Since I have been very happy with my cattle, I want to encourage others with an interest in starting their own herd to take the first steps necessary. I started seriously planning for cattle in 2010 with the purchase of baling equipment in order to bale the Sawmill property. Before purchasing my cattle I had only limited experience working with cattle as a farm hand and having other peoples cattle around growing up. Keakwa the Jersey bottle calf was my first cow which I purchased in 2012. For this post I will start out with the dirt basic steps to start your own herd.

I will not claim to be a cattle expert, but I hope to be able to help those with even less experience to muster the courage to take the first step. The first steps are acquiring the supplies needed to care for the cattle.

Long story short I wanted to be sure to be able to feed my cattle before acquiring them. I made sure I had bailing down before acquiring my first stock. While I still believe that is the optimal approach, buying feed is the approach most people take to get started. Baling your own hay however can make your operation more independent and profitable.

Cattle are easy, here is what you need at the most basic level: Water, food, a way to contain the bovines and shelter in extreme temperatures. Before acquiring cattle you need these things setup in advance. I will discuss these one at a time.

Water

A pretty obvious one, cattle need clean fresh water just like you do, although cattle are much less picky than the average human, and more durable as well. A lot of cattlemen rely on a simple pond or a stream to provide this. Cattle can drink straight from a pond given proper access, but it is best for the pond and the cattle to control this access. City water will work fine as a water source.

My first method of watering cattle was a barrel cut in half with a float valve fed by 1/4″ line. I still use this system at the corral and in the fields close to a spigot. As my herd grew I invested in several stock tanks and use an IBC tote in the back of my truck to fill these.

One of the biggest challenges in keeping cattle is providing water in freezing conditions. Cattle care during the growing season is easy and cheap compared to winter. Most cattle need access to their fill of water at least once a day. Last winter I used a 3’x8’x2′ 294 gallon steel tank and chopped the ice and tossed it out every freezing day. I wasn’t within range of a electrical outlet, and didn’t want the expense either. The electrical stock tank heaters are pretty expensive to run, at $.10 a kilowatt the one I tested with my kill-a-watt would cost a little over a buck a day to use.

Luckily when we purchased the farm it had a couple frost free water drinks at the back of pond dams. They work by being partially buried into the pond dam and having a valve to open in cold weather to swirl the exposed water. These work great and don’t cost anything to run, but are expensive to setup initially.

Food:

This is what I love about cattle, they eat grass. How awesome is that? A critter that is worth a good chunk of change that can live off grass and multiply. The biggest concern with feeding cattle is maintaining your pastures and providing food in winter. My cattle are grass fed. Hay, grass and mineral is what they get with an occasional treat to keep them well trained.

You do need a pasture with enough quality forage for your stock, but in many parts of the US this isn’t hard to come by. Even the rocky and hilly areas of Missouri are often well suited for use by cattle.

I rotationally graze my cattle using electric fence, switching paddocks about once a week. It is best to at least rotate some, leaving cattle in one area is a sure way to lower the quality of your pastures unless very minimally stocked. During the winter I continue to rotate taking advantage of stockpiled forage. In the heart of winter I also supplement with hay.

During the winter many cattlemen use a sacrifice lot and feed hay in that one area. This may make your job easier, but it often becomes a muddy manure lot. I prefer to spread my cattle’s impact by continuing to rotate during winter.

Feeding cattle in the winter is usually the single biggest expense of keeping cattle. Even if you don’t bale your own hay there are ways to lower this expense. If you have enough land researching stockpiled forage is time well spent. Even with a good stockpile you are probably going to need some hay. The best time to buy hay is when it is being baled, don’t wait until you need it, if a farmer has to sit on his hay for several months he is usually going to ask for more. In a lean year waiting to buy hay until winter could make the job close to impossible.

Shelter

While further north shelter may be needed, where I live in Missouri a good stand of trees is all that is required. Trees provide shade in the heat of summer and a windbreak in the winter. You could go fancier, but this works for me. In the coldest or hottest part of the year you don’t want your cattle to be suffering in a treeless field. In colder parts of the country this may not be enough, or you may need a more cold tolerant breed, but here in Missouri with Dexter cattle it works.

Containment

This is often the most expensive piece of the puzzle initially. No need to acquire cattle if you cannot keep them where you want them. To do this job I have a few boundary fences on the property line but rely on electric fence to do the work. My setup is pretty simple, a $5 Parmak 12v fence charger I bought at a flea market, a 12v battery from a junk car, some fence posts and cheap wire.

I have tried various types of wire, starting with galvanized steel, then aluminum before deciding the fiberglass wire with stainless steel conductors works best for me. I started with galvanized wire but found it bulky and hard to deal with. I switched to the aluminum wire as suggested by Joel Salatin but found it would often twist into loops while rolling it up. These twist would then break as the bending action weakened the wire. These weak points would cause breaks and shorts every once in awhile. I think the steel or aluminum wire would work well as a permanent fence. I however will no longer use it for temporary paddocks.

The fiberglass wire is very easy to work with, light and relatively durable. In my area the cheapest wire is marketed under the brand name Pasture Pride, or MFA’s Rangemaster. This wire will work fine, but isn’t as durable in the long run as many other brands.

I went through several different styles of step in fence posts before settling on the sungaurd fiberglass fence posts. I also use metal fence posts for my corners and anywhere I need to take a sharp turn. If you have rocky or hard ground you may need to use the steel posts, they can be used in areas no step in post could handle.

If I could go back a decade I would make it a priority to get a cow. I only had six acres then, all of which was inside the city limits and unfenced. At that time I planned to get a cow someday, but I should have pushed forward right then.

For some reason cattle are often overlooked by homesteaders and people with only a few acres of land. I think that is a mistake as cattle are one of the easiest and most profitable critters to have on your homestead. If you get a smaller breed like Dexter cattle the land requirements are not that great. Even if I only had a couple acres of pasture, it would still be graced with a cow or two.

