How much land do I want?

[misfitmorgan]

Actually with the right filters, you can actually filter out the radionuclides. Frost Heave sounds bad. Here the foundations will shift due to clay. It is called Black land farm. Termites, I guess stay active more year around here. We don't get snow much here or freezes. Do you have to fix the foundations with snow heave?
You can fix rust and sulfur with "wait for it" the right kind of filter.Here they call it a iron filter. It even filters out the smell.

We are doing a pond, and it will have to be lined with sodium bentonite, because the water will seep right out of it. The well on our property is at 375' depth. My husband said Holy Moses, they fill themselves.
On another piece of property the water table is at 570'.

I'm sure you could, but honestly most people here don't seem to care if they have rust water or sulfur. My sister is an exception she has a water softener and a treatment "center" put in to get rid of the rust in her house and it doesnt work...for whatever she got installed.

Frost heave is horrible, the foundations are fixable but so not cheap. Most houses here are built with "michigan" basements which really is a crawl space but they are high crawl spaces about 5' tall between the joists which is so the foundation is under the frost heave line. We pretty much never build a house on a slab and any building that goes on a slab needs to be at least 6" thick and have rebar and preferably a knee wall. Frost heave here can pick up entire buildings if you dont build right. It is just kind of something we are used to though and is particularly bad on properties with high clay percentages.
The place we are on now is literally pure clay 6inches down and this is an example of what frost heave can do.

Thanks again, everyone!

Haymaking does sound like potentially more trouble than it's worth! I've been researching rotational grazing and pasture management, and one practice that has caught my eye is stockpiling forage for use when the grass isn't growing, instead of feeding cut hay. Anyone around here familiar with doing that?

I do feel a bit better now about managing acres of land, though! In looking at @misfitmorgan 's description of maintaining and improving pastures, I realized that's essentially what I've been doing for years with my yard, only on a larger scale! I'm already quite familiar with cutting the grass high and improving the soils over time. In fact, not that it's going to go too far on a multiacre place, but I've been planning all along to pack up my finished compost and compost pile and cart them to our new farm! LOL

Let's assume I have 6 head of cattle (maybe 5 stockers + 1 family milk cow) and a couple large donkeys. Any ballpark estimates how much hay I would need to feed them for the winter? We do have mild winters, of course, and if I seeded in some cool season grasses, I could probably have grass growing nearly year-round.



LOL About the stock pond vs tank! The TX ranching jargon threw me for a loop for a little while, too. First, our friends who ranch talked about a stock tank on their property, and I was surprised to see that it was what I would call a pond. Then I heard about stock tanks being sold at stores for like $50, and you can imagine how confusing that was to me! LOL After awhile, I settled on calling things "stock tanks" (a big water bucket, basically) and "stock ponds." If it's just a surface water feature and not used for watering livestock, then I just call it a pond. Ha!

Speaking of ponds, I've kinda added them to my list of really want to haves on our new place. Not only do I like the idea of having extra water for the animals, but I have a vision of stocking the pond with fish and adding some ducks and geese, too. Can you imagine how much fun the kids would have with that! The majority of the houses we've seen have community water, and the well/pond is only for animals and irrigation. Still, I would probably want to have the wells tested, right? I mean, if there is arsenic in the water, I probably don't want the cattle drinking from it! And it the salinity is high, I don't want to irrigate with that. Whom should I contact about testing the wells, when the time comes? Is that something the local Ag Extension would do?



Where did you see that it might've been a pig farm? I've seen the county tax sites (and those are nice!), but I haven't seen much about any property that really indicated what it might've been used for in the past.

Since we're on the topic of ponds, what if the pond on a property is a manure lagoon? Can it be treated and restored to "stock pond" status? Would it be TNRCC who could help with restoring old ponds?

We have a great home inspector, and we've been testing for everything, too. We actually offered on a place back in Feb, and we dropped the offer once our inspector found a slew of issues with it. That house was a '78. I feel kinda burned by that one, and it makes me hesitant to seriously consider the 1970 house on that one property I posted. The land does look really nice, though...

Something we never got around to doing with the property that fell through is any sort of ecological testing of the soil, though for a farm, I feel it would be important to know if there is anything "off" lurking in the soil! Should we consider some sort of soil tests? And whom would we hire for that?

Heh. The longer we look at properties, the more questions I think of! Maybe it's a good thing that the search is taking us a little while!

They use that stockpiling technique up here on some smaller cow operations and it does work well from the reports. The cows dig thru the snow on each strip of new stockpiled field and eat the grasses underneath. From what i have seen they take a pasture and divide it into strips(mentally) and then every day(or as often as needed) they move a portable fence with step in posts to the next strip section. Most have a set number of posts along the outside fence that they use, such as everyday they may move their step in posts down 4 fenceposts. I hope that makes sense.

