I started with 15 chickens back in 2010 - as a last ditch fly control method for my horse boarding business. It worked! But, chicken math. So, started selling eggs, got more chickens, sold more eggs. 14 years later, I've got 100+ chickens, and they pay for themselves, add on about $500-1000 profit over their feed and it's golden. I don't do tractors. I have a large (24x24) coop in the barn, and the chickens range all over the property on their own. The only "more work" I had with the expansion was more feed. This past year, I had more eggs, and some customers dropped off, so I was taking 50 dozen to the local food bank every other week from March - August.
Thanks for sharing. We are 100% grass fed beef farmers in Central WI. on 130+ acres. We are soo glad for the meat we usually sell enough meat to get our meat paid for. Anyway, after almost 40 yrs. of farming in several states, were selling the farm. We have 100+ Amish within 2 miles of our farm, abundant wildlife, 100+ trees to tap etc....
If you run a small homestead that loses two-thousand dollars a year, but it feeds your family, the question then is whether the time to farm is balanced out by the elimination of the food bill. I assume typically that it does not, and then you have to consider the time it takes away from you being able to work a J.O.B. to earn bill money, rent, and taxes. My plan is to take the one acre plot I am moving on to (this month, hopefully!) and beginning to turn it into a food forest. Stage One is to grow the food my wife and I need to live on. We have abandoned our American lifestyle, and could easily live from our homestead exclusively once we have chickens (for eggs) and avocado trees (for a great fat source that can grow on a plant). Once that is accomplished, the plan is to find chefs in top rated restaurants in and around town who would like access to the best, most nutritious produce they have ever seen. If that can pay the rent and bills, that would be amazing!
I like the plan. I wonder about the process of setting up contracts with local restaurants. Are you in a place with a lot of homestead competition? My Wife and I just bought 3 acres last month. Right now it's all alfalfa, but we are turning it into a homestead/flower farm. It's a lot of fun to plan, but its taken a LOT of effort and money to get going. So far we have water and a driveway on the lot, plus our RV. Hopefully power gets turned on tomorrow. It has cost us tens of thousands of dollars beyond the purchase of the land just to get to this point. I know prices of land/prep vary by state, we are in washington state and it's expensive here. Since it's winter we are limited on what we can prep for, but there's a lot of work to go. Just setting up the RV to survive in the winter is days worth of work (and a lot of money!). We had a shed built (more money!) with power and that will take more days to turn into an office (even more money for insulation, etc). We still need to add cold storage, etc to the property for the flowers. Lots of work! We'll get chickens and sheep as well, plus keep 1/4 acre alfalfa to help feed the sheep. Main goal is flowers, secondary is vegetables (and fruit trees, etc) to feed our family of 6. My Wife is already starting networking with local shops to help sell her flowers. There's so many unknowns, including costs, that I understand why a lot of people don't get to homestead, let alone be profitable. We were blessed with enough capitol to pay for most things out of pocket so far (although we have a loan for the property). I'm going to focus on grants in the coming weeks to see what we can get help with (things like cover crops, hoop houses, etc). And at the end of all this prep, we still don't even have a house or garage, just an RV and a shed and good chunk of land. It's a lot of work, so anyone reading this thinking of doing something similar make sure you are completely motivated to follow-through and prepared to be patient. I work in tech and we are leaving the suburb life, so this is a huge change for us, but it feels incredibly awesome to be on our land knowing the potential. Wish we'd done this 10 years sooner. :)
Thanks to the featured homesteaders. Austin, your closing remarks are something I believe in - my words, you have to TRY! or in your words, don't give up. One thing that I see so many folks doing is striving for the best and hoping folks will buy it. Maybe some will, but not all. Reducing to Good or Better and being able to sell everything is something one may have to do and then slowly work it up to the best if want. As an example, I feed my layer hens commercial feed...why...because folks in my area will not pay the price for organic eggs - It's not the best, but it is better because they are fresh, get sun and fresh greens daily. As a result, I can't keep eggs in the house and I make some money in the process. Some good thoughts in this video!
I'm thinking about how hard this all is, especially as a solo person. If you have to also factor in the costs of a mortgage or anything else... I just think those are very slim margins for the effort. Not to be a downer, I want a homestead again.
I like the video! Here is the summary of what I heard. Let me know if I missed anything. We all need to sell some kind of value added item or "goodies" that we raise on our farm And/or we can sell information or "expertise" as the foundation of a profitable business. Then once that business is somewhat established, it is now possible to sell the goods or "fries" Since there is a surplus of goods already there as a result of you growing them in order to put them in the value added item, that now become profitable.
Hey Aust👋, is it Baby time?. Wishing you and your family a very Merry Christmas 🎅🤶🙏🛷. Your Pig production didn't fit when you moved, good job not putting yourself through that by researching your new area🎉. JO JO IN VT 💞☃️
I started with 15 chickens back in 2010 - as a last ditch fly control method for my horse boarding business. It worked! But, chicken math. So, started selling eggs, got more chickens, sold more eggs. 14 years later, I've got 100+ chickens, and they pay for themselves, add on about $500-1000 profit over their feed and it's golden. I don't do tractors. I have a large (24x24) coop in the barn, and the chickens range all over the property on their own. The only "more work" I had with the expansion was more feed. This past year, I had more eggs, and some customers dropped off, so I was taking 50 dozen to the local food bank every other week from March - August.
Wow that's a huge surplus of eggs 🥚
Thanks Jess, Alyssa, and Robin for sharing your story.
Loved this!
I'm retired and not in it for the money. I just don't want to lose money! God bless y'all and keep growing.