Instead of getting a cow people will often turn to goats, or pigs, but a cow is often a better fit. Many people are intimidated by the size of cattle, but not all cattle are as large as an Angus or Holstein. Yet again this is where Dexter’s come in, but Dexter’s are not the only small breed of cattle. Depending on what you are seeking a Jersey or a Lowline Angus may be just the breed for your situation. I will also fault nobody for getting a good large breed such as an Angus.

So how much land do you really need? That question is tough to answer as there are so many variables involved. The smaller your pasture, the more supplemental feed will be needed. The larger your cow, the more pasture you will need. We have not even brought up the biggest variable of all, climate and pasture quality. One acre of my ground may support a Dexter easily, but that same cow may need 20 acres or more of Arizona range. Even inside my state the amount of land needed will be variable. There are many neglected or rocky properties in Missouri that would require three or more times the acreage than a good piece of ground to support a cow.

So why go cow? More milk, easier to fence, more robust, needs only good pasture/mineral, more meat, more valuable. Why not? Harder to transport, more expensive, larger, harder to acquire, harder to manhandle.

Fencing:

This is where cows really shine. There are many people who use a single strand of electric wire to contain their cattle. Nothing I am aware of is as easy to keep fenced in as a good cow. Notice I said good cow, there are always exceptions. The closest competition I can think of is pigs, which can also be easily contained with electric fence, but probably test it more.

With a little planning you can easily setup a very inexpressive cow containment system. I bought my first fence charger for $5, my second for $20. My wire cost $20 for a 1/4 mile roll, my posts run about $2 each and I place them about every 20-25 feet. I have since purchased a brand new Parmak Magnum 12v fence charger for $100. I like to have several working chargers on hand. My original fence charger is still going and it was old when I bought it.

So for a couple hundred dollars you could be setup for rotational grazing. Next biggest thing is water. For the first couple years I used an automatic waterer made with a float valve and half of a 55 gallon barrel. I still use this when close to a water spigot. During winter for the first couple years I used several mineral tubs and hauled water on a trailer in 5 gallon buckets. There are easier ways to start, but it would be hard to start on a lower budget than I started with. With an increasing herd I have since purchased a 3×8′ oval stock tank as well as several other tanks. The 3×8 tank was chosen because it is the largest tank that can fit in the back of my small truck. While grazing this fall and winter I used an IBC tote in the back of my truck to haul water to the cattle. My new property is also graced with a couple ponds and frost free water troughs.

Feed:

We started very self sufficient with cattle. Before buying the first calf we baled our property for two seasons. Once we were sure we could make our own feed we started looking for stock. Our first motley herd consisted of Keakwa the Jersey bottle calf, Holstein the Holstein calf and Angus the Angus bottle calf. I know, pretty inventive on the naming. These three calves rotated on about an acre of land all summer getting pie shaped slices of pasture on our front yard.

Here is where cattle excel, needing only good pasture and a little mineral. Besides minerals and water I give my cattle nothing during the growing season. I rotate them to a fresh paddock every week or so, and if they are away from a pond or water trough I have to haul water to them. I spend more time taking care of my chickens than my cattle, and if you figure a $1,000 dollars a head for cattle it would take 100’s of chickens or a herd of goats to equal the same amount of profit potential.

You can get spoiled during the growing season, winter is where the real work in cattle lies. During winter you will often have to feed your cattle, and if no pasture is available it can become a daily chore to provide water and feed. This winter I fed very little hay relying on stockpiled forage instead, the tradeoff was having to haul water to the big field as the cattle were too far away from the frost free water troughs at the ponds.

Those on smaller acreage will likely buy most of their winter feed and may need to supplement the feed during dry periods of the growing season. You would be surprised how quickly you can pay off used baling equipment, and with the right attitude and ability you could be baling your neighbors fields for your hay needs.

When all we had was 25 acres I started picking up small fields around the area. I knew I would soon outgrow the acreage I had, so I planned for it. By getting my hay from property I couldn’t graze my cattle on it gave me the potential to run more cattle without having the expense of buying hay. With the purchase of 50 more acres we kicked the can down the road awhile, but I am sure the time will come again when I can use more feed than my property can provide.

Fast forward several years and we have built our herd to 20 head. We now have paddocks of a couple to several acres. So far besides celebrating beef independence day (last day we will ever have to buy beef) last year on December 20th we have not profited from our cattle yet. That will change soon, reaching capacity in 2020 or sooner we should be raking in a very good profit. We bale all our own hay, sell the extra and spend very little on maintaining our herd. Our biggest expense getting into cattle was purchasing the cattle in the first place, they then multiply themselves.

If you have  some acreage you may consider getting into cattle. I am planning on going into more detail in future posts on our operation.

Farm Updates:

It has been an incredibly rainy spring. Our garden has suffered from standing water which wiped out all the melon and squash plants. We planned for the largest garden we have ever had, but the weather had another idea. We mulched a 20×175′ area with compost only to have that working against us in this wet weather.

We planted 6 175′ rows of sunflowers, six 175′ rows of green beans and 1 each of okra and peas. Due to the garden remaining a mud puddle the entire spring I was unable to cultivate the rows and the weeds won taking out everything except the sunflowers. The sunflowers were cultivated using four chicken tractor cultivators. It takes one tractor to keep one 175′ row clean, but they can work through muddy conditions unlike my tractor.

We have cereal rye and wheat to harvest, the oats and Austrian winter peas planted this spring did poorly and nothing else was planted due to weather. I am planning on recouping the rest of the growing season with Proso millet, red ripper cowpeas and buckwheat.

Our Muscovy’s hatched out 20 ducklings and we have had three chickens go broody successfully so far this year. Milk jug had the first calf this year, a bull calf born in April that we named Paulie.

I say small, but for a row crop cultivator this tractor is a yacht. Measuring in at 27″ wide and 13′ long. After proving the concept we had a need for a more refined chicken tractor cultivator for weeding our garden with chicken power. It needed all the standard refinements like a raised and fenced feeding area, a water tube, easy to clean nest boxes, and plenty of doors.

