New to "Modern" farming

[BaBaaHMonica]

I grew up on a farm, so i am familiar with what is involved in care of an animal, but willing to learn a few new things to make life easier. I would like to expand into sheep and/or goats for grazing grass and for fiber production. I also would like to periodically produce some chickens for the table. We currently have a small but prolific batch of chickens for eggs. I peek in on BackyardChickens when i need a little advice.
Thanks for having such a nice forum for solid reference.

 

[Baymule]

Welcome to the forum from Texas. We have Katahdin hair sheep, layer hens, 3 horses, 3 feeder pigs, 5 LGDs, and 48 Cornish Cross meat chickens. And a big garden.

Cornish Cross chickens are a great way to stock the freezer, be glad to have a conversation with you any time on that.

Love my sheep, so easy to care for!

Glad to have you here!

 

[farmerjan]

from Va. We run a cow/calf operation here, have had pasture run egg business, have a few layers and purebreds for show, cornish x meat birds, DS has white Texas dall sheep....raised hogs and feeder pigs.... normally have a good garden....
Moving into new to me 100 yr old house needing work and need knees replaced this fall so everything is going along S-L-O-W-L-Y.

 

[misfitmorgan]

Welcome to the forum!!

We have breeding sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, ducks, turkeys, and geese. Also 2 meat steers atm. We have done table chickens before, meat rabbits, and quail. We ran an egg business for a couple years with over 120 poultry. In our area eggs are no longer profitable because everyone with chickens is selling them for $2 or less a dozen and tons of people just giving eggs away because they have to many. We tried selling table birds, chicken was ok but we didnt sell many like less then 20, pasture raised turkey we sold 3....so no more table birds for sale just for our table. The best sellers for us are sheep, goats pigs and hay.

Definitely check interest in your area for things you want to sell. We did a farm stand for veggies/fruits, a couple weeks after we put our stand up 3 other people on our same road put up their own!

Locally there is also zero interest in fiber, so check the desirability of fiber for your area of interest/type of fiber. We have several fiber mills in our state and none of them buy fiber in any kind of large quantity, they simply charge people to process and send back their own fiber which is how they make money. We have been breeding sheep for 6yrs and have thrown out the wool for those 6yrs as we can not find any markets for it. To be fair we mostly have suffolk which is a utilty wool for batting, rug or insulation uses but even our higher quality mutt sheep with really nice wool can not find a market. I've tried giving it away, no takers, tried making it into roving and giving it away, no takers. So we dont bother anymore. Your area might be completely different so check it out. If fiber is your focus there are options for things like doing youtube or social media and making a website that offers fiber products from a specific animal if you can get a following. We dont have time for that atm.

Just my 2 cents and things we have learned.

 

[BaBaaHMonica]

Thanks for the welcome I
I am researching about the different breeds of sheep and definitely see a couple goats in the mix...simply for their antics. We will include some meatbirds in the rotation plan. I might consider a feeder pig My Mom has 30+ acres and we don't want to mow it all.

I know how to knit and crochet so the wool will not be sold as we will have worked way to hard to get it. Most of what we will be producing will be for our own use, but definitely will have some takers if we have surplus. We have a big garden, but something is eating the seeds before they have a chance to sprout...had not intended on sharing with critters LOL.

 

[misfitmorgan]

Thanks for the welcome I
I am researching about the different breeds of sheep and definitely see a couple goats in the mix...simply for their antics. We will include some meatbirds in the rotation plan. I might consider a feeder pig My Mom has 30+ acres and we don't want to mow it all.

I know how to knit and crochet so the wool will not be sold as we will have worked way to hard to get it. Most of what we will be producing will be for our own use, but definitely will have some takers if we have surplus. We have a big garden, but something is eating the seeds before they have a chance to sprout...had not intended on sharing with critters LOL.

30 acres is a really nice starting place and a luxury most dont have. Do whatever makes you happy, you can always change your mind or adjust things down the road to suit your needs. For us wool is nice but I have no time to process it from raw myself and also no time to crochet it into anything though I do know how. Later on when I can hopefully quit my 9-5 it will be a different story and we will probly keep some wool. Today we are starting to plant the garden we shall see who else eats it before we can. Hopefully you figure out who/what is munching on your seeds.