No tink. Id hope most would make it. BUT I know that out of any givin litter, with most people who havnt been around hogs all their life or near it are going to have some losses with nearly each litter. At least for awhile, and loseing pigs can break u on a litter.

Id say 90% of a givin herd of cows will save their calves. Id hate to, but ill say it, that 90% of all pigs born from a sow might make it. Theres a difference there somehow.

Scrapie tags required where I live. It may vary by state.

I cross state lines with goats, too, and they must be tattooed or tagged.

http://www.aphis.usda.gov/import_exp...s_states.shtml

Missouri requires scrapies tags:
All goats (including exotic goats), regardless of age or gender, must be individually identified by official scrapie identification as defined in Title 9, Code of Federal Regulations, Part 79, published annually in January, herein incorporated by reference and made a part of this rule, as published by the United States Superintendent of Documents, 732 N Capital Street NW, Washington, DC 20402-0001, phone: toll free (866) 512-1800, DC area (202) 512-1800, website: GPO U.S. Government Bookstore: Main Page, or any other means approved by the state veterinarian identifying them to the herd-of-origin. This rule does not incorporate any subsequent amendments or additions.
No tests or Certificate of Veterinary Inspections is required.

Mandatory in Maine (the OP's state):
http://www.maine.gov/agriculture/ahi...-Letter-ME.pdf

The most profitable critter - with the least of inputs and handling - are leeches.

Jumbo leeches go for about $12/pound around here. Can anyone beat that?

He must have renewed that note several times, your figures dont compute. But yes even back in those days one pig wouldnt make the mortgage.

Growing most of our own feed, and always having spilled grain, screenings, or bin sweepings, or mixed grains, etc., for us the most profitable on a per acre basis, would be any kid of poultry. Ducks, broilers, turkeys, laying hens. When it only cost you 80 cents a dozen to grow eggs worth 3 bucks, a dollar a pound to raise ducks or broilers, where the ducks sell for 5 and the chickens sell for 3 as free rangers, it is clear. But, pigs would be right in there, and if your land is cheap like it is here, sheep have been VERY good to the farmers. Cattle are about half as profitable as sheep "here". depends how you raise them. If you raise sheep like wooly pigs, treat them like wooly pigs, IE housed indoors and not out on grass, the profits decline.

Having hayland, machinery, feed grains, grainland, and good pasture, at an economical purchase price, and you can make almost any critter profitable.

But to some, a farm is anything over say 5 acres, but you are very limited on those acres. When you get talking 320 acres minimum, then there is hope of raising all the feed for a reasonable number of animals, that can be hoped for to turn a profit. I guess it depends on what is meant by profit? Profit as in thirty six cents, or profit as in 36 000 bucks???

I've lost money on nearly every living investment I've ever had, but sheep seemed to come out on top for me when I consider fencing, feed, my time, pain-in-the-butt factor, etc. Horses have made me money, but that's not something most people should expect to do.

Honey bees!

Not only are they profitable, but they harvest your neighbors nectar. You don't need acreage to have bees. You can locate hives on other peoples property and sometimes they will even pay you to do so. You can take a vacation without needing to hire someone to come feed and water them. They are so adaptable that you can raise them anywhere from the desert to a rain forest. Everything they produce(honey, pollen, wax, more bees) is a high profit product.

For us and our life-style goats have proved the most profitable. We have less than ten acres for the house, barn, pastures , hay fields and gardens. Right now the pasture is feeding two horses , three doe goats and five kids. We will winter three goats . We put up enough hay for three goats and one horse. The other horse is here for the summer. The rest of the goats will be sold for meat for which we get $3 a lb. by the side.

The only grain we feed is a handful while the goats are being mlked. We also have a dozen hens and only buy a little laying mash. The horse and goats eat pasture Spring to Fall,hay and mangels and turnips in the winter. Any sales of meat or eggs is mostly profit.