Instead of using our standard pvc pipe framed doors we went with plywood doors and custom latches machined from white oak. Living in Missouri gives us access to plenty of native hardwood at the numerous local sawmills. One such source is free stave pieces. A local sawmill cuts staves for wine barrels, due to a flaw or being to close to the edge many are rejected. These rejects are an inch and a quarter thick up to four foot long and varying widths up to a foot. We have many uses for these prime white oak cast offs. We even built a white oak chicken tractor cultivator and quail tractor with them.

I have never been happy with the carbiner clip and eye system for keeping our doors closed, but it was the simplest and cheapest way to go at the time. Well with access to free wood and a Shopsmith to shape it the way I want it new worlds were opened up. The simple drop pin door latch made from white oak will be replacing all other door closing designs for the feed doors. It costs a couple cents for the screws and some time. It speeds up the daily chores and will repay itself with time savings eventually.

We have tried different materials for the floor of the raised feed shelf. What we have learned is any light gauge wire will fail. On this chicken tractor we went with a fiberglass and plastic hardware cloth for the food shelf. Time will tell if this material is more durable, or if we need to use something else.

Our first design for nest boxes has become the gold standard. The back door creates the back of the nest box, and makes it very easy to clean. One bucket split in half makes two nice nest boxes that last years. The Ultimate still has all its original nest boxes after years of service. We have since found nice four gallon square buckets that work even better than the round ones used on the Ultimate.

Since we will be having multiple chicken tractor cultivators we decided it was the perfect way to keep our purebred flocks separate during the breeding season. With more than twenty six square foot of space there is enough room to house a small flock. We use one rooster with several hens for each cultivator. We house Silkies, Barred Rocks, Buff Orpingtons, Easter Eggers and Khaki Campbell ducks in cultivator tractors.

Since we will be having chickens living in this tractor it needed a comfortable coop. Since the poly sheets come in a four by eight dimension we made the coop a little over three foot long so there was an overhand of poly using it at the full four foot width. This gave the coop a small front porch. This helps to keep the coop dry and the design looks better.

Since the main hp on or farm is and probably will forever be Ford tractors we have decided to paint most of our structures and tools Ford industrial blue and white. A farm color theme for the various structures and equipment. We almost went with Ford red but we just couldn’t live with that color. So that is why the doors on our standard chicken tractor cultivator are blue and white.

I am very happy with the overall outcome and design of this chicken tractor. It is light weight, yet much heavier than the other cultivator tractors. It is the lightest weight I am comfortable using for the security of the birds. Due to its light weight wheels are not needed and it is easy to move. For future builds I will probably add a set of wheels to the back. If you are looking for a small pvc chicken tractor something like this may be the ticket. No special fittings are needed and construction is straight forward.

This design is based on the chicken tractor cultivator that I did a step by step build list for. It does have some obvious and not so obvious differences. It’s side walls are slightly taller at an even three feet. It is also extended for the extra large coop. Here is a link for the post:

Building The PVC Chicken Tractor Cultivator

I have also done a youtube video overview of this tractor:

 

 

You may want to check out the free book page if you have not done so in awhile. Here is a list of the new books I have added since last time:

Vegetable Garden Encyclopedia
ABC of Gardening
American Dairying a Manual for Butter and Cheese Makers
American Grape Training
Beeton’s Book of Poultry and Domestic Animals
Beginners Book of Gardening
Care and Management of Rabbits
Cattle Their Breeds Management and Diseases
Integrated Agri Aquaculture Systems
Integrated Agriculture-Aquaculture Farming Systems
Farmers Cyclopedia of Agriculture 1904
Household and Farmers Cyclopedia
Successful Farming; A Ready Reference On All Phases of
Farmers Cyclopedia of Agriculture
Gardening for Fun and Food
Biennial Report Kansas State Board of Ag 1913
Farming
Annual Iowa Year Book of Agriculture
Farm Practice in Northeast Missouri
Elementary Agriculture
Principles of Agriculture
Cyclopedia of American Agriculture vol 1
Silvopasture Handbook 2008
Feeding Pigs on Pasture 1924
Pearl Millet 1903 Pamphlet
Cyclopedia of American Agriculture Vol 2-1909
Domestic Animals 1959
Domestic Animals a Pocket Manual of Cattle Horse and Sheep Husbandry 1858
Introduction To Missouri Fishes 2011
Cyclopedia of American Agriculture Vol 3 1922
The Construction of Concrete Fence Posts 1910

Since our farm is missing the old corn crib that once rested on a 16′ diameter concrete circle next to our big grain bin, we had an opportunity. The concrete foundation is right by the garden and is also on higher ground by a foot or two. A perfect place for a 4000 gallon 15′ above ground pool that I found on Craigslist for $50.

The idea is to provide some fish as well as fertile water to be used in the garden. I eventually want to find a grain bin to be placed on the concrete foundation, but until that time it mes well be put to a good use.

Late last summer I setup the pool on the slab and hauled water in a 300 gallon tank that fit perfectly in the back of my small truck. When full it was everything my little truck wanted, but I wasn’t hauling water very far. I have a 2″ gas pump that I purchased at Jacob’s Cave and used that pump to fill the tank from the pond at the sawmill. That pond was chosen because it has very good water quality and is easy to access. It took several loads of water to finally fill the pool, but once full rainfall has maintained the level, and actually overflowed it a couple of times. I need to put a screen over the water filter inlet that is my overflow outlet currently to prevent loosing fish.

Once the pool was filled it was inoculated with duckweed. I did loose the majority of the duckweed when the pool was filled to overflowing by rainwater. In the future I want to add a floating cage with a screened bottom to keep the duckweed in the pool as well as to protect it from the tilapia. I can then move the duckweed out of the floating cage as needed, supplementing the diet of the tilapia.

I decided on going with blue tilapia and found the best deal on Ebay. I ordered 50 fish to begin and let them have free range of the pool. I decided to go ahead and purchase additional tilapia and ordered 200 more, unfortunately I killed these fish by accident. I left them floating in the pool too long as I got sidetracked working on something else. I called it good enough for last year, and will restock this spring.