For the cows...cows(1200lbs) require 24 pounds of average hay per day but that is dry matter not actual hay weight to figure out the actual hay weight you need to know the percentage of dry matter in the hay so if it is say 80% dry matter it is 24/.80=30...so they would need 30lbs a day per head of that 80% dry matter hay. To find the dry matter you can either buy tested hay or have it tested. These numbers change based on overall hay quality as well but generally 24lbs with a 10lb overage per head per day will set you up alright. I don't know much of anything about the mechanics of testing hay as we dont test hay because we always have way more then we need because we make hay and DH has been making hay since he could walk so we dont need a moisture meter either. So i'm thinking 170lbs/day for 5 cows sounds like if should cover you but @farmerjan would know more i'm sure. She runs a cattle operation in a hotter region then i do.

Aside from rye grass, oats do fantastic in cool/cold weather and you can broadcast plant them by hand if needed. Tall fescue and white clover are good for cool weather and do well on sandy soil. Tall fescue is also a THE forage for stockpiling. I did say tall fescue and white clover meaning they need to be planted together.

Also if you want the best use of fertilizer on your place after getting soil tests done spread 60% of the fertilizer in the fall and the other 30% in the spring. My sister and her DH changed to doing this method after being suggested to by the small farmers conference and eastern star. On their wheat fields they were getting 40 bushels/acre and the season they switched they got 100 bushels/acre...typical production for our area is 30 bushels/acre.

 

[LMK17]

So, saw something odd at a property and am wondering what you guys might be able to make of it.

Off the back corner of one property we looked at is in unusual plot of land. Confirmed that it doesn't belong to the place we were viewing, and when we asked about it, the owners wouldn't give us any info on it other than "They're no relation of ours." Makes me wonder whether they've had problems with these other folks and don't want to say.

Anywho... It's a plot maybe 1-2 acres. The grass is grown up tall, but you can see a little trail of broken over plants where someone has come on and off the place from the road. Nothing seems to be there other than: a shipping container (like the ones they put on flatbed railroad cars); 3 junked cars with plants growing through them; an old, tall metal structure (like an old communications tower, maybe? or something related to oil drilling?); and a port-a-potty. My best guess is it's being used as some sort of camp? This ring a bell to anyone? What on earth could it be?

 

[norseofcourse]

So, saw something odd at a property and am wondering what you guys might be able to make of it.

Off the back corner of one property we looked at is in unusual plot of land. Confirmed that it doesn't belong to the place we were viewing, and when we asked about it, the owners wouldn't give us any info on it other than "They're no relation of ours." Makes me wonder whether they've had problems with these other folks and don't want to say.

Anywho... It's a plot maybe 1-2 acres. The grass is grown up tall, but you can see a little trail of broken over plants where someone has come on and off the place from the road. Nothing seems to be there other than: a shipping container (like the ones they put on flatbed railroad cars); 3 junked cars with plants growing through them; an old, tall metal structure (like an old communications tower, maybe? or something related to oil drilling?); and a port-a-potty. My best guess is it's being used as some sort of camp? This ring a bell to anyone? What on earth could it be?

That would make me a bit nervous, unless you knew more.

Man cave?
Weekend hangout?
Hideout?

Can you find out who owns that property (here, anyone can look up county property tax records), and run their name through a search of the local court system?

 

[Baymule]

Squatters? Meth heads? Sounds like the armpit of the neighborhood, for sure. Doesn't sound like anything or anyone I'd want up against my fence.

 

[farmerjan]

I don't know about the winter weather conditions there. Here in Va, we run a cow/calf operation. In the winter, meaning below freezing nights maybe 40's days; we figure about 1 roll per 20 head per day. We call the head per day as the cows, since the calves will be young and not eating a significant amount a day for several months. We put up our own round bales and they average 1000 to 1200 lbs per roll; size is a 5x5 or 5x6 ( which is feet so 5 ft wide by 5 ft tall). Depending on the type of hay the lbs will vary but for round figures figure 1000 lbs.
So that is 50 lbs hay per day per cow/calf pair. I am talking about a fall born calf say oct/nov, so it is about 150-300 lbs through feb. That's about a 1000 lb cow, lactating with her 250 lb calf avg on her. The calf will start eating a little bit of hay from a couple of weeks on but won't be consuming more than a lb or 2 a day until 4+ months old.
You cannot skimp on hay in the colder weather. A mature cow will eat approx 1/20th of her weight a day in hay, in the cold weather. Our dry cows that will be calving in the spring, will eat a little less, but they are also in late gestation so are putting the weight/size on the fetus so will also be eating a significant amount. About 35-45 lbs per cow per day.
A dairy cow is going to eat as much or more since she will also be producing more milk than a single calf will need. Plus, they do not have the back fat and have a higher metabolism so will actually burn up more calories and require more hay or a combination of hay and grain. They need a higher protein feed to meet the demands of their body. On a dairy, where they are pushing for milk production, it is nothing for a cow to eat 80lbs or more of hay/silage/mix with added grain. PER DAY.
Too many people do not feed their cows enough hay and their body condition falls off and they are thin come spring.

If you are thinking 5 beef animals and a dairy animal, you need to figure that you will be feeding at least 1 round bale every 4-5 days.

 

[LMK17]

...You can plant winter rye grass in the fall and have good winter pasture, but still give access to free choice hay.

I'm confused. If I have "good" winter pasture, why would I also want to offer hay?

