What's the minimum amount of land?

In the MO/AR area you could do everything you want on 5 acres. What you will run into when you look at land is that you can get 10 acres for the price of 5 so long as you don't mind it mostly being vertical. You could probably get 20 for the price of 5 good flat acres. If you want room for the kids to roam you may want to look at that type of property. Goats are good on that sort of land and so are hogs. You just need a piece of it to be good for your house and garden.

i agree go with at least 5 acres and do a thorough search of the property before buying, i have knowledge of someone who bought land to have goats or cows on and it is horribly infested with chokecherry which is toxic to goats and cows..so check it out well.

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Brenda Groth
http://restfultrailsfoodforestgarden.blogspot.com/

Chokecherries aren't as bad as some fear and it isn't all that difficult to get rid of. The issue is when they are cut and begin wilting - that is when they have the toxicity problem. What I've found is that the livestock don't like to eat the cherry - probably because it tastes bitter. How you manage the grazing has a big effect on this. My understanding from both reading and talking with a vet is that the after about three weeks the toxicity reduces and ends because the cyanide evaporates. I find that cherry brush does not withstand trampling pressure so it dies out under mob grazing and as long as there is other good food the livestock don't eat it. I also find the cherry very easy to simply remove from a pasture with loppers - cut at the base. Yes, that takes time, but what else are you going to do with your life if you don't have TV? A mechanical mower is very effective but I don't tend to be able to do that because our land is so swiftly sloping, rocky and stumpy. Do this bush hogging when livestock will not be going into the pasture for a month or more.

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

Did I overlook a post about how it's almost inevitable that someone will want a pond to stock with fish or to swim in? I am very intrigued by this thread, mostly because I am in the exact same boat- down to the same number of kids...It's been nearly impossible to find a place that fits the criteria, let alone the right place. Or really to know what all of the criteria should be.. This has been very helpful.

We were in the same boat two years ago. Kept looking. Trying to get close to town. Everything close was big bucks. Finally decided to build a simple house ourselves. Then we were able to get 30 acres 40 minutes from work but only 5 minutes from a small town. Building a simple house is a bunch of work but isn't hard.

Austin

Same dilemma here. We had an offer that was accepted on 51 acres, but had to retract it due to many unforeseen issues that came up right before closing. There was an easement problem to the land and it was the only possible entry & exit point. On top of that, there was a creek that pretty much turns into a raging river when you get a good heavy downpour. This in turn washes out the culvert, which it has done three or four times according to friend of mine that lives nearby. A good ten acres or so are flood plain area. The road is not county maintained and is a private drive that the land owners have to keep up and of course the old easement issue kept rearing it's ugly head at the same time. The home needed some substantial repairs and the road needed a true bridge and about 6 tandem loads of gravel. You could easily dump an additional $100k into repairs according to some estimates that we got. I figured that spending $200k, which is our max and then needing another $100k just to make everything liveable and accessible would be an awful investment. I planned to harvest timber eventually, but I would need to pretty much clear cut everything to plant seedlings and also have a nice farm to boot. Someone took all of the topsoil off of the large field that is roughly 5 acres, so it would need some major attention to grow a garden or for a pasture. When it was all said and done, I would have had the land broken down as follows: 3 acres for the roads/driveways and structures as well as a small yard,10-15 acres of flood area and creek, 8-10 acres of flat cleared area that still needed to be clear cut to remove volunteer pines and other trees to restore it to open land and 25-30 acres of mixed hardwood and pine woodlands that all sloped to one point or another. Just not a smart decision in our book.
That all said, I can't find anything really comparable to this property with this large amount of property. I have pretty much scaled back to a place on 8 1/4 acres with an additional 4-5 acres adjoining to purchase. There is a large 200+ acre tract directly behind and an 11 acre tract on the opposite side. Maybe some of this additional property will eventually be available to add to this property. Just waiting on the bank and the appraisal as we speak on this one and hope to close in a month. Keep your fingers crossed! I will be asking and joining in as I have questions. Thanks

Voltedge, I was going to say there are always imperfections in any plot that one just needs to work with..... But then as you went on, yes, there were a lot of issues there on that plot, the price would have had to be less to make all that work out, lot of things hard to live with. Could deal with the woods, wet, and soil conditions because its a bigger plot, but the eternal fight on access and road maintenance woulda been the back breaker for me on what you were looking at!