I plan on harvesting the fish at the end of each year. Tilapia cannot survive cold weather, so I will need to keep breeding stock in a more protected area to restock with every year. While we have plenty of fish from the ponds on the farm, and there are easier ways to have more fish this was a project that I was curious about and wanted to give it a try.

 

What am I going to feed these fish? Well that is the gross part, coturnix quail droppings will be their main fair as well as feed the quail kick out of their cage. In order to accomplish this task I built a 2’x8′ quail run that is set on top of the pool on one end. The bottom frame was built of treated 2×4’s and the back half of the cage had to have extensions added to span the length of the pool. A four gallon bucket was added to the top of the quail run with lines coming down into the cage to provide water.

How did it work? It worked well, although some tweaks are needed. The eight quail kept in the cage provided too much feed for the fish, and I will increase the population when I restock. The fish grew well and I see no reason it wouldn’t be a pretty easy to maintain system. Once I am better setup here I plan on watering the garden with the fertilized water and replenishing that water with cistern water if needed.

Last year I was planning on putting the tilapia in the greenhouse for the winter. I have an IBC tote for that purpose, but didn’t finish the greenhouse and ended up freezing my fish. They however didn’t go to waste, they floated to the top and were fed to the Muscovy ducks who considered them a delicacy. I plan on getting some more blue tilapia for this year, unfortunately they are more expensive at this time. I aslo plan on adding some minnows this year as well.

 

 

It seems it is becoming a trend to get our bad luck out of the way early in the year. I knew Holstein was bred later, but didn’t think she was due to give birth soon. As it worked out she picked nice weather to go into labor, but that is the only thing that went well. We ended up having to intervene and long story short we got experience correcting a calf that was trying to come out wrong, pulled the calf, lost the calf and lost the cow. Things don’t always go smooth, but that was exceptionally rough.

Holstein was our tamest cow, so tame we were literally milking her in the field after the calving trouble. Having a dairy breed around meant a higher chance for mastitis, but we didn’t even have a chance to cause the problem in this case. It seems Holstein contracted mastitis before giving birth, and it probably led to her loosing the calf.  I noticed she was in labor that morning, so I was keeping a close eye on her. After first letting her try to take care of business we decided to lend a helping hand. We were too late and our attempts to resuscitate the calf we pulled were to no avail.

After the loss of the calf Holstein retained the placenta. We gave her a day but she wasn’t passing it and we went into action giving her a clean out shot. We also started to milk her to get some colostrum. We quickly noticed that she had mastitis in the two back quarters and started her on antibiotics. All our efforts didn’t change the downward spiral.

Our efforts were in vain, as her condition deteriorated to the point that we ended up putting her down. We had great hopes for Holstein, and it was a tough loss. Holstein was one of my original three calves, and I picked her up way down in Springfield with Angus.

The second string of bad luck happened while moving the grain drill into the shop. I had the 861 idling to warm up in the cold weather. I went to work on something else real quick and heard the tractor die. It had killed itself abruptly and when I went to restart the tractor it didn’t want to turn over well. I had a lot on my plate at the time so I figured I would check it out later. To my dismay while checking on the tractor later I learned it had seized up. I will have to split the tractor and am probably looking at a rebuild in the best case scenario. It was another hard loss as I got spoiled using the larger tractor, and the 8N wouldn’t be able to fill its role easily.

On a completely different but related subject what do you do when you need to find a tractor in your price range? Well considering I buy almost all my machinery off posts on Craigslist that is where I went, but I want to share some tricks to finding the best deals while consuming the least amount of your time. I wanted a 30+ hp tractor with live PTO in usable condition for less than $2000 before hay season, that is a tough order.

www.iftt.com is a great tool for anyone who uses Craigslist. I have spent a lot of time looking through Criagslist, and IFTTT has helped make that chore easier. Their motto is “Put the internet to work for you” and it is very fitting. Most of my farm implements and all of my cattle were found through Craigslist ads. Craigslist is one of the best places to find some items and IFTTT makes it that much better.

IFTTT is a website that can be used to do many things. I use it to notify me of items posted on Craigslist that I have an interest in. I have what IFTTT calls formulas searching for everything from cheap vehicles to cattle on several area Craigslists. I am also sent a notification of anything listed in the free section of my two closest Craigslists.

These formulas can be setup to search Craigslist in any of the normal modes of searching. From category specific and price range searches. You basically run a search on the Craigslist you want to search in with your specifics filled in and copy the URL box into your IFTTT formula. Anything that is listed meeting your search criteria will trigger the formula. You are then sent an email of the new posting, or you can also be sent a text message as well as other options of notification. Formulas can be turned off and on as well as deleted at your whim.

When I am searching for something I don’t want to waste my time looking for items that are overpriced. So I search within a price range that gleans the best results. For example I have a search out for Dexter in a price range of $200-$900. I am looking for Dexter Heifer calves and the $200 minimum price removes all the Dexter tv show DVD’s from my search. Although I do occasionally get a listing for a Dexter trailer. While I do miss the ads where no price is listed, they are usually overpriced anyway. This formula is how I found Milk Jug my Dexter cow.

There are other functions that IFTTT can do, but the craiglist search function is the most valuable to me and the only one I use. If you are vigilant you can get some great deals, but those deals will be gone quick. This is a great way to be notified of those deals and get a jump on them.

Another great tool that makes Craigslist more user friendly is Search Tempest www.searchtempest.com

If you live in a more remote area, but are willing to travel for the good deals Search Tempest allows you to search all the cities within a mile range of your zip on one website. This makes searching the ten Craigslists within 150 miles of my home town much easier. You can search different categories and price ranges just like if you were on the individual Craigslist pages, from one website.

As a side note I am not affiliated with Craigslist, Search Tempest or IFTTT. I just find them very helpful when you a running a small farm on a tight budget. As such I think it may interest others.

 

Farm Updates:

I built the finalized model of our PVC cultivator tractor and will be posting about it soon as well as making a Youtube video on the design. We are in early spring and well prepared for planting if the weather cooperates. We have separated our purebred Buff Orpington, Araucana, Barred Rock and Silky chickens to provide eggs for incubation.

