canning tomatoes for the first time ever and plan to build up a pantry area in our basement. I'd also like to create a little root cellar bin as seen in Mother Earth News, a rain collection system and plant raspberries. In addition to the three page list of home projects that need attending to in the warm weather, I'll be lucky if I just can the tomatoes.

What type of farm are you dreaming of/working toward, Starr80? And type of self-sufficiency things do you do now? Thanks for starting the thread and nice to "meet" you!

[Joyous_5]

The Storyteller--what does fish production look like? A pond on your homestead? If so, was it already there or did you create it? And do you process the meat chickens/turkeys yourself or hire a mobile slaughter unit to come in?

[Joyous_5]

My wife and I have what you could call a hobby farm. We have 60+ hens and 3 goats (one we are milking). Our goal was to become more in tune with our lives, raising more of our food, learning skills that were once common but now scarce. We are now in our third year and are very glad we took this path.

I love this--thanks for the inspiration. What did you start with? What would you suggest a newbie begin with?

[Float On]

I grew up on what some would call a hobby farm but it was sure a lot of work. Probably more hours went into the farm than dad ever worked at his jobs. 120 acres owned and 300 rented (not in the thousands like everyone else in the area). 50+ head of cattle (not in the hundreds or thousands like neighbors). 60 acres in row crop and hay (not hundreds or thousands), a dozen sheep, a dozen turkey, uncountable hens and ducks (changed day to day based on the coyotes) no chicken/turkey barns with Tyson pulling up every few weeks, 40 acres of Christmas tree farm. 3 ponds with enough fish for family/friends, good hunting, usually 3-4 horses (my project - English and western. I showed in both dressage and rodeo). Most of the farm land that was former Christmas tree farm, row/hay fields are now in a state conservation program to re-establish prairie grasses.

I do chickens (eggs and meat) on my 1/2 acre and have a tiny garden.
I think a lot about moving back to the family farm and raising quail and do larger scale you-pick-your-own gardening. Mom did that for a few year and we had people out daily picking veggies. Short 5 mile drive from town.

[jp1]

Float on, that sounds somewhat like the farm my paternal grandparents lived on. It was one section, 640 acres, all owned, and they had a pretty wide assortment of income activities going on. Soybeans on part, about 30 head of cattle at one point, a few dozen chickens, a large organic garden that supplied all their produce (not specifically called organic at the time) some pigs, etc, etc, etc. I certainly wouldn't have ever called it a hobby farm though. At a mile square and with so much going on it was way to big to seem hobby-ish. More like full-time-ish. And they used it to support themselves for almost 40 years until grandpa passed away in his late 80's 25 years ago. Even after he officially retired in the early 70's he was still doing a lot. About the only thing he retired from was growing crops of soybeans.

[razz]

I grew up on what some would call a hobby farm but it was sure a lot of work. Probably more hours went into the farm than dad ever worked at his jobs. 120 acres owned and 300 rented (not in the thousands like everyone else in the area). 50+ head of cattle (not in the hundreds or thousands like neighbors). 60 acres in row crop and hay (not hundreds or thousands), a dozen sheep, a dozen turkey, uncountable hens and ducks (changed day to day based on the coyotes) no chicken/turkey barns with Tyson pulling up every few weeks, 40 acres of Christmas tree farm. 3 ponds with enough fish for family/friends, good hunting, usually 3-4 horses (my project - English and western. I showed in both dressage and rodeo). Most of the farm land that was former Christmas tree farm, row/hay fields are now in a state conservation program to re-establish prairie grasses.

I do chickens (eggs and meat) on my 1/2 acre and have a tiny garden.
I think a lot about moving back to the family farm and raising quail and do larger scale you-pick-your-own gardening. Mom did that for a few year and we had people out daily picking veggies. Short 5 mile drive from town.

This was regular farming in its time for most people. It supported families and while not a huge income made for a good life. My parents had 100 acres which included grain and hay production, 30 milking Jersey, some sheep and about 3000 chicken for egg production. They lived on that. My dad earned off-farm income for a while to get things going as the market for farm products was unstable.

[The Storyteller]

The Storyteller--what does fish production look like? A pond on your homestead? If so, was it already there or did you create it? And do you process the meat chickens/turkeys yourself or hire a mobile slaughter unit to come in?

Sorry, I haven't checked this in a while.

We are planning to experiment with aquaponics after the holidays, starting out with a 100 gallon tank in the garage. If that works well, we will expand to 250 to 375 gallon tank out of an IBC tote, still in the garage. We'll see where we go from there.

We have large mouth bass and perch in our big pond, and I just stocked it with 100 8 inch catfish. Although I think that was just an invitation, because we have never seen so many ducks on our pond.

We do raise and process turkeys and chicken on our farm. Even sell a few here and there.

[Float On]

I'm getting ready to place my order for my meat chicks for early spring. I'll be ordering 50 this time. I'm remembering that my grandma paid $1 for 100 meat chicks.

Storyteller, I have a neighbor that raises koi in his garage. It's been a good income stream for him.

[Gardenarian]

You all are making me jealous that I didn't grow up on a farm - I wish I had that knowledge handed down to me. Heck, I'm even afraid to keep chickens after seeing the raccoon massacre at my neighbor's.
Life in the suburbs just doesn't prepare you for much, I think.

[The Storyteller]

Cool! Where are you ordering them from? I'm doing several batches beginning mid-February, so maybe I can coordinate one of my batches to match yours. We could do a thread and trade process and progress reports.

My last batch was a very good one. Got an 8 pounder, some 7, and several 6, dressed. The big ones barely fit the freezer bags, so I'm going to have to order a case bigger ones for the special cases.

1343

[Joyous_5]

You all are making me jealous that I didn't grow up on a farm - I wish I had that knowledge handed down to me. Heck, I'm even afraid to keep chickens after seeing the raccoon massacre at my neighbor's.
Life in the suburbs just doesn't prepare you for much, I think.

Oh, I know. I was walking down the hallway early one morning and the light outside was still dim. "What's that?" I said, wondering about the large black lump in the backyard. It turned out to be a raccooon, gnawing away on my neighbor's chicken which had just the day before been happily scratching away in our dead leaves. I know that it's all part of the natural world, but I felt so sad for the chicken. Especially since the raccoon only ate it's head and left the rest there. :(

[Float On]

Especially since the raccoon only ate it's head and left the rest there. :(

That's exactly what raccoons do - go for the heads. They will kill 10 if they can and only chew on the heads. What a waste.

idealpoultry.com is where I've ordered from the last few years. They are in TX and very quick delivery. I didn't order last spring or fall due to my broken ankle year, and my good friend that introduced me to ideal had some major problems with his order this last spring. I need to check with him and see if he's decided on a different supplier or to stay with the same. Combining our order we can get a little better price on our meat and egg chicks.

[The Storyteller]

I have three Great Pyrenees and a black lab. Raccoons are generally the gnawees rather than the gnawers, at least when they are stupid enough to venture near my birds.

[Joyous_5]

Good grief--that's a lot of dog food, Storyteller!

[The Storyteller]

Not too bad. The nice thing about Pyrs is they have a low metabolism, so they don't eat like the big dogs they are.

It used to be just the lab and a female Pyr, but they were having to work too hard to protect our animals. We picked up reinforcements (about 300 pounds worth) a month or two ago. Now the young males are doing most of the work. And having a great time of it, from the sound in the back pastures at night.