Homesteading and Hobby Farm/Ranch

Borzak · May 20, 2021

My be a billionaire plan was to have "my people" develop a minature longhorn similar to minature horses. Make a kabillion bucks selling them to every UT graduate with a 3-5 acre "ranch" with thier name and longhorn on the massive gate. One day lol. I grow trees for a hobby. Lot less labor intensive and pretty sure lot less risk involved. But have at it if it floats your boat. Ranchers and farmers I know that do it for a living would love to give you some tips, for a fee of course.

I had up to 3 cows at various times through the years. Just to be able to claim my ag exemption mostly. That was pretty low labor since I just left them out all the time till I got time to butcher them.

TomServo · May 20, 2021

Borzak said:
My be a billionaire plan was to have "my people" develop a minature longhorn similar to minature horses. Make a kabillion bucks selling them to every UT graduate with a 3-5 acre "ranch" with thier name and longhorn on the massive gate. One day lol. I grow trees for a hobby. Lot less labor intensive and pretty sure lot less risk involved. But have at it if it floats your boat. Ranchers and farmers I know that do it for a living would love to give you some tips, for a fee of course.

I had up to 3 cows at various times through the years. Just to be able to claim my ag exemption mostly. That was pretty low labor since I just left them out all the time till I got time to butcher them.

You stole that from a late season Miami vice episode. Lol

Borzak · May 20, 2021

I don't remember it. But they have a LOT of 3-5 acre mini ranches with giant steel gates with longhorns on them. Surely they would love a mini Bevo. Hell if A&M can make a maroon carrot someone should be able to make a burnt orange mini longhorn.

Locnar · May 21, 2021

I have the Liberty Mutual commercials to thank for what seems like a boom in Emu sales these past couple years.

BrutulTM · May 21, 2021

Borzak said:
I don't remember it. But they have a LOT of 3-5 acre mini ranches with giant steel gates with longhorns on them. Surely they would love a mini Bevo. Hell if A&M can make a maroon carrot someone should be able to make a burnt orange mini longhorn.

I think someone beat you to that one.

Mini Longhorn Bulls Cows Heifers Babies TLBAA | Celina TX

Silver Star Ranch Celina TX raises miniature Longhorn Texas Cattle TLBAA & ITLA. Award Winning Mini Longhorns

www.minilonghorn.com

Maybe not as miniature as people would like, but they'll probably get there. Miniature Zebu are more miniature, but probably doesn't speak to the heart of Texans with spare land and cash quite as much.

BrutulTM · May 21, 2021

Blazin said:
I'm hoping for a June settlement on the land, we are getting kind of late in the season for what I'm going to do with the land this year. Have Alfalfa planted on a lot of the acreage now and some soy bean that is just starting to sprout. Probably going to be stuck just letting the neighboring farm continue to lease it through 2022 growing season.

Right now I spend my time studying equipment and farming more than I think about the house.

How much land are we talking about? What kind of farming are you interested in? Alfalfa is very good for the soil being a deep-rooted perennial and also a legume which can fix nitrogen in the soil from the air. You will never be able to pay off haying machinery with a small amount of alfalfa though. You can buy some 30 year old shit and get the job done, but you better be prepared to have it break down all the time and figure out how to get parts from salvage yards and such. Some people do this but you need to be pretty handy mechanically to make it work and baling alfalfa is very time sensitive, especially if you're in an area with a lot of rainfall so having your shit out of commission for a few days can be a big deal.

Blazin · May 21, 2021

It’s rather small (for a farmette). Just under 20 acres

BrutulTM · May 21, 2021

Blazin said:
It’s rather small (for a farmette). Just under 20 acres

I shouldn't say you can't make the hay thing work. You can't do it with big modern hay equipment, but if you're going to get a tractor you can probably pick up a 3-point sickle bar mower and a rake for next to nothing at an auction or something and that stuff is fairly simple to run and work on. The big problem would be the baler. If you have a neighbor that would be willing to bale it for you on shares that might be the way to go. Selling little square bales to "hobby farmers" is more profitable but small square balers are notoriously cantankerous. It might also require a bigger tractor than you want to buy. If you're in an area where you can get multiple hay cuttings without irrigation and there's a ready market for hay it could be something that would pencil out.

You might also consider switching to livestock. There is a ton of stuff on youtube about pastured chickens or pigs and you might find that you can actually make more money doing that than farming and without the need for machinery or other big upfront investments.

Blazin · May 21, 2021

BrutulTM said:
I shouldn't say you can't make the hay thing work. You can't do it with big modern hay equipment, but if you're going to get a tractor you can probably pick up a 3-point sickle bar mower and a rake for next to nothing at an auction or something and that stuff is fairly simple to run and work on. The big problem would be the baler. If you have a neighbor that would be willing to bale it for you on shares that might be the way to go. Selling little square bales to "hobby farmers" is more profitable but small square balers are notoriously cantankerous. It might also require a bigger tractor than you want to buy. If you're in an area where you can get multiple hay cuttings without irrigation and there's a ready market for hay it could be something that would pencil out.

You might also consider switching to livestock. There is a ton of stuff on youtube about pastured chickens or pigs and you might find that you can actually make more money doing that than farming and without the need for machinery or other big upfront investments.

I'll have to resist the urge to blow tons of money on new equipment. My neighbor is a pretty big working farm I know if I can just get past my being too shy they could be super helpful with advice and access to equipment that would be completely wasteful for me to be buying with 20 acres. I'm still not completely settled on what we want to be doing. This age of youtube is awesome though there is so much info available. I definitely want to do chickens but that will likely just be subsistence in scale. Finding the best use of the land that mixes with something I enjoy doing. Larger livestock seems more intimidating to me but I'm sure it could evolve over time.