 

We got a mated pair of Embden  geese early last year. Based on our experience so far there will always be a place on our farm for geese. Geese are much more expensive than chickens, ducks or turkeys but are well worth having.

When we first got our geese it was early in the mating season and they were not the friendliest barn yard companion. We kept them in a paddock formed by short hog panels tied together for our safety. Every time I would go to care for them I would be greeted with hissing by the gander. By late May the mating season was about up and the geese became much better behaved.

In late May we let the geese out of their paddock to free range the farm yard. This also marks the last time the geese were given any feed. It is December as I write this post, and my geese are fat and happy with no care other than water. How is that for self sufficiency?

Geese are the easiest to care for domestic animal on my farm. They are big enough to defend themselves (with guard dog backup). They graze on the lawn for their sustenance, and only need to be provided water. With a diverse lawn to graze our geese have been healthy and fat all year with no additional feed besides possible gleanings of small amounts of grain left behind while feeding other critters.

Since they have never ventured away from the yard they don’t need fencing. When we first let them loose I feared they would go down to the large pond and would be hard to catch if we needed to in the future. We also had a coyote attack on the nesting Canadian geese on our large pond so it wasn’t the safest area either. The fear proved unfounded as our geese never ventured away from the yard.

We made the mistake of trying to incubate the goose eggs last year instead of allowing the geese to do the work. We were planning to incubate the first group and then allow the geese to do the work on the rest, but she stopped laying sooner than expected. Apparently it is common for first year laying geese to have low fertility and even with extra care we only had two geese hatch, and only one survived. Our one survivor got the very unique name of Goosey and became more like a pet puppy than regular poultry.

A gosling will imprint on a human and they make a great pet. Goosey would play outside with the kids and weed in the garden with us. If she wandered too far she would cry for help and when she spotted us she would run as fast as she could to get back. Of all the critters I have kept a gosling is one of the friendliest and actually craves human companionship.

For the next breeding season coming up we have a better plan. We will take fewer eggs and the eggs we do take will hopefully be taken care of by foster parents. We have currently been breeding our flock to encourage broodiness, and will be using these broody momma hens as foster parents. We will only take several of the first eggs and we will be allowing the goose to have a clutch with the rest.

With all the good things I have to say about geese I do have a few bad qualities to report. Geese think we have a back porch for a nice bathroom. I don’t know why, but they prefer to use the concrete slab and I am always spraying off their droppings. They also like to wander into my shop and do the same thing.

Many people think geese are mean, and some may be. During the breeding season our geese were very aggressive, but for the rest of the year they didn’t cause a problem. I have never had the geese be aggressive to me outside of breeding season, but for some reason Goosey attacked my son Jacob. We are not sure why, it may have been a defensive move on Goosey’s part. As is the case most three year olds Jacob can be a little rough with critters at times.

A Place for Geese on a Small Farm

With the initial investment of their purchase made and the minimal care and feeding needed we will allow our geese to populate the farm. With such minimal care needed the drawback of slow reproduction doesn’t matter as much. I figure a safe bet is that the average goose will be able to raise five replacements every year. If we can get better at goose egg incubation we may be able to hatch out several ourselves in addition to the gooses clutch.

In the future we hope to institute the tradition of the Christmas goose in our family. Geese also fetch a pretty good price. When our build up is complete we can sell several a year which will more than pay for the minimal feed needed in the worst weeks of winter. While it would be hard to generate the populations possible with chickens, geese would make a nice side income and source of homegrown food with very minimal inputs.

We are currently thinking of putting the geese in a fenced area behind the corral. This will give them plenty of grazing area and keep them in a visible area away from my back porch. I might even be nice enough to pour them a nice concrete slab to use.

Update 3-10-15

For ease of finding eggs and to keep the peace we have moved the geese into the old goat pen for the breeding season. We have five eggs in the incubator with a lot more on the way.

There were a lot of projects in 2014 that I have not discussed on my website but plan to in the future. Some of these projects include a 4,000 gallon pool used as a Tilapia aquaculture project and a 8×24′ greenhouse lean to that is under construction on the south side of our house. I also built a top bar beehive and several different styles of chicken tractors. These will be future post subjects.

  On our small farm we try to limit our purchased inputs as much as possible. So one of the biggest jobs we have is producing our own hay. While I like the function of the Ford 501 mower when it works and it does fit well on the 8N, it is a lemon. Of all the equipment I use the 501 mower needs the most repairs. I can only cut about 20 acres before something breaks. I have tried everything I can think of to hone it into a reliable machine, and have thus far failed. These mowers have a good reputation so I am looking for a second one to try, and use my current one for parts. In my search I will not turn down another brand either, and do have a backup Ford 515 mower to try.

Last spring I purchased a case six row cultivator to be cut down to two rows. Even at only two rows it is still pretty heavy and my 8N doesn’t like to lift it very fast. I could use some weight on the front of the 8N when the row cultivator is lifted. The 861 however handles it like it were a twig. Cutting it down to two rows gives me plenty of parts into the future. The cultivator is a big improvement over the older one I was using.

During the last year we have purchased many more pieces of equipment, rounding out our inventory. Early in 2014 I bought a Auger cart that is in good shape for $350. Since my combine only holds 25 bushels a cart is very handy to have on the larger fields I have planned in the future. We also purchased a small grain bin, a Suzuki Samurai which doubles as a UTV for us and a rotary hoe.

 

Late last summer I broke ground on two acres to be planted in Austrian Winter Peas. The peas didn’t get very big before winter and I don’t expect them to overwinter. I will be planting that two acres in corn and the peas were planted to prepare the ground for corn. I have ordered a different type of popcorn to try; Japanese hulless. Since this field is on the very back of our property I plan on fortifying it with electric fence this time.

