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Farmer's Life For Me


Dr. Pepper

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I thought my farming days were over when I escaped my childhood home, but alas I'm returning to a farm of sorts.  Just a small one that will start out as a hobby/learning thing that will feed only us and some friends and hoping within ten years to become proficient enough to actually earn a bit of coin with it.  When I say small, I mean five acres or less.  I have fantasies that we'll reach half the level of those 1.5 acre farms that earn six figures a year, but mostly we're seeking to build a lifestyle first.  We're most interested in goats, chickens and I've developed a secret obsessed with bees.  I know a decent amount about goats and chickens due to my childhood experiences, but not a thing about bees.  I know there is a beekeeper on this forum so I'm hoping she'll chime in with updates about her hives!  I My girlfriends are really into gardening so they have their own plans on that end.  I kill every plant that grows so not much interest for me there.

Right now we're still looking for the right land and house.  It's tougher to find than I expected.  Also more expensive than I expected and I'm becoming annoyed we limited ourselves to one single area.  We assume we'll either need to build a house or do tons of remodeling on a house we buy because the pieces of good land in our price range (our range is waaaaay low) tends to only have really crappy houses.  I'm hoping we can do a lot of the remodeling ourselves, with hiring out things like electrical and plumbing, but hard to determine what we can actually do just by watching youtube vids, reading books, and the occasional help from friends and family.  Has anyone built or remodeled themselves?  Share!

So this thread is basically for those interested in rural living, farming (urban or rural) or whatever sort of related to talk about anything.  Only thing off the table within this topic is no quibbling on the meaning of 'farm'.  

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2 minutes ago, Kelli Fury said:

My advice to everyone forever is you need a donkey

My girlfriend says donkeys eat a lot of food.   Looking into cost of feed as we speak.  I need a reason to be working this damn hard.  We're getting the chickens first, which will be after we finish paying off the foundation repair and a mountain of medical bills.  :(

'

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One of my girlfriends keeps talking about wanting a donkey but I don't get the allure.  What value does a donkey add to a farm?  I just don't know what to do with a donkey.  Maybe a donkey can replace a tractor or other similar equipment and just pull tills or something??

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12 minutes ago, Dr. Pepper said:

One of my girlfriends keeps talking about wanting a donkey but I don't get the allure.  What value does a donkey add to a farm?  I just don't know what to do with a donkey.  Maybe a donkey can replace a tractor or other similar equipment and just pull tills or something??

Kelli has me sold because they are protective.  I want an attack donkey, plus I want to take my donkey to run errands.  New Orleans has hitching posts.

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5 minutes ago, Lily Valley said:

Kelli has me sold because they are protective.  I want an attack donkey, plus I want to take my donkey to run errands.  New Orleans has hitching posts.

You want a guard animal, get a goose. Ever been chased by a goose? It's fucking terrifying. And they're always pissed. Most donkeys I know are soft.

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36 minutes ago, mankytoes said:

You want a guard animal, get a goose. Ever been chased by a goose? It's fucking terrifying. And they're always pissed. Most donkeys I know are soft.

Geese aren't CUDDLY.  Donkeys are CUDDLY and CUTE.

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Love the ideas of Chicken, Goat and Bees. I'm wondering if your greenthumbed girlfriends have looked into doing a nice greenhouse at this farm? A few fruit trees might be cool too.

Nubians

 

Beyond goat milk and cheese, an overlooked aspect with goats in American culture is that goat meat is tremendously nutritous. Its both higher in protein and lower in fat than even venison. So it may be worthwhile to learn some ways to prepare it if your interested in a healthy, high protein, low fat food.

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Donkeys are smart and adorable and are possessed of greater valor than any other creature. Google donkey and mountain lion. No livestock guardian is better than an uncut donkey jack. If you have goats or sheep or horses or cows, your donkey will guard them with his life. I have a miniature donkey, there was a mountain lion killing full grown cattle near me, and I was breeding Pygmy goats in an open sided barn. I never lost a single one. The fence was for the horses only, both the goats and their donkey overlord could go in and out at will. But the donkey would bring them in when he came in, he understood them to be his responsibility, and each was always safe and sound. I have no doubt he would have (and probably did) killed any coyote that came near and no mountain lion would have passed except over his dead body. He also provided rides to small children

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7 hours ago, mankytoes said:

You want a guard animal, get a goose. Ever been chased by a goose? It's fucking terrifying. And they're always pissed. Most donkeys I know are soft.

I have been chased by a flock of geese. It is indeed fucking terrifying. 

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9 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

 

Beyond goat milk and cheese, an overlooked aspect with goats in American culture is that goat meat is tremendously nutritous. Its both higher in protein and lower in fat than even venison. So it may be worthwhile to learn some ways to prepare it if your interested in a healthy, high protein, low fat food.

But it tastes like absolute sh!t.  Kid goat is ok, but fully grown animals?  Its like eating leather.

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Goatling braised in its mothers milk - yum!

Don't get a donkey, it eats too much for small scale farming and brings in too little cash, at least when you start. Poultry and goats will be much more useful, don't forget to invest in a rooster who can guard agains the smaller birds of prey.

For me personally, small scale farming is much too labour intensive (no wonder, life-expectancy used to be so low when 90% of the population worked on farms...) but we have 2.5 acres of land that we mainly use for recreational purposes and a bit of veggie growing plus an orchard of about 20 fruit trees, which I love!

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11 hours ago, Kelli Fury said:

Donkeys are smart and adorable and are possessed of greater valor than any other creature. Google donkey and mountain lion. No livestock guardian is better than an uncut donkey jack. If you have goats or sheep or horses or cows, your donkey will guard them with his life. I have a miniature donkey, there was a mountain lion killing full grown cattle near me, and I was breeding Pygmy goats in an open sided barn. I never lost a single one. The fence was for the horses only, both the goats and their donkey overlord could go in and out at will. But the donkey would bring them in when he came in, he understood them to be his responsibility, and each was always safe and sound. I have no doubt he would have (and probably did) killed any coyote that came near and no mountain lion would have passed except over his dead body. He also provided rides to small children

This is so badass.  My mind is blown.  Spent hours googling last night.  I'm pretty well convinced to not get started with any animals until we can afford to include a donkey.  Did you have to do any specific training for the donkey to know how to herd the goats?  Did he just naturally defend them all?

How many acres do you keep?

 

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