How many acres do I REALLY need? Tell me

[rinadav7]

We thought we were moving back to Missouri, and had land all picked out, but my husband's job has required that we stay in the NYC area. So the search for the homestead has transitioned. We have to find land within a two hour commute of NYC (he works from home or out of town most days), and within 45 minutes of Monsey, NY or Passaic, NJ (both have religious Jewish communities that we like and have friends). Land here is SOOO much more expensive than Missouri, so I have to be judicious. We hope to raise goats - a few meat, a few fiber for fun, and a few dairy, raise broilers, have hens for eggs, hoping to find land with a stream or pond, and the big question is a family cow or not. In order to help pay for the homestead we will probably sell broilers and some meat goats, but neither in massive numbers - I have definitely scaled back my CSA plans based on the great advice from these boards. Just looking for space for the kids to learn to work hard and be kids and hang out with animals outside all day together. But with land going for up to $20,000 PER ACRE here, if I can do all of that on 5 acres instead of the 15 I was hoping for, so be it. How few acres do you all think I can get away with? You can expand on a house, but you can't stretch land!

[Forerunner]

How crafty and resourceful a homesteader you REALLY are will bear directly upon the amount of space you will need to meet your goals.

[simi-steading]

I've got a friend selling 4 acres in NY and I was shocked what he was telling me he paid for his taxes... I can't imagine how selling a ton of meat animals could even put a dent in what he's paying.. He said taxes are a big reason he's moving to WV...

I can't answer your question about how much land you need, but I wish you the very best, and I hope you realize it's hard to make profit on a small homestead without being super creative and having a lot more than one or two ways to make cash.. especially when it comes to selling animals..

[crazyfarm]

It does depend on what you're doing with what you have. I've been trolling the internet for ages now reading various homesteading blogs. I'm shocked at the people doing it all on 1 or 2 acres. For us we want to run cows without buying feed for them at all. To do that we'd need acres for grazing and acres for baling. We have 40 now and I'm meeting an appraiser after work today to look at the 40 next to us. That should fit the bill just fine.

Anyway, making money is all about creativity. I built a small pond for my ducks. It's about 14x14. Not terribly large. There is another 14x14 section that I have fenced off for bio filtration of the duck pond. So when I got to thinking about everything I could do it got pretty amazing. You see I'm raising plants in the bio filter. Plants I bought off Ebay. How simple a thing to sell pond plants on Ebay. So there's that income stream. then there was the issue of more cleaning of the nasty duck pond. That's when crawfish came into the plan. The pond is 3ft deep. It's sufficient for over wintering. So we decided to raise crawfish in the pond. they eat the muck and can bring a hefty sum. We've also thought about raising tilapia fingerlings in it but I'm not sure how much we could do without overloading it. That may have to wait for a pond expansion. The point with this is that I've got a million uses for 1 thing. That's how you make money.

[Vickie44]

45 Minutes from Monsey and Passaic will put you in the middle of Orange County a lovely but expensive area , most of the farms have turned over to affluent housing. I love it here but I live on one of the last farms left in this area

If you could go a little further you should look in Sullivan county

[SouthGAMan]

Every acre isn't created equal and sometimes you will have to alter your plans based on the strengths and weaknesses of the land you have been blessed with. As you included when you mentioned about the benefits of the local Jewish communities, proximity to communities, markets, schools, and medical facilities as well as acreage costs and taxes also need to be included in any decision you make. Good luck finding the right spot for you.

...and for what little it is worth lol for $20,000 I could easily get 5 EXCELLENT acres down here. The price of land (and taxes) varies tremendously depending on the area of country.

[ImbriD]

20k per acre for a small holding is really cheap up there, and I'd seriously check out the land first. I have family an hour from NYC in central Jersey (also a large Jewish community area) and the land they are on goes for nearly 100k per acre and use to be an old pig farm. As others have said taxes are also a killer up there.

Couldn't even begin to figure out how to make any kind of a profit with those prices. Can't even imaging anything on a small holding that could make a dent in taxes like that.

I'd really do my homework before purchasing some land up there.