Hey, do you know why no one said Ducks?


Too many Bills! (get it, too many BILLS!)

I think the property size has a lot to do with the answer to your question. For a small property, it will be a smaller animal I am sure. You have to be able to feed the animals from your own land for maximum savings...

I grew up staying on a large acreage of 360 acres every summer...it was my Grandparents that had Sheep, Cattle, Goats, Pigs, Ducks and Chickens.... I would not count the ponies and horses as they were not money makers. They grew wheat, alfalfa and hay...their animals were fed from their own land only.... As they grew older, they kept that which they made the most money from...it was Cattle. :) That one milk cow is all they kept with hundreds of Cattle..it was for their own use. They sold off Cattle for others to breed and for meat every year. They bought their property with the proceeds from a Cattle farm in California...

As an interesting side note, I bought a box of old books at an auction. Inside that box were the accounting books for a new start up farm in the 1930's.

They started with chickens, and stayed with them as their primary income for many years. It was kind of amazing how much wealth that family gained over time. The family later got into hogs and cattle.

I asked an old timer about the chickens, and he said that chickens were so easy to raise, that they had inexpensive start up costs, and that chickens grow so fast. In essence, a fully grown chicken is ready for slaughter in what, 5 weeks, these days?

Simply said, a good chicken operation, in yesteryear, could be started for just chicken scratch (pun intended), and a profit turned in 5 weeks, and continued throughout the year. Those folks were turning their money every 5 weeks during the year, whereas, cattle, just one time a year, right? The investment in cattle is much higher as well.

I'm certainly no expert...but it is fascinating to read those accounting books and see how well they did, growing year after year.

Too bad that the chicken market has changed so much. Aside from homesteading set, does anyone in mainstream America buy live chickens and slaughter them, or buy fresh whole chickens? Seems that the big players dominate the market, and consumers are used to buying pre-cooked chicken nuggets, in a plastic bag, found in the freezer aisle.

Not sure what we get for leeches. We keep sending them to Washington DC and then they send us a bill!

Your numbers are a bit skewed. You can't get a chicken to full size in 5 weeks. Even the fastest growing Cornish Cross take 8 weeks. Most other breeds take longer.

The problem with chickens is that at that time in history, everyone bought fresh chicken and fresh eggs, or the local market bought local eggs to resell. So, there was a demand for meat and eggs.

Today, people buy high dollar feeds and laying mashes thinking chickens will starve and they can't make a profit that way.

My chickens never get feed, except a bit in the winter. They follow the goats and cows and clean through the manure piles. They also scrounge the used and piled up goat bedding and scratch through it for grubs and other bugs. If chickens are free ranged, you won't have a feed bill.

Today, there just isn't much of a market for fresh chicken and eggs for most people to profit.

You mention turning cattle only once a year. But, one calf, if sold at auction, you will get $800 to $900 per head. If raised right, most of that is profit. Our cattle are pastured year-round. Fed hay only in winter from what we produce. I can sell enough excess hay to pay for baling all our hay. We don't grain. If a cow can't keep weight (isn't an "easy keeper") she goes to town. So, yes, most of that money is profit.

This is a perfect example how 1,000s of people made a decent living doing something, where today a few dozen people (corporate officers) make a fortune by turning it into a mega-industry with a Wal-Mart like retailer. Then and Now.

This is how wealth has become more concentrated, and how things have changed.

Back in the 1930s if you ate your chickens at 5 weeks old it would have been much better and cheaper just to kill a few sparrows. Chickens didn't get much larger than sparrows back then in 5 weeks and sure no one would pay money for one.

The most profitable animal. Is the one you were out bid for at the auction. :p

If a two race winner of the triple crown put out to pasture with tendonitis for stud service could be an option on the farm :shrug:

I found a few receipts of my fathers when he was farming.

