What's the minimum amount of land?

Any hunting? If so, you probably would want about 40 acres connected to some woods.

Around here, what you want is heavily governed by what is available and what you can afford. With the 5-20 acre range in mind, take a look around and see what you can find, the market will help shape your plan.

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http://www.lindsayfarmonsilvercreek.blogspot.com/

This sounds well thought out, Highlands. May I ask what kind of cash crop(s) you would think of in each scenario to make a living?

Absolutely! We moved here from a 64-acre farm, and I would much rather have the upkeep on this place than the other one. I love being outside, but that much land was much too labor-intensive and didn't give us much time for anything else - there was always grass to mow, fences to be fixed, hay to cut/bale, etc., and we were only actually utilizing about 5 acres of it for our animals; the rest was just for "looks."

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~Trish~
http://harvestmoon-farm.blogspot.com/

We have 5 acres and own most of what you mentioned. We tried a dairy cow, but could not sustain her on our land (Northern CA, Central Valley). We were spending $200/mo on hay/alfalfa/grain. We also could not process all of her milk fast enough. it made for expensive pig food!

Now, we own a herd of sheep, 2 horses, free range chickens, fruit trees and garden. We ate our last pig, but usually have several. We will definitely be getting more pigs. They have been our easiest source of meat, followed by the sheep.

We started 3 years ago with zero experience. When I say zero, I mean neither hubby or I grew up around or owned any livestock until 3 years ago. Noone we knew did what we are doing. most everything we have learned from reading books or the website boards. We love it.

What we do for cash sales is:

1. Wood: primarily timber hardwood for furniture making, some veneer quality, some framing quality, some special woods and then firewood and biomass for making wood chips and wood pellets for home pellet stoves. We do sustainable forestry. A little bit most every year. Varies.

2. Pork: Our primary livestock production is weekly sales to stores, restaurants and individuals of our naturally raised pastured pork. We're in the process of building our one on-farm USDA/State inspected meat processing facility for slaughter, butchering, sausage making, smoking and more which will let us do all the processing here. In the process of raising pigs we co-graze them with ducks, geese, laying chickens and often sheep. These animals co-graze together very well. The poultry cleanup insects and pests as well as breaking manure patties and disking the soil. We don't have to feed commercial grain. In the winter we feed worms and pigs, slaughter waste, to the chickens - they're omnivores. The hens in turn lay eggs which we cook for the piglets. See http://SugarMtnFarm.com/pigs

3. Once our processing facility is done we may start processing our sheep and beef cattle too. That is a few years down the road.

4. I'm very good at growing things and could sell onions, garlic, potatoes, tomatoes, pumpkins, flowers, sunflowers, herbs, etc. But instead I focus on raising those things to feed our livestock so I don't have to buy feed. In a pinch I could switch to selling fruits in veggies very quickly if needed.

I think it is important to have one thing that you're really good at. What that is will depend on your skills, your local market, your climate, soils, etc.

If a second key can be added that's great but don't let them compete too hard. Complementary is better.

Then add other things which support the key things you produce for sale. Such as getting very good at compost making, raising rabbits for their compost, and then sometimes those blossom into angles of their own in the cash flow.

Vertical integration where ever you feasibly can.

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SugarMtnFarm.com -- Pastured Pigs, Poultry, Sheep, Dogs and Kids

Not very much to none. We have a tiny front yard and back yard that we tried growing some vegetables in. Unfortunately, we don't get enough sun light. Although we have a blackberry bush that is thriving.

I know that we are going to make mistakes. We expect that. But, it has been our dream to have a small homestead. This is something we want for our children. We've done a lot of research on every thing that we plan on doing. We are still doing research.

I looked over my original post and wanted to correct what I've written here. As far as the majority of what I've written, no I don't have experience. I have been canning for the past 2 years, though.

We don't plan on being completely self sufficient. We know that's not possible.

We have all what you mentioned on 3.5 acres. We do have to buy our hay every year, but my brother does hay & we get it from him. We utilize every little piece of ground we have. Most of it is in pasture for the goats. We have laying hens, rabbits, goats, a llama, ducks, & I also raise broilers for butchering along with turkeys & ducks for butchering. I am getting some geese in a few weeks to add to the barnyard so I can raise & butcher them next year. The only thing we do not have is bees.

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I can't believe I deleted it!

Do you buy feed for your animals or do you feel they get enough from the land?

Vernitta- First, it sounds like you aren't planning anything that's going to be too difficult without a lot of experience. Everybody starts somewhere!
The area you are looking in makes a difference, obviously, and people will ALWAYS say "get more". But you wanted minimum, so here's my perspective.