I plowed another acre of ground next to the Reid’s corn field and planted it to wheat. I planted the remaining wheat from my first planting way back in 2011. I am planning on discing under the Reid’s corn stuble and planting oats there this spring. When both crops are harvested I will join the two fields giving me two larger crop areas of 2 acres each. Small stuff for a row crop farmer, but huge scale for a gardener. I am going to try to keep all the crop fields that are cut out of the large field at the farm in acre increments. This will allow easy calculation of yield, seed and other figures.

I have measured the large field and will be building two gates. These gates will be place half way north to south between the south property line and the already established cattle watering locations on the north end. The gates will dividing the large field into thirds going east and west. These will be future cattle watering locations and I will be trenching water lines to them. I have already sunk grounding rods in these locations so I can rotate the cattle through the large field.

Our chickens diet has been supplemented by home grown grains again this fall. We had a special 6 grain blend of chicken chow made from home grown and purchased corn, homegrown buckwheat, homegrown cereal rye, homegrown wheat, homegrown fescue and some left over austrian peas for extra measure. To give them a good snacktivity they get corn on the cob all winter as well. The corn on the cob is a premium mix of popcorn, sweat corn and field corn.

While a lot more happened in 2014 this gives you an idea of what we accomplished so far and what we are working towards for some future goals.

We accomplished a lot in 2014, but as always there were a lot of projects that didn’t get done. When you move into a 100 yr old farmhouse that had not been lived in for awhile as you are building a small farm while raising a family and running a small business you are taking on a heavy project load. I am going to review my failures and successes for the year.

Not So Great:

This is the last year I will plant black oil sunflowers. I didn’t harvest a thing from the field I planted in 2014 and not much in 2013, the birds however really appreciated it.

The main problem I am having with the sunflowers is they mature at an uneven rate. The birds don’t mind as they will glean the ones that are currently ripe. In order for me to harvest the crop I need the majority of the crop ripe. By the time the last of the sunflowers are mature the birds have pretty well cleaned out the majority of the crop.

I initially wanted sunflowers as an addition to my poultry ration mix as well as an oil crop. Black oil sunflowers produce more oil than any other crop suited to my environment. While it doesn’t affect my farm operation, it may curtail fuel independence.

Coming in next with a abysmal harvest is spelt. 2014 was suppose to be spelt independence year. My spelt didn’t seem to survive the unusually harsh winter of 2013-2014 very well. The thin stand became very weedy, making harvest a pain.

To harvest the very weedy spelt field I had to mow it down and let the weeds dry. I then windrowed the crop along with the weeds and ran the combine down the windrow. Instead of taking a couple hours I had to wait several days to harvest. The end result was slightly more spelt than I planted. Not what you want at the end of the season.

Reid’s field corn grew great and produced well. The only problem was very heavy losses to critters. I figured planting 4x more than last year would allow the critters to have their fill and for me to still have a crop. Unfortunately I just attracted more critters. It looks like I have no choice but to fortify, or grow even more and consider my farm an animal sanctuary.

Our adventure with Midget white turkeys was another project failure. Incubating their eggs proved to be a waste of time. After the Midget Whites decided to roost in the other chicken tractor and ended up killing all the mother hen hatched chicks they were destined for the chopping block. Luckily for them someone else decided to buy them, and we were out our time, our chicks and some food but at least we recouped the price we paid plus some interest.

Calving season has been a pretty good success, but not perfect. I have plenty of cute little calves running around, but I could have had one more. Due to unknown reason #7 had a dead calf, and #7 is now on the chopping block. I plan to follow rigorous culling practices to build the best herd I can, and one thing I demand of my cows is to provide a good calf every year.

We tried goats this year starting out with 7 Saanen billies. We kept one intact in case we decided to keep goats, although it turned out that wasn’t necessary. Through the course of the summer we lost one, decided to sell four and ate the remaining two. Goats have potential, but we are not ready for them yet.

With no way to restrict the goats from the shop they climbed everywhere and left evidence of their adventure. If it can be climbed goats will give it a try, from cars to machinery they became a menace that had to be restricted to their pen. With cattle being cheaper for us to keep, easier to keep and more productive we saw no reason to keep the goat menace.

The Good and Great:

Enough bad, let me review the things that went right. We had a bumper harvest of cereal rye. The first small field yielded 25 bushels. So much the hopper was literally overflowing and the weight blew out one of the old tires on the combine. The second field again proved productive.

We harvested enough cereal rye to eat all we wanted, feed the critters all they wanted, replant, sell some and still have some left over. It was an overwhelming success.

One of the small fields of cereal rye was grazed early in the spring. The cattle prefer to eat the rye to the ground instead of grazing on the pasture. After a couple weeks I rotated them out and the rye tried to rebound. I am very impressed with rye, and believe if I allowed that field to rebound I would have still got a decent harvest from it.

We had equally good luck with smoke signals popcorn. This popcorn has proven to be a reliable crop, even producing in the 2012 drought with no irrigation. We had a bumper crop that grants us popcorn independence for 2014 and beyond.

The field I grew the popcorn on was the field that had cereal rye growing and was grazed by the cattle. With plenty of amendments added by my herd and even more hauled in from my neighbors the popcorn was well situated to produce a bumper crop.

After years of work the first big calving season was this year. I have six calves on the ground, three heifers and three bull calves. Holstein and Milk Jug are late, but that was to be expected as Milk Jug had her last calf in January when I bought her. I think Holstein was too tall for Arod to service until he grew a little more.

I will be keeping my heifers until 2020 at which time I reach capacity with a 50 head herd. Depending on the situation I may very well reach capacity before reaching the goal of 50 head. Either way beef independence day which will henceforth be a Lewis family holiday happened on December 10th with help from Meatball. This family holiday marks the last time we will have to buy beef.

After harvesting the cereal rye on the 3/4 of an acre field at the sawmill I planted buckwheat. Expecting a frost date on the 10th of October the buckwheat had just 60 days to be fruitful and multiply. I would have been okay with a poor harvest. Even a total loss was a possibility. What I didn’t expect was to get 25 bushels of buckwheat in just a little over two months. The conditions must have been perfect, and the buckwheat came through with a bumper harvest.