Oct 24, 1961 he bought 14 hereford cows, 1 part brahma cow, 1 jersey milk cow, and 1 registered hereford bull. Total price. $2650.00, private sell. He also bought 7 hereford cows through the sale barm, total price of $721.00. One cow banged out and he ran her through again and she brought $10.20 cents more than he bought her for.

In 1962 he sold 17 calves off of these cows for a total of $1311.31. The highest bringing $97.06, the lowest bringing $45.

The same year he sold 32 pigs for a total of $249.23

In 1962 my father made a total of $1560.54 for the entire year of farming.

I don't know, I"ve done pretty good on rabbits. People are always trying give the cute little "my kids never pay attention to him" rabbits away. I can save them up for the auction and usually make a 100% profit. Lots of times, they give me cages and feed too....

Hay and pasture are not "free". You need to calculate their value to access costs.

Seems hay and pasture would be a asset, not necessarily a cost.

Specially IF, as was said the hay makes enough to pay for the makeing of it. The pasture could be rented out or hayed also bringing in moiney.

That's my point. If you feed 2000 bales of hay that could be sold for $3 each then the cost of feed is $6000. The pasture could also be used to produce hay.

Yes, and the value to access costs are zero for that. The excess hay sold pays for the hay baled that we keep. The previous calves paid for the land. So, the calves no longer owe us anything for the cost of the land. The taxes for this 160 are less than $500 per year and that is with a small house. It's all pasture and the calves had it paid off by 2007. The taxes on 90 acres of hay is less than $300 per year.

So.. as I said, the sale from the calves today is mostly profit.

Yes you have a valid point.

However if I'm setting at home doing nothing and need hay I have to buy it. So why not use my idle time to cause the hay to be put into my barn. Is watching tv that important? I laugh at people paying $60 to a hundred or more to watch tv and then pay $6,000 for the hay they could have without spending the $6,000. Do you understand just the tax problem. People wonder why they are broke. To get that $6,000 one has to work. Tax for a self employeed person is very clost to 50%. So if one does the work they made something close to $10 - 12,000 and paid no tax. We have even considered the cost to work or the hauling hay home.

[[[[[[[........As an interesting side note, I bought a box of old books at an auction. Inside that box were the accounting books for a new start up farm in the 1930's.

They started with chickens, and stayed with them as their primary income for many years. It was kind of amazing how much wealth that family gained over time......]]]]]

Adjusted for inflation, eggs at that time sold for the equivalent of $12 a dozen in today's money. A roast chicken was an expensive luxury item, not cheap meat like it is today. It was a lot easier to make money with chickens at that time than it is today.

Have not read all the post but seems to me weather will play into this also...spring time baby chicks,ducks,geese,turkeys & guineas sell real well especially at small animal auctions i have been to...sometimes rabbits do well...goats all spring/summer so far are bringing the most money per pound...

Also might depend on the area you are living in~~

I think a lot of today's ag issues have to do with peoples pride.

People laughed when I started out with only 4 sheep, yet they want to know how I made a profit in 4 years without investing my own money into my farm after only four years. For some, the thought of starting small and building up is beyond them, and they want to go all out, get big numbers and do big things. Yet everyone I know that is large in size (and profitable) started out small and worked up.

I also think my success has been in having a plan from the onset. I spent 10 months making a farm plan before I added any animals, and everything I have done since then has been in accordance with that. Only when I deviated from the plan (and there has been many times I did that), did it not bode well for me. I encourage everyone getting into farming for profit to do a real farm plan, it really does give a small farmer direction.

This is very true, but at times things can get complex.

On my farm there is 100 acres of land split 50/50 with corn and hay ground used by my families large dairy farm. Other then grazing 3rd crop, and getting some feed for my own sheep, I let the farm take this hay and corn without pay even though I pay taxes on it ($10 per acre).

At first this seems silly...I am giving away good feed that I could sell as hay or corn silage.

