Building a Hobby Farm- from woods to eggs

[tony123]

Things are finally in motion to start our Hobby Farm. A bit of background: We moved onto 3 acres back in July. This is our first time to have any property, and have looked forward to the space and the option to do things such as having a small farm.

We love our property! It is set back 600' off the road and gives us the privacy we want. It also has nice winter views of the mountains! Now the down side....it is sloped pretty good. This makes our views better, and allowed for our walkout basement, but doesn't make for good tractoring, or farming.

We have twin two year old boys and want to give them the experience of farming. Actually, we're both city folk ourselves, so this is as much for us as it is for them.

Here in lies the project. Our land is sloped and wooded. We've cleared about a half acre for the house itself. After getting the tractor, I realized I needed more "dirt" to work. So, I started working on a little area about 35'x150' that was reasonably flat. Here it is.

looking back at the house. entrance to farm will be where the boat is.

and looking further downhill.

across the downhill slope. we'll be cutting on the uphill side about 4' and filling on the downhill side about 3'. We will then end up with two areas. The upper will be about 35'x150' and the lower terrace will be about 55'x160'

and looking back uphill.

Once I saw this space, I thought, well...I could just terrace all the way down the hillside this way. So I called a guy with an excavator. He came by last night and did about an hours work and will do most of it this Saturday.

We are planning a vegetable garden on the upper terrace, and pasture for chickens, goats, pig, turkey on the lower terrace. We no nothin' about any of it, but figure it will create tractor projects.... I look forward to getting some feedback on laying things out, and then some gardening and livestock assistance.

Stay tuned. I'll post some photos by Sunday that will make things much clearer.

Dennis, you around? how's this for a project?

 

[mikim]

I predict 2 things : 1. you're gonna have a lot of fun with this and 2. you're going to discover that 3 acres ain't nearly enough. .... in addition .... if you go out and buy 30 acres you'll find out 2 things .. 1. you can have a lot of fun on 30 acres and 2. 30 ain't nearly enough. Good luck and good fun!

 

[tony123]

mikim, I'm sure you're right about the size of the land. But two things that ain't going to happen. 1. We ain't moving. 2. I'm not going to turn this into "work".

I should have stressed the "hobby" part. I'm thinking of a garden that's roughly 20x75'. For livestock, enough chickens for one families worth of eggs. What is that 4-6 chickens? A pair of turkeys. A pair of goats. One pig for harvest, so maybe for a year at a time but only every second or third year.

Is this sounding like more work than I'm bargaining for? I don't think so, but what do I know.

 

[TC29-dude]

I predict 2 things : 1. you're gonna have a lot of fun with this and 2. you're going to discover that 3 acres ain't nearly enough. .... in addition .... if you go out and buy 30 acres you'll find out 2 things .. 1. you can have a lot of fun on 30 acres and 2. 30 ain't nearly enough. Good luck and good fun!

Truer words have never been spoken! I started w 7 acres added more for 16 added even more so now I am up to 44. I now have my eye on my neighbors 50 acres that is behind me (landlocked w/ easement across my property for access). Does it ever end?

 

[tony123]

Okay....I conceed. I suppose worse things could happen than loving it so much I've got to find more property.

 

[Grrrr]

I am sure you are going to have great fun learning about farming on your little farm.

I think farming is one of the most interesting hobbys there are (and it gives you an excuse to spend time on the tractor )

 

[Highbeam]

Each healthy chicken will lay one egg per day. I have five chickens and get five eggs per day. Every day. Now I don't know about you but a guy can only eat so many eggs. I too got the animals for my kids to learn that eggs aren't born from a paper crate. CHickens are perfect since they are dirt cheap to buy, don't eat much, don't poop much, and generally are pretty disposable. Plus they produce a benefit every day.

I envy your place. With two-two year olds you must be close to my age and to have a nice hobby farm is an accomplishment. It'll only get better.

 

[Tororider]

You can always sell surplus eggs, or have your boys do it and put the money in a college savings. We buy eggs from a guy across the street from our property. Great eggs, good price, and they are farm fresh and free range. When we build at our place I hope to do something like you, we have about 18 acres.

 

[tony123]

Thanks everyone for the kind words.

The excavator made a lot of progress yesterday. All the trees are cleared and he's started the grading. He'll be back today and probably be close to completion.

I'll post photos this afternoon. You'll be amazed at how much work got done. I was.

That's a great idea to have the kids sell eggs for college money. We have several neighbors that I know would participate. Maybe we start with 5-6 chickens and if it goes well, we move up production.

Highbeam, I'm 37. I don't know how much of an accomplishment it is, but it is nice to hear somone say that it is.

I promise to include lots of tractor photos here too. We're just not at the point that I can even get in there with the tractor.

 

[Tororider]

I think our neighbor that has the chickens has 12-18 chickens, and I thought he said he gets about 3 dozen eggs a day. I may have my numbers wrong, but you may want to look into how many eggs different types of chickens lay on average. I know different chickens give different types of eggs, smaller, larger, bigger or smaller yolks, etc. I just wouldn't want you to be expecting one thing and get another.

