The Hard Truth About Homesteadoooors
The Hard Truth About Homesteadoooors
Welcome back,
This post is for everyone who has an interest in owning land and raising animals, (Living The Natural Life.)
You may have been caught a little off guard if you saw this tweet from me the other day.
To be clear, I think everyone should start now learning the basics of growing food and raising animals, sourcing food locally, and supporting small farmers. Even if it’s just growing a few herbs on a window sill, it’s an important skill to learn.
If you have the space and live in an area that it’s acceptable, I think chickens are a decent return on your investment and will give you some experience on the requirements of basic animal care.
The point I’m making is it’s so easy to get FOMO when you see stuff like this on social media. (Link)
Are modern Homesteading videos a psyop?
Well,
I’m not even going to break this video down, but what you don’t see is everything that was required to get where she is today in this video. Like, how did that cow get to her property, does she have a stock trailer and truck to pull it? Who built those sheds the cow is enjoying? But I degress.
Today we’ll talk about what to think about before quitting your job to “live off the land” and I will tell you why I’m even talking about this today.
Being Successful on a Small Farm
There have been some recent events on our Farm that have changed my perspective on small farming and “homesteading” (only slightly, I’m still a small farm maxi.)
It seems like every 2-3 years, my wife and I get so busy with all of the projects and ideas we have that we end up swamped with work, commitments, (and more mouths to feed LOL.)
This is when we usually remember that we probably both have adhd, and admit that we’ve maybe taken on a little too much, so we decide to take a step back and re-analyze our overall plan.
I believe this is crucial for any small farmer, it’s crucial for life and business as well. It requires honest criticism of your decisions and your operation’s performance in order to make healthy decisions that will allow you to be successful.
The cards are stacked against anyone who is trying to grow their own food and become more self sufficient. The costs of feed and farm supplies have almost doubled across the board and finding good help is almost impossible.
The amount of work on a small farm can get overwhelming if you’re not careful. That’s why it’s important to step back and assess your progress on a regular basis. Allow yourself to cut losses, double down on what’s working, and decide on a plan that will allow you to have more time to spend on what’s most important to you.
Its not easy to admit that you might have made a bad decision. But it’s crucial in your success as a small farmer.
Focus on the Family
We homeschool our kids and they have lots of time to play with other homeschool kids. They live in a house with warmth and love, and plenty of woods and mud to play in.
The problem is balancing everything.
From side businesses to work, to chores, to animals that need care, to soccer practice, to farm maintenance, to homeschooling…. it can get overwhelming super fast! Don’t let your kids take a backseat while you’re trying to “homestead.”
Another issue is animals require constant care, and limit your ability to travel. We have been wanting to be able to leave the house for more than a couple of days without worrying about our animals. This is something you should consider if you’re thinking about getting into raising animals.
We’ve decided it’s more important to be able to spend quality time on trips and a few vacations here and there with our kids. Noone wants to look back and say they wished they had spent more time doing fun stuff with their kids after the kids are old and moved away. Cherish the time you have with them.
What we decided
Our most recent realization is that our dairy goats just don’t seem to thrive in our region. The extremely wet, rainy months of winter here have always caused issues for them. The most common problem we have with our lamancha goats is intestinal parasites. Secondly, hoof rot was another problem we started seeing this year for the first time. This past winter was no different, leaving us no choice but to make a tough decision.
There was never a care issue, or neglect issue. Our animals are very well taken care of. But even with the best care, these issues seemed to arise with some of our goats. To be fair, this specific breed of dairy goat (Lamancha) seems to have more issues than more hardy goats like Nigerians for whatever reason. Not all goats are high maintenance, but some can be. DYOR
Having sick animals is extremely stressful because you want everyone to be happy and healthy at all times. Unfortunately, animals get sick just like humans. This is an extra burden added to the already large amount of work that raising animals requires.
We were also having issues with our rabbits. We got into rabbits recently as a source for garden fertilizer and to add some more kid frenly animals to the farm for people to pet when they visit. For some reason we kept having sick rabbits.
After keeping goats for over 6 years on our farm, we decided last week to downsize so that we can focus more on what is actually working for us here and focus on our true passions. We decided to sell out our herd of goats and rabbits.
Now we can focus on raising our chickens, growing our apiary with honeybees, and be able to spend even more quality time with friends and family. We decided keep the two cows we already have since they’re relatively low maintenance at the moment. We’ll also have much more freedom with travel since these animals are much less needy.
As far as travel and time away from the farm, I’ve showed you how to set up automatic waterers and feeders so that you really only need someone to stop by maybe once a day to check on things when you are out of town.
(We had this set automatic feeding and watering setup, but with the amount of goats, it was too much to ask a friend to try to keep up with everything while we were gone.)
You can read about animal feeder/water automation here…
Adapt or Die
All this is to say, I want to caution anyone interested in this lifestyle. It’s alot of work, it’s costly to properly maintain animals, and its not for everyone.
If you’re already a small farm Chad, don’t be afraid to stop and rethink your farm plans. You can change your mind on anything. Just because you decided to get into raising a certain type of animal, doesn’t mean you have to stay with it forever.
Already it feels like a weight has been lifted for us. The goats and rabbits all went to an amazing petting zoo/farm where they will live out their lives happily.
We now have more flexibility with our land for growing more plants and trees without having to worry about goats eating them. I can expand the old goat shed into proper buildings to give us even more room for storage, and give the chickens more room.
We have more time to spend with the kids and can also give more attention our local business opportunities. All in all, we are happy with our decision.
My Advice
Getting into the farm/homestead life can be a huge time and financial investment. I would say it’s probably better to invest in yourself before trying to go all in on a small farm.
While there are ways to turn a small farm into a business, the reality is that there are very few profitable avenues anymore. The startup capital requirements are high. It would be much easier in my opinion to start up a wifi business and learn the basics of farming on a much smaller scale in your spare time.
For someone thinking about starting a homestead, it’s probably better to set this goal of self sufficiency and living off of the land as your end goal. Setting homesteading up as a way to achieve financial freedom and “make it” is not smart quite frankly.
It’s easy to scroll instagram and see happy, beautiful farms who seem to be crushing it. Don’t get me wrong, the homesteading/small farming movement is growing and there are some lucrative business avenues. It’s just that you don’t know that farm’s story. They may already be well off from previous business ventures, or they could have been born into generational wealth.
If you’re set for life you can absolutely buy some land and start Living the Natural Life right now because, well, you’re set for life.
If you’re not set for life here are some things to think about before you “invest in The Natural Life” (meaning : ape into several acres of land, start building barns and fences, buying a bunch of animals, buying solar panels, greenhouses, etc. and beginning a homestead.)
W2 or own irl biz making at least twice your living expenses
Own a home, if not save up
Save up rainy day fund of at least 3 months living expenses (cash)
Make capex investments like appliances, 3 months of supplies, etc.
Reduce fixed costs. Pay off mortgage, pay off all cars, boats, toys, etc
Spin up wifi biz with extra income, if you need help reach out to me, or some of these guys:
After 1-2 years of wifi biz and research, experimenting, learning about homesteading. You should be in great shape to invest in a small farm operation. If you found a home with some land, you can start immediately. If not, begin looking for places with good homesteading laws, and favorable climate.
Start here:
Don’t let me scare you out of your dream of owning land and raising animals. I just wanted to get this out there to you so that you know the real story.
Thanks for reading friends,
WAGMI
Farmer
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And you can try some of our Fresh Raw Honey and Handcrafted Soaps at my website: bowtiedfarmer.com