Borzak · May 21, 2021

My grandmothers place is 15 acres. I used to keep the pasture down. Eventually it became easier to let a guy down the road bail the hay when they needed it in bad years and pay him when it just needed cutting. Took him no time at all to drive down the road and cut it.

Borzak · May 21, 2021

BrutulTM said:
I think someone beat you to that one.

Mini Longhorn Bulls Cows Heifers Babies TLBAA | Celina TX

Silver Star Ranch Celina TX raises miniature Longhorn Texas Cattle TLBAA & ITLA. Award Winning Mini Longhorns

www.minilonghorn.com

Maybe not as miniature as people would like, but they'll probably get there. Miniature Zebu are more miniature, but probably doesn't speak to the heart of Texans with spare land and cash quite as much.

Thanks. Off to forumulate plan B to come up with a billion.

BrutulTM · May 21, 2021

Blazin said:
I'll have to resist the urge to blow tons of money on new equipment. My neighbor is a pretty big working farm I know if I can just get past my being too shy they could be super helpful with advice and access to equipment that would be completely wasteful for me to be buying with 20 acres. I'm still not completely settled on what we want to be doing. This age of youtube is awesome though there is so much info available. I definitely want to do chickens but that will likely just be subsistence in scale. Finding the best use of the land that mixes with something I enjoy doing. Larger livestock seems more intimidating to me but I'm sure it could evolve over time.

This is the video that inspired my current hog project. I don't know what the climate is like where you are but I imagine it's a lot closer to where polyface farms is in Virginia than I am out West.

You probably can't make the money that they do because Joel Salatin is super famous and a hell of a promoter so yuppie moms will drive long distances to severely overpay for his meat but there is definitely a market for humanely raised, hormone and antibiotic free meat and people will pay a considerable premium for it, especially since covid.

People are doing the same thing with chickens, putting them in moveable coops and electric fence and selling them as pastured poultry. That's even easier than pigs as you can do the butchering yourself with minimal infrastructure.

lurkingdirk · May 21, 2021

BrutulTM said:
This is the video that inspired my current hog project. I don't know what the climate is like where you are but I imagine it's a lot closer to where polyface farms is in Virginia than I am out West.

You probably can't make the money that they do because Joel Salatin is super famous and a hell of a promoter so yuppie moms will drive long distances to severely overpay for his meat but there is definitely a market for humanely raised, hormone and antibiotic free meat and people will pay a considerable premium for it, especially since covid.

People are doing the same thing with chickens, putting them in moveable coops and electric fence and selling them as pastured poultry. That's even easier than pigs as you can do the butchering yourself with minimal infrastructure.

What do you think is more profitable, hogs or chickens? Turn around for chickens is shorter, and butchering them yourselves is super easy.

BrutulTM · May 21, 2021

I don't know. The chickens are definitely easier to do and probably easier to sell also. My girlfriend bought a couple of chickens from a couple doing it in North Dakota last year and they had raised 300 birds and sold them all for $18 each almost instantly. Their post on Facebook saying that they had them had like 150 comments an hour after they posted and some people were wanting as many as 25 birds.

lurkingdirk · May 21, 2021

BrutulTM said:
I don't know. The chickens are definitely easier to do and probably easier to sell also. My girlfriend bought a couple of chickens from a couple doing it in North Dakota last year and they had raised 300 birds and sold them all for $18 each almost instantly. Their post on Facebook saying that they had them had like 150 comments an hour after they posted and some people were wanting as many as 25 birds.

How closely is that shit being watched? If you sell 300 chickens without a poultry license on Facebook Marketplace, are you going to get audited and dinged?

When I was young we had a small farm, one thing was about 500 laying hens. Everyone in our community got eggs from us, we had no license, but we had to be careful it didn't get too public. I wouldn't try something like that now I don't think. Over 3,000 eggs a week on the "black market."

BrutulTM · May 21, 2021

In Montana it's fairly lax but it probably varies from state to state. For eggs you need a license for over 9000 eggs per month. The license isn't a big deal but I think the eggs have to be washed and candled then and you aren't allowed to reuse cartons. Meat only has to be inspected if you want to sell it in grocery stores and possibly restaurants as far as I know. There aren't a lot of USDA inspected butcher shops in this area so I think technically when we sell beef directly to people we sell them the live animal and the butcher shop cuts up "thier" cow even though they have never actually even seen it.

Of course if you don't report the income you will be in trouble for tax reasons but that's true of everything.

Blazin · Jul 30, 2021

Have learned another annoyance of owning larger piece of property, jackasses who just drive trucks across your property and through a field. You can just shoot them right?

Furry · Jul 30, 2021

Blazin said:
Have learned another annoyance of owning larger piece of property, jackasses who just drive trucks across your property and through a field. You can just shoot them right?
View attachment 364646

Better to just put lots of nails in the mud from a failed construction project. They wont know where they picked them up either way.

Edit. Don't forget to bury a piece of wood underneath most of them to ensure good penetration.

whoo · Jul 31, 2021

Let the grass get tall around a few cinder blocks and a big tangle of baling wire...

Or a fence/gate is in your future

BrutulTM · Jul 31, 2021

Blazin said:
Have learned another annoyance of owning larger piece of property, jackasses who just drive trucks across your property and through a field. You can just shoot them right?
View attachment 364646

Homesteading and Hobby Farm/Ranch

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