[Maura]

I guess you need to start by commuting between the office and every direction to be really sure where you can end up within two hours. It may surprise you. Any area around NYC is so-o-o-o expensive. But, everything in that area is more expensive than it is in the midwest. Land for a small homestead is really expensive out there, but land for a house is also. I’d guess you’d pay $20,000 for a lot in a subdivision, so paying so much for an acre isn’t as expensive at is at first looks.

Some people do great with a backyard only, but most of them live in southern California. You will have to do some real hard homework to find something you can make a lot of money from. You can get a lot of produce from a small garden that you care for by hand. My DD has a friend in New Jersey who has a large yard and did very well selling her garden produce. If you are in a place you can have a vegetable stand you can make money every day in the summer. But again, how much money are you really ending up with?

Start with thinking about 2 acres and how much profit you can get from two acres. Two acres of goats. Two acres of spinach, two acres of green beans, etc. With a small garden you can garden intensively. If you do most of your work by hand, you work differently than if you do it with machines.

Think about why people of any given area kept the livestock they did. Did they have wide open pastures? Do you? Did they have woods they could let the animals forage in all summer? Did they not have access to meat and relied on dairy? Pigs were let in the woods and butchered in the fall. Little House in the Big Woods outlines how the pig was on his own until he was butchered. No work until you are ready to start the smoke. Smaller pigs were contained and you may do well keeping two pigs on pasture, supplementing with kitchen scraps, for your meat. In the winter, no pigs to take care of. I think you want goats because you like goats. Be realistic in how much hay and work you will have to do to have goats and how much meat you actually get from one.

I really think for a small homestead that a small flock of chickens is realistic because you can buy a dozen in the spring, get eggs most of the year, and butcher the roosters in the fall. With one or two chicken tractors, how many meat chickens do you need to carry you through the year without even selling any of them? Those big white crosses are ready to be butchered at 8 weeks (but I prefer RIR). Could you raise a group for yourself and raise a second group to sell? This would bring your chicken raising to 16 weeks out of the year, or less if you overlap the two groups. If you do this, you don’t have to deal with all of those chickens and their mess all at once. May and June, July and August. Or, May and June, June and July, September and October. Either way, you only have a half dozen layers to carry over the winter.

[wogglebug]

Think alternatives.

A big greenhouse may be worth a lot more to you than more land.
House any animals in the greenhouse, to somewhat heat it during winter.

If you can make an aquaponics setup work, maybe with trout or another coldwater fish half the year, then that can give you a lot of meat.

Muscovy ducks will do just about everything for you - lean meat like lamb or goat, veal or pork. They lay quite a lot of eggs considering they are not a laying breed, big eggs, and they'll brood them all if you let them, so you get a lot more meat and eggs. Big body, but they're quiet, so they don't bother the neighbours. Cook them for meat, pressure cook the bones to take the protein out of them and the bones will go chalky, then dissolve the bones in vinegar or fruit juice and make sauce, gravy or drinks, and you don't need milk. If you WANT milk, then supplement your bone soup with a couple of miniature goats and you've got four-legged pets as well.

[rinadav7]

I like those ideas, maximize a small space. It is zoning, though, that will stop me from having much fun on any land that isn't farm designated. What about renting a farm, I know it is possible, but have no idea how to find those opportunities. Ideas?

[JillyG]

Sullivan county has a large Jewish community as well.

[highlands]

Originally Posted by rinadav7

with land going for up to $20,000 PER ACRE here, if I can do all of that on 5 acres instead of the 15 I was hoping for, so be it. How few acres do you all think I can get away with? You can expand on a house, but you can't stretch land!

I would look somewhere else for land. Seriously. At that price you have:

1) Basically the same kind of land as someone else who has much cheaper land;

2) But a lot less land because you can't buy much;

3) Paid out an enormous amount of your capital and extended your credit if mortgaged;

4) Will pay far, far more interest over the decades;

5) Will pay far, far, far higher taxes; and

6) Will almost certainly have more neighbor troubles.

I would look elsewhere.

But that wasn't your question...

I can live on a fraction of an acre. I have a tiny house (252 sq-ft for 5 people)
I can live and raise much of my food on an acre.
I can live and raise all of my food and fuel for home heat on four acres.
...on ten acres I can pay all my bills, taxes and such by selling what I raise extra.
...on 40 acres I can do this very comfortably being able to afford some luxuries.