 

[tony123]

Here's some photos after the weekend.

This is the road we cut in for the entrance. Use the boat as a point of reference from photo #2 in the last set of photos. I'm really pleased with how it came out. I'll be able to bring the truck back to the farm now! I think we're going to just seed the road as a grass "country" road.

This shot is the progress from the same spot as photo#4 in the first set. All the trees are gone and he's started across the slope cutting in the "pad". This is the lower pad, and looks like it will end up about 50' wide x 95' long. This will be where all the livestock will be, as well as pole barn for tractor storage, etc.

This is from the bottom looking back up the slope. You can get a good idea of how steep it was, and why we're having to excavate. The house is not mine, it's a neighbor. I'm going to plant some screening along the property line there.

And Here's another shot of the lower pad.

He said he'd be here on Tuesday to work some. Should have the lower pad done then and move onto the upper pad. May have all grading done by next weekend.

Tororider, no doubt lots of research to do. I need to figure out what I want, how many and where to put them. This will all help in placing the fencing. I'm thinking a perimeter fence that will cover both levels (roughly 100'x100') then divide it as necessary.

Any suggestions on good websites to do this sort of research?

tony

 

[3RRL]

Tony,
I love your thread and what you are doing on it. It's great to see your interest for your twins too. Even though you are doing it yourself, it will make an everlasting impression on those boys. I don't care if your lot is 2 acres or 200 acres, it is WAY different than growing up on a city lot.
Thanks for sharing and please post more when you can.
What kind of tractor did you get?

 

[Tororider]

Nice progress, isn't it fun to see how quickly things can change when you have the right tool.

Not sure on websites to research that kind of thing, all I know is that our "egg" neighbor has regular "laying hens" if there is such a thing as a "regular" laying hen. And then he has some tophat??? hens. He said the tophat are much smaller eggs with much larger yolks in comparison to overall size of the egg. He hasn't tried one yet since last I asked him, so I don't know difference of taste.

Your kids will have so much fun. My son, 3 years old, loves it when I take him out there and sees the frogs, snakes, hens and turkeys across the street. We live on what I would call a city lot right now, so I can't wait until my wife finishes her residency at a nearby hospital and we can build a place out there. Your kids will have so much fun and have a totally different frame of reference for life than 95%+ of other people. All I can say is have fun, it sounds like you plan on it.

 

[Tororider]

Forgot to mention, if you are looking for something fast growing to put between your neighbors and your project, check out Austree's. They grow silly fast, 8-12 feet a year, no kidding. I have the prunings to prove it. I think the website is rmausa.com if I remember correctly. I will try to post some pics of mine if you are interested, but they will give you a really quick screen, even if you plant an evergreen in front just to give you some blockage until your other stuff grows up.

 

[Tororider]

Just got some eggs this morning with my older son, he gets a kick out of going into the henhouse. I think if our neighbor ever moves we will have to do chickens. Heck even if he doesn't we may have to. Then of course my son wanted eggs for lunch, good stuff.

 

[tony123]

Rob, I got a Yanmar YMG2000D. It's a 20hp at PTO tractor. Large enough for all my maintenance purposes, but too small to do this excavating. My only implement right now is a box blade. In the spring I'll be getting a 4' shredder. Also on my list of wants are: single moldboard plow, tiller, post hole digger, trailer and or dirt scoop.

tororider, I'll check into the austrees, please post pictures if you have them. I'm actually a Landscape Architect by profession. I've got some specific ideas about how to handle the screening of his house.

The excavator was working this morning, and has shaped things up a bit more. Not enough for more photos yet but probably soon.

We're supposed to get some rain at some point in the next few days, which will make the dirt much more workable. It's like a powdery dust right now.

 

[Tororider]

I will try to post some pictures tomorrow, it really is amazing how fast they grow. I think ours grew 12 feet the first year. I actually owned a lawn care/landscape company for 12 years. The website is rmausa.com. They are pretty cool. Keep us updated, when are you getting the chickens?

 

[tony123]

I went to the website, and see that it is a Salix. Same family as Weeping Willow. So I believe the claim of quick growth.

I hope that we're ready for chickens by early spring. Our grading project should be done by this weekend. Then I've got a mound of tree debris to process. I expect at least a month of work doing that. Some for firewood, and the small stuff to the burn pile. Then I've got to do about 500LF of fencing and finally, construct a coop. So...spring is a reasonable target, if not optomistic. Good new is, my kids are only 2.5 so I've got a little time.

 

[Tororider]

Here is a picture of my trees, I think they are two and a half years in now. That is what I thought they were related to, people were wondering and that was my guess.

Have you thought about chipping up your trees? We just made a food plot and chippped everything that we cut down, bigger stuff became firewood. Probably more work than just burning, but you end up with usable byproduct. We are going to use ours to cover our paths in the forest.

 

[Tororider]

By the way, that is 5 trees lined in a small "L", and I have had to trim them extensively. My parents have ten in a row in their backyard and they have created a really nice vision screen in the winter. My inlaws did a row of 20 along their driveway between the neighbors and they love theirs two.