A hobby that breaks even is a win in my books!
A hobby that breaks even is a win in my books, but your health surely profits from your activity.
@@PrairieDawnC i enjoy what I'm doing and end up with food, so the whole garden is a win for me!
@@PrairieDawnC A bad day in the garden is better than a day inside in front of the TV! Just kidding, I very seldom watch TV.
Thanks for sharing. We are 100% grass fed beef farmers in Central WI. on 130+ acres. We are soo glad for the meat we usually sell enough meat to get our meat paid for. Anyway, after almost 40 yrs. of farming in several states, were selling the farm. We have 100+ Amish within 2 miles of our farm, abundant wildlife, 100+ trees to tap etc....
@26:04 just imagined this being read out by a lawyer in trial and how horrible it would sound hahaha. Great video!! Very informative
If you run a small homestead that loses two-thousand dollars a year, but it feeds your family, the question then is whether the time to farm is balanced out by the elimination of the food bill.
I assume typically that it does not, and then you have to consider the time it takes away from you being able to work a J.O.B. to earn bill money, rent, and taxes.
My plan is to take the one acre plot I am moving on to (this month, hopefully!) and beginning to turn it into a food forest. Stage One is to grow the food my wife and I need to live on. We have abandoned our American lifestyle, and could easily live from our homestead exclusively once we have chickens (for eggs) and avocado trees (for a great fat source that can grow on a plant).
Once that is accomplished, the plan is to find chefs in top rated restaurants in and around town who would like access to the best, most nutritious produce they have ever seen. If that can pay the rent and bills, that would be amazing!
Congrats! I just moved onto a property in sept but I still have to work a job for a bit so I’m not as active in the building I’d like to be doing
I like the plan. I wonder about the process of setting up contracts with local restaurants. Are you in a place with a lot of homestead competition?
My Wife and I just bought 3 acres last month. Right now it's all alfalfa, but we are turning it into a homestead/flower farm. It's a lot of fun to plan, but its taken a LOT of effort and money to get going. So far we have water and a driveway on the lot, plus our RV. Hopefully power gets turned on tomorrow. It has cost us tens of thousands of dollars beyond the purchase of the land just to get to this point. I know prices of land/prep vary by state, we are in washington state and it's expensive here.
Since it's winter we are limited on what we can prep for, but there's a lot of work to go. Just setting up the RV to survive in the winter is days worth of work (and a lot of money!). We had a shed built (more money!) with power and that will take more days to turn into an office (even more money for insulation, etc). We still need to add cold storage, etc to the property for the flowers. Lots of work!
We'll get chickens and sheep as well, plus keep 1/4 acre alfalfa to help feed the sheep. Main goal is flowers, secondary is vegetables (and fruit trees, etc) to feed our family of 6. My Wife is already starting networking with local shops to help sell her flowers.
There's so many unknowns, including costs, that I understand why a lot of people don't get to homestead, let alone be profitable. We were blessed with enough capitol to pay for most things out of pocket so far (although we have a loan for the property). I'm going to focus on grants in the coming weeks to see what we can get help with (things like cover crops, hoop houses, etc).
And at the end of all this prep, we still don't even have a house or garage, just an RV and a shed and good chunk of land. It's a lot of work, so anyone reading this thinking of doing something similar make sure you are completely motivated to follow-through and prepared to be patient.
I work in tech and we are leaving the suburb life, so this is a huge change for us, but it feels incredibly awesome to be on our land knowing the potential. Wish we'd done this 10 years sooner. :)
5:07 that’s why I automate the watering of the chicken waterers
Thanks to the featured homesteaders. Austin, your closing remarks are something I believe in - my words, you have to TRY! or in your words, don't give up. One thing that I see so many folks doing is striving for the best and hoping folks will buy it. Maybe some will, but not all. Reducing to Good or Better and being able to sell everything is something one may have to do and then slowly work it up to the best if want. As an example, I feed my layer hens commercial feed...why...because folks in my area will not pay the price for organic eggs - It's not the best, but it is better because they are fresh, get sun and fresh greens daily. As a result, I can't keep eggs in the house and I make some money in the process. Some good thoughts in this video!
Yes! Don't let perfect be the enemy of the good!
Fun video and great content. Definitely scaleable message that can be applied to all our circumstances.
I would imagine that for every person who "makes it" there are many who do not make it selling the same services, products etc.
Great episode, lots to think about!
I'm thinking about how hard this all is, especially as a solo person. If you have to also factor in the costs of a mortgage or anything else... I just think those are very slim margins for the effort. Not to be a downer, I want a homestead again.
I like the video! Here is the summary of what I heard. Let me know if I missed anything.
We all need to sell some kind of value added item or "goodies" that we raise on our farm
And/or we can sell information or "expertise" as the foundation of a profitable business.
Then once that business is somewhat established, it is now possible to sell the goods or "fries"
Since there is a surplus of goods already there as a result of you growing them in order to put them in the value added item, that now become profitable.
Good info. I've thought about selling stuff but usually end up giving it away. Haha!
Wondering, did you ever grow and sell new baby chickens? Very interesting! All good to know! Thanks for sharing!
The beard is a great look for you 😊
I do want the shirt.
Talk to doug and stay homestead 😊
I wish my dad let me keep the profit, after I did all the labor 😢
Hey Aust👋, is it Baby time?.
Wishing you and your family a very Merry Christmas 🎅🤶🙏🛷.
Your Pig production didn't fit when you moved, good job not putting yourself through that by researching your new area🎉.
JO JO IN VT 💞☃️
Hey guys
I have to many eggs, I think i should do art again, 🤠✌
🙏❤️