With 70 acres of pasture and only 20 head of mostly small cattle we have plenty of wiggle room. For the last two years I have fed my cattle hay through the winter like most farms. This year after putting up almost 3000 bales of hay and having some equipment problems I left a big chunk of the large field unharvested. It was the perfect situation to test stockpiling.

Here are the results so far. It is the middle of January and I just started giving my cattle some hay when there was some snow and ice on the ground. That result is very promising, and stockpiling is how I plan to run my operation in the future.

More year in review coming.

I am no longer taking applications for this position, I am leaving this post up for people to see.

What I offer:
4.25 acres of property in Bevier Missouri with a three bedroom mobile home. In addition to the 4 acres around the trailer you have access to a ¼ acre of good garden land caddy corner to the main property. All utilities are on sight/connected as well as high speed internet(fiber). The property is mostly rolling and forested with about 1 acre of flat tillable land.

What I require as Payment:
10 hours a month of simple labor on my farm. Utilities and upkeep/repair will be your responsibility .

The Ideal Candidate:
Someone with the drive and desire to run a CSA or similar small farm or a small homesteader who wants to live cheaply. If someone wants to setup a CSA or sell in the local farmers markets additional money can be made on commission selling my goods which include organic grains, feeds, beef and laying hens/chicks. A teamwork/sharing system could be setup for the profit of both parties. All profits you make are yours. As long as you are maintaining the land, farm away.

Extras:
I am willing to trade labor, you work for me, I will work for you. I am mechanically inclined and have a full shop. I do everything from construction, mechanics and welding. I am willing to trade work/services for labor etc. I have every kind of machinery you will likely need from tractors, implements, a trencher, loader etc. I have spent a long time setting up my farm, and you can benefit without having the expense.

I also have the ability to supply you with chickens, other poultry, cattle, seeds, and other goods. I can also supply you with organic feed/grains/hay. If you need more ground for your farm/homestead we can work on a deal for additional ground on my 70 acre small farm.
There is an additional possibility of running hogs, pastured poultry or maybe even sheep on my farm. I am open to ideas and I am currently tapped out on time to employ many ideas or to increase the size of my current operation.
The trailer is setup for wood heat, and if you help me cut firewood we can split it and you can have heat for just some labor. Plenty of wood is available, and cheap firewood is available in the area as well.
In the ideal situation our families can work together on canning, hunting and trading. Ideally improving both of our situations. I am hoping to find someone of like mind so we can help each other. While I am not rich, I have most of what I need and do not need to make money from this property.

The catch:
Trailer has been a rent to own for five years with no maintenance or love. It will need lots of work, but is livable with some work. If you don’t have the knowledge to do the repairs needed I will trade work for the repairs. As stated there will be 10 hours of labor in exchange for rent. Labor will be done mostly on my farm, but may be elsewhere at times, for the right candidate this arrangement will be very flexible and not set in stone. Labor will be dependent on the abilities of the future tenant but could include: Cutting firewood, painting, checking on livestock, building fence, planting trees, babysitting, bucking hay, tractor work, and general labor.

More Info:

Bevier Missouri is a small town of 718 people located in northeast Missouri. Bevier has no permits needed for building a house or outbuildings and livestock are not restricted. This property is located 14 miles from my farm by highway, a little closer by gravel road. The closest larger city to Bevier is Macon (7 miles) which is also the county seat. Macon has a population of 5,500 and has a Walmart, hardware stores, grocery stores and lumber yards.

The closest large city is Columbia Missouri with a population of 115,000(55 miles). Columbia has a large farmers market and is also home to several colleges including MU. In addition to Columbia, Kirksville has a very active farmers market and is 39 miles from Bevier. Moberly also has a farmers market and is 30 miles away.
In addition to the farmers markets Clark Missouri has the

largest produce auction in the Midwest and is 40 miles from Bevier. There are also several small livestock auctions in the area as well as large swap meets.

The property offered is our old homestead, although we have not lived there in years. We had an orchard on the west end and cut trails through the woods. The woods easily supplied all the firewood we needed and our garden on the lot across the street was productive. There are two wells on the property as well as an old cistern. The forest consists of huge maple trees, many of which have died and are giving way to walnut. On top of the hill on the west is mostly black locust. The east was elm which has died and is being succeeded by a mix of hardwoods.

The Mobile home is old and in rough condition. The bathroom floor needs to be replaced and the other floors have no carpet due to the former inhabitants. While far from the best accommodations the trailer can be repaired and made livable with a little work. The trailer is 14×78 and three bedroom, all electric. When purchased the trailer came with central air, but I never used or installed it. All parts are there to have the AC portion of the central heat and air installed.
I am also open to someone building a house or moving in a newer trailer. Although the existing trailer could be fixed up without much cash and the work could be done over time.
The property would work well to run a small hog or goat operation with some chickens and about an acre of gardens. There are no fences on the property.

Drawbacks:

The largest drawback is the relative remote location with low population. Although for those willing to drive larger cities are not far, but local employment doesn’t pay well and may be harder to find. For some this is a drawback, but I consider it a benefit. I have never had a problem finding a good job here, and those with a good work ethic shouldn’t either. While pay is low, living expenses and taxes are some of the lowest in the country so it works out.
There is a large Amish population which will provide competition in the local market for vegetables and baked goods. There are benefits as well as costs. Amish sawmills provide cheap lumber and firewood. Amish grocery stores provide cheap spices and bulk goods.

Overall

I am moving away from rental properties and that is one reason I am looking at finding someone to live on this property. I am not looking to sell at this time, this property has been in my family for a long time and is paid for. For the right person it would be a good deal for both parties.
For those not from Missouri it is one of the freest states and has a pretty good climate with abundant rainfall. Ranked by freedom, Missouri is easily in the top ten. Stay away from the few big cities and crime is low with good farm ground available at some of the lowest prices in the US. Missouri has some of the lowest taxes, and does not tax land as high as most states. Missouri has been moving in the right direction for awhile as the larger cities like St. Louis have been shrinking along with their influence on a mostly rural state.
In Missouri the most onerous law is a personal property tax on things like cars. A vehicle inspection law requiring a safety inspection every two years and a helmet law for motorcycles are some of the more annoying laws to me as well. Missouri is not zoned, and property taxes are very low. In Missouri for the most part you don’t need a permit to build, repair or live.