Paul

Yep, I even consulted a real estate attorney and he verified that there was legal access to the property, but only at the written approval of the adjacent land owners. I received a lecture from one of them and was told that I could forget doing anything that involved tractor trailers or heavy equipment crossing his property. This shot out the timber harvest, land clearing or sale of crops commercially. My attorney agreed that the land owner could slam into court and accuse us of damaging his property, etc. I actually got an easement rules and regulations course from the attorney. I have no desire to ever deal with that kinda mess!

Since my husband and I are still looking for properties, and our budget is on the bottom end for our area, and location is limited to within a short drive for my husband to commute to work, we'll be hard pressed to find a property that's big enough for all my wishlist items, but we're using 5 acres as our guideline.

A little more, or a little less may be available once we can finally jump on a house, and we are willing to get 3+ acres, but 5+ is our goal, as I'd like to have enough space to accommodate horses, and my dream is of course to have enough land to harvest some or all of my own hay to keep expenses down.

One good example of why I'm stuck at that magical 5 acres, is from articles like these. This article's author interviewed a man who made it through the Great Depression. The article is packed with nuggets of information I found of interest, but the relevant quote is pasted below.
http://www.thesurvivalistblog.net/surviving-hard-times/

On intensive farming on a one acre homestead, Mother Earth News has a good article:
http://www.motherearthnews.com/homes...#axzz2LtzVgem2

I'm still in the planning stages, but I am hoping to produce enough food on my mini farm to provide 50-100% of the food my family consumes (realistically, I will still need to buy some commodities like coffee beans), and to supply a couple of local restaurants with things like seasonal niche fruits and vegetables, honeycomb, rabbits, squab, heritage poultry, and possibly branch out to heritage pork and such, that can thrive in less space.

If my farm helps pay the mortgage, I'll be content. If it pays for my horse hobby, I'll be really happy. And my husband would be elated, as he is the one paying for my equestrian pursuits right now. The one acre homestead in the above article is a guideline for me for how to lay out a garden for optimized food production. Anything more than that is probably going to be pasture, paddocks, hay meadows, trees for small scale firewood cutting, or even coppiced willow stools to provide me with willow rods for craft projects.

(First post ever in this forum, eep! )

If you had 20, you'd want 40. Isn't that how it goes?


I was curious how hard it is to lease the land to someone without land that is more able/ready to work it.
I have been considering, but am a few years away. If I could handle 5 acres now, how crazy would it be to get 20 and have others tend the extra 15 til I'm more able to commit full time as well as learn the ropes? Finances shouldn't keep us from acreage, but don't want to over do it either and it goes to hell.

100 acres is good.

Our land is all forested. So there is no market for leasing to anyone.

The only market possible would be annual firewood harvesting, or timbering [once every 60 to 80 years]. 92% of the state is forest, so the only market for firewood is home delivery [split and stacked].

I can not clear much of it for row crops, as our property taxes would increase by 10X. [or more]

So I grow plants and livestock among the trees and underneath the canopy.


It depends a lot on exactly what you plan on doing with your land.

Pasture, row crops, woodlot, wildlife habitat, each has a different approach.

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http://www.mofga.org/

http://www.mofga.org/Programs/FarmAp...2/Default.aspx

We have about ten acres. The house, barn, wood shed and raised bed gardens and hay field take up 3 acres and the rest is pasture. Right now we have 8 goats, 12 chickens, and two work size horses. We have enough pasture for a cow if we wanted one too. But our land is well kept up. For years we limed it and spread manure and tons of sea weed so our ground is very fertile. If pastures have not been kept up you would need more acreage to ensure enough for the animals to eat and for hay. Maintaining pastures and hay fields is work as is compost gardening. The smaller the acreage the more intense the work so the ground can support the amount of animals you need or want.
Our neighbors have the same amount of land as us. They have 2 alpacas, 1 llama, chickens, a few goats , geese, ducks,and sheep. Their farm land has not been maintained and they supplement with a large amount of grain feed.We couldn't afford their feed bill!
If we were to start over we would buy the most land we could afford to ensure a buffer from neighbors and have alot of space for animals to roam and forage. We would have a small house with a small yard and raised beds gardens fenced in. The rest would be pasture, hay field and woods. I would love to have 40 acres with the home somewhere in the middle of it!

