Gutters on buildings and huts?

[Ninjacatipllar]

If I may make a suggestion….take it slow and only do one new thing a year. That advice was given to me when we moved to our acreage and I've appreciated it many times. It takes time to really learn the needs and care of any new animal (not to mention the time it takes to build their accommodation, fence out the area they will be kept etc.) If you try to create an instant farm by adding all of those animals in the first year, the odds that some of them will be a failure - or that you will burn out quickly - are high. I already kept chickens at our old house in the city, so the year we moved here, I expanded the poultry flock by adding turkeys and ducks. A little learning curve but not too much after keeping chickens most of my life already. Since we were still unpacking and cleaning the old house and dealing with its sale, I couldn't have handled the much larger learning curve of a brand new animal. The second year we added sheep and goats and I am still learning about them. This year we are going to start our orchard - which won't be as time-consuming an endeavor as a new animal, but nevertheless will take time to research and dig holes and plant and keep them watered through the summer etc. Take it slow, and you will have time to really learn and enjoy each new thing, and the odds that you will still be on your property 20 years from now are high.

Oh yea definitely, will probably be 5 years (would like less but that's life) before i get any land, and more than likely another 5 before any animals show up between planning, logging, fencing, and planting pasture and building, not to mention building our own home and setting up utilities ect., nothing is in a rush. Probably going to start out with layers, maybe a few meat chicks to get used to dispatching, then maybe rabbits to work on breeding skills, then work my way up in size, the cows will probably be last, more than likely raise a few meat weanlings first before the heifers.

 

[Ninjacatipllar]

Just for a reference as to how many gallons of water might run off your roof in a good rain or even how much irrigation it would take to equal a good rainfall (1" of rainfall)

A 40' x 70' roof will shed approx 1,743 gallons of water from a 1" rain.
A 10' X 17" roof will shed approx 436 gallons of water from a 1" rain.

The water falling on 1 acre of land in a 1" rainfall is 27,154 gallons.
The water falling on 1 sq mile of land in a 1" rainfall is 17.38 million gallons.

You can use this calculator to find out how much to expect to see shed from your roof:

http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/sc2.html

That is such a huge amount! i never would have guessed! looks like i'm on the right track then, even if its only use to water bushes.