Not really. Feed costs for most sheep producers is 60%, where as my feed costs are nothing. I do not have to buy equipment, fuel or have other expenses to get my winter feed for the year..incredibly good feed that would NOT be possible with cheap equipment and inferior technology. And because this farm co-farms with a major dairy operation, I am eligible for an incredible amount of grants and low interest loans. It takes a lot of communication with the dairy farm to ensure neither one of us encroaches upon the other, but in the end we have an incredibly productive farm. Almost every ag acre of this place is maximized. That is good for me and my sheep operation, the major dairy farm putting milk on a lot of Maine peoples tables, and to the American people.

Without the aid of a dairy operation and its economy of scale, I would not be profitable. Yeah I might make $6000 dollars in hay, but go broke doing it.

Farming is complex and requires a sharp pencil.

I'm all for you raising cattle. Dang fine avocation. I'm just saying that the value of the feed fed to the cattle, regardless of it's costs, is part of the equation.

I wanted to put a few hives in but just the cost of the bee keeping supplies was enough to stop me in my tracks. How can you raise bees without breaking the bank on all the accoutrements?

I fell in love with Dexters this summer - they seem so much more manageable and the farmer I met with said he figured he could keep one Dexter cow on 1-2 acres of grass. That's a far cry from what I'd heard from other people with the bigger milk cows... but 2gal/day is also much more manageable for us than 10-15.

Yep, rare breed exhibition poultry, $100 per dozen for eggs.

Well, if you get a hive going, it can make 100lbs of honey on average, and you can sell that for a profit off 5 bucks a pound after your bottle and lable. 500 dollars. Of course it all depends on weather, year, breed, and beekeeper ability, but isnt that the way it works with any form of ag?

Oooohhh...I guess I didn't know that bees made that much honey! I know it sells for a lot-I buy it local by the gallon and pay a pretty penny!

Ive got a picture of a farmer in the 30s looking at a black board at a feed store or general store of the pricesof eggs. 3@ for small 5@ for med, and a dime for large.

A candy bar that costs a nickle in 55 now costs 75@ I dont know what that candy bar would have cost in the 30s.

A gal of gas cost round between 9 to 15@ in the 30s. Ive paid 22@ for a gal in the mid 60s. U know what it costs nowadays.

Out of curiousity, whaty are rabbits selling for these days?

My Great Uncle wrote a book and told what he was getting for some of his agricultural products. I was shocked to read that people were paying $1 for a dozen eggs in '49...1849 that is. You can get them for .87 cents today!! Considering the inflation or cost of living increases, we are either paying way too little today, or people were paying way too much in 1849. :shrug:

Perfect in my opinion. Everyone wants to make a fast success of their farm but farming is not a get rich quick venture.

I was told by a young man once not long ago that no one can start a small farm nowadays and make it work.....I don't buy into that. The difference is you have to realize that you won't have the new tractor, truck, pickup, thousands of head of animals, on and on and on until you earn it. Start like the old days and work as hard as they did and I believe it can happen.

New farms start up every year in this area.

1- The organic association networks between most organic farms and the Farmer's Markets; and oversees an informal 'apprenticeship' program. Hundreds of apprentices work on farms each year. Those who stay with the concept rotate between farms, and go on to their 'journeyman' program. Which then moves a farmer on to being a 'Farm Manager', and after a year doing that they commonly are able to maneuver things to get each journeyman onto their own farm.

I do not think that any of these new farmers start the process with more than two nickels to rub together.

2- I also see apprentices who decide to go it 'alone' and start farming without benefit of the association. Now I am just guessing here, but from those I see doing it around me, I estimate that state wide we must have dozens who do this each year.

3- Plus one friend of mine [Tom], starts a new farm, invites apprentices, any of them who stay for two years he encourages to form a formal partnership, and to buy him out. Once he can back away from one of these farms, then he goes out and starts another new farm.



Anyone who thinks that you can not start a new farm, is not firmly connected to reality.

:)