We own plenty of acreage, mostly wooded. We heat exclusively with wood, and a 1 acre woodlot, if managed well and well forested, can be maintained to provide enough for most families indefinitely. A good woodlot, well managed, is truly sustainable.
We have about 3 acres that are in use- house, barn, garage, garden, small orchard, pasture. We pasture 3 sheep and tether 2 goats, buy about $100 worth of hay in the winter from a neighbor, and probably spend another couple hundred a year on feed for the chickens- 30+ fully free range chickens. That is far too many, by the way, you could easily have more eggs than you need with half of that. I use the chicken feed for goat treats, and the sheep just eat forage and hay.
Our garden is so large that it's hard to manage it. We still have to mow the lawn, although when my kids grow up I'm just going to fence it ALL in and never mow again. We have an orchard with 9 trees plus that many as part of our general landscape. We have used movable cages for rabbits there and in the garden.

You can live & homestead easily and well on only 5 acres of decent property, if you work at it. You can always go for more, but if you end up with less you can still have PLENTY of room to do everything you mentioned, and pay less in property taxes, too.

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They shall all sit under their own vines and their own fig trees, and they shall live in peace and unafraid. Mica 4:4

I would want enough land to qualify for agriculture deferred property taxes that many states provide. The county seat for the area you plan to locate can provide that information. Thousands of dollars of relief can be recognized in some places.

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Agmantoo
If they can do it,
you know you can!

We always buy feed & would if we had 100 acres. The goats get enough to eat in the pasture, but I still give grain on the milkstand when I milk. The rabbits are in cages, so they get boughten feed. I let the chickens out for a couple of hours in the evening to forage, but they have layer mash available to them at all times. Same with the ducks. I do not free range the chickens all the time because they would destroy my garden & my flowers & they like to dig holes all over the yard which my husband does not like. He grew up with his mom letting her chickens roam & used to trip in the holes all the time. The broilers are in tractors that we move every couple of days to fresh grass. They still get a commercial feed everyday. I am lucky that I have good connections for my feed & get get it about half price of what it is in the feed stores.

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I can't believe I deleted it!

Don't feel bad about less acreage. The biggest mistake I see is people like me wanting to do too much.

I have 5 acres and consider most of it wasted, unless you just want distance from neighbors. The more land, the more maintaining you have to do - weeds, etc. I actually look forward someday to moving to town and doing intensive growing in a small space.

Pasture needs planted and fertilized and in some places irrigated, and the cow eats in patches, so I mow the tall stuff. And mowing takes equipment, so you get to spend money and time buying and maintaining and fueling.

I just get good at producing food and the kids have moved away and my wife keep finding stuff on sale at the store.

In reality, there's not much you can produce cheaper than the store if you add up all your expenses.

Not to mention that homegrown stuff can kill you if it isn't government approved.

So I'd be selective and grow what you like better than the store, and have some time to enjoy things.

What I enjoy, is being out here, gardening, growing, harvesting, planning country things, and solving farming problems. I wouldn't know what else there is to enjoy, THAT ID ENJOY

If you live in a temporate climate, you should be able to produce all your produce and most of your meat nearly free. I'm yet to grow anything that cost me anywhere near what I'd pay in any store I've ever been in.

Thank you so much for everyone's responses. We would love to get more than enough land, but realistically we will have to settle for the minimum. When you are searching for a 4 bedroom house with acreage for less than $70,000, but that's not too far from a major city, you might have to settle for the minimum amount of acreage. We've had our minds made up that we don't want less than 5 acres. But, there are some really nice houses that meet every requirement except they only have 3 or 4 acres. If this is to be our forever home I don't want to regret settling later. But, you guys give us hope that we can do it.

May I ask where you live?

Here in Okieland I can raise 2 crops on the same acreage.

I find that I can get between 7 and say 15 acres with SOME kind of a house on it for around $70.. What I also find is that once the realitors showing them to me don't think that a bank would loan on them. In other words
To get the acreage at around $70, ya gotta settle for a rappy house that the bank wont loan on cause you don t have enough left to fix it. Im good for around 65/70Gs. I got 10 in my bank. IF youll go to Singletree and look at (a place I looked at), or something like that, Youll see the house I looked at Fri. Land flat as a board with hardly no trees on it. AND A BARN, although, its an Okla barn. and another shed besides. I didn't think it was that bad. realitor hadn't seen it before, and she thought it was terrible.
AND She had also seen the house I had been trying for a year to get which was 10 times worse than this one. BUT, I could have gotten it with 7 acres and a neighbor I didn't want for around 30, and had that much to fix up the house. Here, they want $70, and that's the banks limit.

One acre should serve you for everything EXCEPT the livestock.

How much land you need for livestock will depend on what you decide on and where you live. Some lands have longer growing seasons than others!

And, some areas have tougher zoning laws than others. Where I live you need 3 acres to keep a goat, even though a goat could eat well on far less land!