Round it up to 100 acres because they aren't making more land and it's rather hard to buy more land once you've set down and built up infrastructure, soils, etc.

100 x $20K/acre = $2,000,000 freaking dollars!

Now you see why I suggest buying somewhere else.

I like having elbow room though so 100 acres really isn't enough...

[ET1 SS]

During my career we kept looking for places to homestead after I retired. We had a very difficult time trying to bring it all together; climate, cost-of-living, land prices, taxes, 'freedoms', etc.

Some places do have crazy high land prices, others have crazy taxes, and others have micro-controlling municipalities.

I like what we found here. Land, water-frontage as low as $300/acre. Property taxes $1.05 / acre and $600 for a 2400 sq ft new house, they do not tax my pension. Open Carry is encouraged, CCW is encouraged, and full-auto weapons are fairly popular. Every year there are more new farms starting up, and there are more Farmer's Markets that open every year. Cost-of-living is low enough that minimum-wage is a living wage here.


We have 150 acres and 1/4 mile of river frontage. Hard to imagine homesteading with any less.

My pension is not very much [I would earn more if I were flipping burgers] sometimes high wages so you can live in an expensive area, just is not worth the trade off.

[Silvercreek Farmer]

Depends on how much hay you want to buy. You can raise everything you want in a barn if you are willing to buy 100% of their feed. At minimum, I'd have at least one acre of pasture per 3 goats and 2 acres for a milk cow and still plan on buying a fair bit of hay. The chickens are negligible at that point. A clear acre or two for the house, garden, and orchard would be nice. If you want to heat with wood, plan on an acre of woodland per cord of wood, probably 5-6 acres with a decently insulated small home in NY. Could need 2-3 times that much wood with a drafty old farmhouse, though.

[Rosepath]

If you haven't done any of the above, be warned that the learning curve is very steep, and laying out $$$ to get infrastructure (fencing, stalls, feed, water troughs, halters/collars/trimmers/milking equipment, the list goes on and on) added to the cost of very expensive land can put your finances in a hole that can take years to climb out of. Stress from this alone would be hard on you, your hub, and your kids.
Locate somewhere near the Jewish community where you and the kids can volunteer at a historic museum farm, or help some local elders with their gardens, to have a summer of hands-on learning. There are networks online of lots of new and starry-eyed self-sufficient "farmers" and you can find them at farmers markets, beaming over their produce - get to know them, help them out in exchange for getting first-hand experience in what you'd like to do in the future. A win-win, then you'll have a better idea of what works for you, without being committed to a huge mortgage/taxes. Rent while doing this if it's a better fit.

[rinadav7]

Wow, amazing advice from all, as usual. Thanks, guys. You always pin my dreams back down to reality. Now I need to search out volunteer opportunities or renting options.

[ArmyDoc]

What do you want to do? Homesteading means so many different things to different people. What animals do you want? That's one of the real determinants of how much land. The other is zoning. Smaller parcels tend to be more restricted in what you can do on them than large ones. Be sure and check the zoning before you buy.

On five acres, with good pastures, small animals will should work well for you - consider sheep, goats, chickens. If what you want is a good size garden and some chickens, an acre would be plenty - even a half acre.

Best of luck to you.

[rinadav7]