I don't know about the winter weather conditions there. Here in Va, we run a cow/calf operation. In the winter, meaning below freezing nights maybe 40's days; we figure about 1 roll per 20 head per day.... If you are thinking 5 beef animals and a dairy animal, you need to figure that you will be feeding at least 1 round bale every 4-5 days.

Thanks for the tips! Honestly, if I were to consider "winter" to be, as you said, days in the 40s and nights below 32, then I might have about 3 weeks of "winter," tops. A frost is a fairly unusual thing here. For reference, I keep cruciferous veggies growing all winter without frost protection, and it's looking like this is the 2nd year in a row that my 'Santa Rosa' plum won't produce due to (I believe) a lack of chill hours... Sounds like I could invest in 4-5 round bales, and that might be able to keep the cattle through the winter. It'll be trail and error at first, of course, but I think it's reasonable given our mild weather. WDYT?

Regarding the "eyesore" property I mentioned: It's definitely a big black eye for the neighboring property, which I actually really like otherwise. And now I'm really nervous about it, with you all suggesting it's a meth house! LOL Honestly, though, I don't *think* anyone is trying to hide out in it. If they are, they're hiding in plain sight. I'd be extra worried if I had found this place back in the woods, but it's just off the road and is totally visible from the road. I highly suspect it's someone's hunting camp. There are several businesses in the area that rent rustic little cabins to hunters, and I'm guessing the shipping container may be being used as a cabin for someone who comes down and hunts on nearby properties. (Maybe something like this: http://static1.squarespace.com/stat...cabin-shipping-container-big-horn-spokane.JPG) Doesn't explain the junk sitting around, though. This is just a guess, of course. And I've only seen the one side of the container, so I don't know whether there are any doors cut into the other side or anything. If we get serious about the property, it would merit a drive around to look. In the meanwhile, I've asked our real estate agent to find out what she can about it. I don't think I can look up property records for it. I tried, but it seems like maybe the little tract is part of a larger one; it doesn't seem to have its own address. Could also just be the neighbor's dumping ground on his larger property. We saw one other property with a couple shipping containers just plopped in the middle of a field; the guy was using them for overflow storage. But then, that doesn't explain the port-a-john. I dunno!

To a degree, I've just resigned myself to having to accept eyesore neighboring properties in the county. The whole "no HOA" thing goes both ways, and this is definitely not the first time we've liked a property that had something unattractive next to it. How do you all feel about "eyesore" properties being next door to you? It's funny; back home in PA, I never would've worried about ugly stuff next to our house. It was just part and parcel of living in the county. I guess a decade in the suburbs has changed me!

 

[farmerjan]

Since your winter is really very little winter, then thinking 4-6 round bales might very well do it for you. Good winter pasture does not get established overnight, and there are so many factors going into it that honestly, as a fairly "newbie" you are as apt to not have very good winter pasture and not "manage it" optimally until you get a little experience of actually doing it. Plus, any growth of rye, wheat, barley, or other "crops" for winter grazing will not have a balanced amount of dry matter and the cows need what we call "long hay" or more bulky dry matter for their rumen to function properly. It really takes some doing it, and believe me, we still attend seminars regularly to learn and "tweek" our grazing practices. If the weather is real dry, the winter forage crops may not germinate well, if it is too wet they will be "mostly water" and the cows will not be able to eat enough to supply all their needs due to the high moisture content.
Plus the protein content will not support a growing animal and balancing the minerals is essential if you don't want to lose any due to bloat, or low magnesium in the grasses. Hay is somewhat safer as you learn what they need and can utilize, and incorporate the pastures into the feeding program.

One thing a very advanced "grazer" said at a conference a year or so ago; when we did pasture walks and were learning what he has done to get the optimal use and growth of the grass and ultimately the animals; " first thing is have a barn full of hay before you even try to allocate sections for grazing, and then you can afford to make some mistakes and be able to learn from them. Starving cows, or animals that are not gaining and growing, or dead ones, won't teach you a thing if you don't have a fall back program." We have taken to heart what he said.

 

[Baymule]

Well said!

 

[LMK17]

@farmerjan That makes perfect sense! Thanks for your explanation! One more newbie question: Given the choice between "good" grass and hay, which do cows tend to prefer? If I offer free choice hay in addition to pasture, what are the chances the cows will ignore the grass in favor of the hay? Or is that just a silly question?

So this, has been a long and meandering thread, but it did help me answer my original question: DH and I have decided to focus our search on ~20 acre tracts. So, thanks!

Now if only we could find our dream place...

 

[farmerjan]

If the grass is green and growing, unless it it fescue which tends to be bitter until after a frost, they will eat the grass every time. We are seeing some real greening here, a little early for us but the temps have been in the 70's , and the cows are trying to eat every little blade they can find and not wanting the hay. The good thing is they are still hungry since the grass isn't keeping up with them yet, so they will go back to the hay after a couple of hours of picking.

If it is in your price range, more land is better every time. You can always sell off a piece if you need to and you don't have to develop or graze or fence the whole thing. A buffer zone around your place is a good way to have some privacy.