Who we are: I am a 34 year old self employed father of a six year old daughter and a three year old son. I run a small farm and another small business. My wife works in town as an RN. While we don’t attend church regularly we would probably be best described as more conservative/christian, and libertarian leaning in politics. I am pretty open minded but value hard work, honesty and self motivation.

Who Can Apply/how: Anyone can apply who is willing to work hard and has the motivation to make use of the property and not tear it down further. For the right individual or family this could be a good bump to a better life and lower your living expenses and maybe even set you on the path for self sufficiency and independence/self employment. I don’t care what race/age or sex you are. I don’t care if you are single or married or have a life partner. I do care that you have morals, no thief’s, slackers or druggies. I don’t care if you have a criminal record as long as you learned your lesson.
If you work hard for me then do enough work to buy your needed supplies and then slack that is fine by me. As long as you are willing to do the work in exchange for the property you are good in my book, although you could gain much more by working with me and having concurrent goals with us.
If you are interested contact me through my websites contact form put Bevier Property as your subject. I will then send you a simple question form to fill out to try and pick the best candidate. Questions are welcome from those who are seriously interested. I will be looking for the ideal candidate, but in reality I will accept the best candidate who is interested. The property is available now, but it would probably be best to wait until early spring for more comfortable working conditions. I will either find a candidate or return this property to a rental by summer 2015. I would prefer to see someone using this property to its potential and ideally gaining a friend and work partner.
As already stated those interested could be a family, a couple or an individual. You must be able to move there this year, and have the ability to maintain the property and provide labor in exchange for rent. I did have the property rented for several hundred dollars a month, so it is a very good deal.

 

While we have chosen to raise both, there are some differences between chickens and Muscovy ducks. If you have the room, both are worth keeping. This post will be comparing the two based on my experience.

I will rank each according to several categories with a winner declared in each if there is a decided advantage held by one. I will rank them in these abilities/characteristics: Reproduction, Ease of Care, Hardiness, Uses, Taste, Self Sufficiency, Clearing Land, Growth Rate and Conclusion.

 

In my comparison chickens are heritage breeds that I keep such as Buff Orpington, Barred Rock, Rhode Island Red, New Hampshire, Araucana, Dominique and Ameraucana. The majority of my chickens are mix of these breeds but I also keep small breeding flocks of purebred birds. I cannot compare something well that I don’t have first hand experience with, so I wanted to mention the breeds of chickens I am referring to. Our Muscovy ducks are the common Muscovy ducks you will find throughout Missouri.

Most of my poultry are allowed to free range throughout the day and return to large chicken tractors of an evening. Some of my comparisons will have judgements based on the suitability for such a setup.

Reproduction:

Winner: Chickens. The hands down winner in this category is chickens. While rabbits have a good reputation in this category chickens are the real replication machines. The average heritage breed chicken will lay an egg every other day for the majority of the year, if you choose to attempt to hatch these eggs you will have plenty of chickens to add to your flock. While chickens will slow down and lay fewer eggs in the winter and late fall, they do lay some eggs all year. Muscovy’s lay well in the spring and early summer but taper off quickly. The Muscovy cannot compete in the number off eggs or length of laying.

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Ease of Care:

Winner: Chickens. While Muscovy’s are not hard to care for chickens are the clear winner in this category as well. For those that free range Muscovy’s are not as good as chickens about returning to their home of an evening. While they will often return home the habit is not as ingrained in Muscovy’s as it is in chickens. Muscovy’s also need a source of water, it wouldn’t be acceptable to just water them with chicken water nipples. Even with water that is fenced off allowing the Muscovy’s to dip their head but not their entire body in the water they will still produce a muddy mess. It is also more time consuming cleaning the water bowls and filling them than using an automatic waterer with chicken water nipples.

Hardiness:

Winner: Tie. Both birds are pretty hardy. I have had more losses of Muscovy chicks for some reason, but the adult Muscovys seem hardier than adult chickens. I have had very minimal problems with either.

Uses:

Winner: A tie. Chickens and Muscovys both have unique and common uses. Obviously both are edible, and both provide good meat and eggs. Chickens provide more eggs, the muscovy’s provide bigger richer eggs. Both can be used to scorch the earth clearing garden areas, and both work great in chicken tractors. They both control the buildup of table scraps, and both help to control insects. The ideal one will be depending on the conditions and personal taste.

Taste:

Winner: Muscovy’s. Taste is very subjective and individual, but my family prefers Muscovy to chicken. Chicken is well chicken, even the heritage breeds are still chicken. Muscovy is very similar to beef. It looks and tastes like beef, and I think the unsuspecting diner would be hard pressed to detect much difference. Muscovy is very different in taste from the ducks in the mallard family and even geese. If you have not tried Muscovy it is worth giving a shot.

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Self Sufficiency:

Winner: Tie. Both are able to be pretty self sufficient in my environment. Muscovy’s might have a slight edge being bigger and less of a target. Muscovys  will beat many modern chicken breeds that have foraging bred out of them. When allowed to free range in a good environment Muscovy’s and chickens can feed themselves. Throughout the growing season we take advantage of this ability.

Clearing Land:

Winner: Undetermined? I have not used the Muscovys in this application long enough to judge them. They both seem to do a good job, the muscovys will make more of a mess especially in wet conditions.

Growth Rate:

Winner: Muscovy. The hands down winner here are muscovys. A muscovy hatches larger and easily maintains that lead throughout its lifetime. Muscovys grow much faster than chickens and will weigh much more as an adult. A muscovy will provide you with more meat quicker.

Conclusion:

This is easy, keep both. They usually get along fine and can be housed together so why not have both. Chickens are the overall winner, but I will have Muscovys for the foreseeable future.