As some of you may remember from previous posts of mine (as I am starting to realize this board is primarily made of a core group of member who really end up knowing and caring about each other ) I am homeschooling boys who I really feel need purposeful, physical, meaningful work every day. My kids all have "special needs", and while I don't mitigate the effect that autism etc. has on their lives, I truly believe they need what a farm life can offer. For example, my oldest boy ( almost 10 yo) was off the wall yesterday, crashing into all of his siblings and the neighborhood kids, showing signs of anxiety, bursting into tears in frustration once an hour, and then the next minute so hyper that he was annoying the few friends he has. Then he went to his two hour Sunday evening karate class, where he not only worked out physically for two hours, but where they spend one hour sparring - really sparring. He came home happy, centered, calm, self-aware. Slept well for the first time in several nights. This is how all of my kids are. Their happiest, calmest, most productive and mature days by far were the days when we went out to an organic dairy farm, once every two or three weeks, and worked on the farm all day. The boys spent the whole day herding cows, smacking them and pushing them, aware of the real danger that a kick from one of those cows would mean, of the responsibility they had. They shoveled poop for hours. They came home those days spent, calm, full of pride in their work, ready to learn, more centered. Add to this that we raised broilers and hens in Missouri, I love goats and make cheese, and that I have a captive, eager audience in the kosher market, ready to snap up any organic broilers, eggs and goats milk they can get their hands on. One of my boys is a natural businessman and has already planned out his layer business. And that my more severely autistic five year old is transformed when around animals. My husband thinks it is a massive financial gamble. He thinks it is an expensive experiment. I think it is the best therapy we can provide them. Is there another way, rather than buying a homestead? Has anyone heard of renting a homestead for a couple of years? My husband votes for getting them jobs on a farm, but I want to be able to school them in between farm chores, and put up food for the winter, make cheese, live my life there - not drop them off on someone else's farm. What are the other creative solutions to this dilemma that I am not thinking of? For now, we really do have to stay in the NYC area for my husband's job. We could move within 4 hours probably in a couple of years if we really wanted to - PA or MD. Richmond, VA has a nice Jewish community and may be an area we can one day consider. I realize if we buy a homestead in NJ we are "married" to NJ for a time to come, and none of us love that idea. But there is no guarantee we will ever be able to move very far away given my husband's job commitment, and I want to live for today. Come on gang, what can you all cook up!

[crazyfarm]

I guess with your reason being a need for the kids to get out, exercise and be exposed to animals I'd say you could find them lots of volunteer opportunities and get the same results. There are community farms, animal shelters, rescues, and on and on that would love the help.

There are many bloggers out there who do rent their homesteads.

Originally Posted by rinadav7

As some of you may remember from previous posts of mine (as I am starting to realize this board is primarily made of a core group of member who really end up knowing and caring about each other ) I am homeschooling boys who I really feel need purposeful, physical, meaningful work every day. My kids all have "special needs", and while I don't mitigate the effect that autism etc. has on their lives, I truly believe they need what a farm life can offer. For example, my oldest boy ( almost 10 yo) was off the wall yesterday, crashing into all of his siblings and the neighborhood kids, showing signs of anxiety, bursting into tears in frustration once an hour, and then the next minute so hyper that he was annoying the few friends he has. Then he went to his two hour Sunday evening karate class, where he not only worked out physically for two hours, but where they spend one hour sparring - really sparring. He came home happy, centered, calm, self-aware. Slept well for the first time in several nights. This is how all of my kids are. Their happiest, calmest, most productive and mature days by far were the days when we went out to an organic dairy farm, once every two or three weeks, and worked on the farm all day. The boys spent the whole day herding cows, smacking them and pushing them, aware of the real danger that a kick from one of those cows would mean, of the responsibility they had. They shoveled poop for hours. They came home those days spent, calm, full of pride in their work, ready to learn, more centered. Add to this that we raised broilers and hens in Missouri, I love goats and make cheese, and that I have a captive, eager audience in the kosher market, ready to snap up any organic broilers, eggs and goats milk they can get their hands on. One of my boys is a natural businessman and has already planned out his layer business. And that my more severely autistic five year old is transformed when around animals. My husband thinks it is a massive financial gamble. He thinks it is an expensive experiment. I think it is the best therapy we can provide them. Is there another way, rather than buying a homestead? Has anyone heard of renting a homestead for a couple of years? My husband votes for getting them jobs on a farm, but I want to be able to school them in between farm chores, and put up food for the winter, make cheese, live my life there - not drop them off on someone else's farm. What are the other creative solutions to this dilemma that I am not thinking of? For now, we really do have to stay in the NYC area for my husband's job. We could move within 4 hours probably in a couple of years if we really wanted to - PA or MD. Richmond, VA has a nice Jewish community and may be an area we can one day consider. I realize if we buy a homestead in NJ we are "married" to NJ for a time to come, and none of us love that idea. But there is no guarantee we will ever be able to move very far away given my husband's job commitment, and I want to live for today. Come on gang, what can you all cook up!

[rinadav7]

any suggestions on where to look for rental opportunities??