Relocating the entire farm...

[STx]

Fir a variety of reasons my wife and I have decided to sell the property we're currently on in South Texas, 36 acres inherited plus 62 acres we're buying from a neighbor, and move to a 190 acre property near Bandera, about 3 hours away. We're under contract on the new ranch and now I'm really start to think about what a hassle it's going to be to move all the equipment, tools, animals, etc. Fortunately, we don't have to sell the current property as part of the purchase of the new so we can take some time to get it all done. Even so, there's so much to do.

So who else has moved after being on a property for 5+ years and accumulating a bunch of equipment, animals and implements? Is this going to be as bad as I think it is?

 

[Peter 315]

I guess one load at a time , Maybe box everything up and hire a mover for the household items ..... start calling friends...and maybe go through the stuff and get a dumpster....good luck.......

 

[STx]

The household stuff is the easy part, maybe 3 trips with trailers we have, fewer if I rent something bigger.

It's really the equipment (tractor, skid steer, UTV, excavator, boom lift, etc.), implements that seem overwhelming.

And the animals. I've got to fence pastures and pens and build shelters for them before I can move them. It's starting to dawn on me how much work I've got ahead of me.

It'll be worth it in the end though. The area is nicer with more to do, the views on the property are a lot better, as well as the vegetation and wildlife mix (we've got lots of Axis), and there's a natural spring on the property that's going to .ale a fantastic building site and natural swimming hole once it's had a little love. The existing house is a little 2/1 that'll do for now but won't be big enough forever.

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

Love that spring, and the Texas Hill Country. I have often wondered about living out there.

Like me, it sounds like you have a lot of stuff. Sounds like many trips. How many animals do you have? Sounds like preparing for the animals is the greatest task ahead.

 

[JPRambo]

I have been moving from a 4 bedroom home and garage and a 24' x 30' separate garage. I built another 24 x 30 on 7 acres 650 miles north. Slowly moving boxes of belonging. Trailer load by trailer load. No animals but lots of stuff. We usually load the 6 x 12 dump trailer each trip to 'vacation' for the 4 or 5 weeks of recovery time.

 

[EddieWalker]

Congratulations. My original plan when moving to Texas was to be in the Hill Country. Sounds like you found an awesome spot with all that water, and having Axis is a huge bonus. My wife shot three does down near Sonora a couple years ago while I was hunting free range blackbuck and sika. They where the best tasting steaks!!!!

When I moved from CA to TX, I rented the biggest UHaul with a trailer that they had and hauled everything I could fit on it, then flew back and did it again. On the third trip, I drove my truck, with a trailer, and my ex drove her car with her house plants in it. Overall, it was a huge pain trying to decide what to bring, and what to get rid of. After settling in and finally unloading everything from storage, I ended up throwing away about half of what I hauled here. It was overwhelming trying to decide what I would need when I had never lived here. If I ever do it again, I really think that I'll sell, give away, or donate to Goodwill, almost everything.

What happened is a lot of my stuff just didn't survive being in storage. The heat, moving stuff around, and then putting unopened boxes in my garage and having a leak that got the boxes all wet added to the problem. But I've never missed anything that I threw away, and what was really important to me, we treated differently then the stuff that I just couldn't decide on what to do with it when I was packing up and moving here.

In the end, it's just stuff.

 

[STx]

Love that spring, and the Texas Hill Country. I have often wondered about living out there.

Like me, it sounds like you have a lot of stuff. Sounds like many trips. How many animals do you have? Sounds like preparing for the animals is the greatest task ahead.

We've got 3 Nigerian Dwarfs goats, about 30 pigs at the moment but, that'll be 4 at most before we move, and more chickens than I can count. The goats and chickens aren't too bad, they just need a good shelter and a fenced yard, we let the chickens free range during the day.

The pigs, on the other hand, need excellent fencing and a few good sized pastures to rotate through, even with just 4, or they'll destroy the ground. They also need a wallow and some sort of shelter.

 

[STx]

Congratulations. My original plan when moving to Texas was to be in the Hill Country. Sounds like you found an awesome spot with all that water, and having Axis is a huge bonus. My wife shot three does down near Sonora a couple years ago while I was hunting free range blackbuck and sika. They where the best tasting steaks!!!!

I love Axis. I haven't shot a deer in years because whitetail just isn't tasty enough, to me, to be worth the effort to clean and process them. For Axis, I'll probably end up building a walk-in cooler to hang and process them on-site and we'll reduce our beef consumption significantly. There are also Mouflan on the place and the occasional other exotic like Sika, Fallow, Red Deer, etc.

In the end, it's just stuff.

Don't tell my wife that.

 

[radios1]

semi box truck for the household stuff, and a flatbed for 2 machines at a time.. there are trailers you can rent for the animals..

 

[STx]

semi box truck for the household stuff, and a flatbed for 2 machines at a time.. there are trailers you can rent for the animals..

I've got a 26' deck over with dovetail and 16,000# capacity, a 20' GN dump trailer with 16,000# capacity, a 14' GN stock trailer and an F450 to pull them all. I'm going to look at a 40' GN with 25,000# capacity on Monday for the couple of pieces of equipment I had to have delivered because they were too heavy for my trailer. So, I've got the trailers and vehicle to move everything, it's just a matter of the effort and time to do it all.

The fencing won't be terrible either, I've got a post driver for the skid steer and made an attachment to unroll and stretch field fence with the skid steer also, again it's just the time and, hoping I can drive deeply enough without hitting rock where I want to put pastures, I think I can.

I'm probably going to have to break down and hire some help in Bandera to get it done in a reasonable time frame. I'm just so used to working alone, I'm not sure I can work well with others anymore.