Come to the Ozarks. We have cookies.

And goats.

And sheep.

Chickens.

Cows.

Rabbits.

Ponies and horses are really a luxury item, though. Darned expensive, unless you're using them for work. Even then, they're a might spendy, but will eventually be cheaper than buying gasoline!

Oh! Almost forgot: We have LOTS of HTers!

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Je ne suis pas Alice

http://homesteadingfamilies.proboards.com/

Beware, it's rocky here. And after the drought we had last yr, I wonder if you could raise 1 cow on 20 acres! Praise be that we're getting rain this yr! But it's made me gun shy and I keep looking at the sky thinking/worrying, "it wont last". lol.

One finally has enough land when you don't have to worry about the nieghbors being to close. I have 300+ acres of which we use about 1 acre to live and the rest is buffer. At times that still isn't enough.

WWW

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If the grass looks greener it is probably over the septic tank. - troy n sarah tx

Our existance here is soley for the expoitation of CMG

Goodness, $70,000 is more than enough to get something nice.

We started out with only $12,500. Spent this on six (6) acres; then created our homestead ourselves. So if you're not opposed to hard work, you can create a beautiful homestead out of $70,000.

As for as what to grow/raise on it, I sure wouldn't base my decisions upon what anyone else wanted, especially if they're not going to be living there to help with the day-to-day chores! Just decide on what you (and those who live with you) are willing to take care of well; and you cannot go wrong.

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I am what I am! Acknowledging this is the beginning; and my growth is yet to end. http://motdaugrnds.com/farmsales ~~~~~ http://motdaugrnds.com

Let's suppose that you have what you have decided is adequate acreage and have your cow for milk. At some point the cow will have to be bred to produce another calf and more milk. Probably you will be in a situation where you need to take you cow to a bull somewhere. When I was young my parents kept 6 or so cows and sold milk and butter for a living. They didn't want to have the expense and problems of a bull and so usually took a cow in heat to a neighbor. I remember my father leading one to an uncle about 2 miles away. In your case I recommend a cattle trailer. If you have a good towing vehicle(a full size SUV or pickup) and enough money, you can get a nice new small one. You may luck up and find a used one. Other wise you have to improvise. I don't recommend building one from wood, they won't last in the weather and unless you get a lot of high quality wood, they won't be strong enough. You can get a small utility trailer and add a body to it. First, you want one rated to carry your expected load. A dexter cow is not very heavy, I'm guessing 6-800 pounds. A trailer's capacity is determined by the axle capacity. Common small trailers have 1250 pound axles, but it has to carry the weight of the trailer too. A 3500 pound axle is preferred. You may want to haul something else for the homestead, like building supplies. Check out the weight of sheet goods and see how fast they can add up.

A 4 x 8 trailer would be enough for a small tame cow. I built a 5 x 10 trailer and find it to work fine, but I haul multiple cows. O K , lets say you have your trailer. I have seen people use corral panels to convert a utility trailer to a cattle trailer. Sometimes they were able to get 4 sides of commercial cattle panels, using u bolts(probably muffler clamps) to fasten the panels to the angle iron sides of the trailer. A short section of panel front and rear, hinged at the back finishes that part of the trailer. I estimate $250 new price for the panels. Be prepared to modify things.

A cow may push a leg through the side of cattle bodies at the bottom. 18 or so inches at the bottom need to be solid. Bolt plywood along the bottom.

With a trailer ready, you can look for someone with a bull you can use. Take your cow to the bull, not the other way around. Save your grass and feed and the liability of having an expensive bull on the place.

You mentioned goats. I'm not a goat person, but a trailer like I described would need something to reduce the openings for goats. Maybe dog pen wire fastened to the inside.

People use all sorts of things to haul small livestock. Last winter I saw a man who had bought some young calves putting them in the back of an old van with the seats removed and some partition to keep them from climbing up into the drivers compartment. At least they were out of the cold wind.

Have fun.

COWS

There is still plenty of grass, but I won't deny that the soil is rocky. Or is it that the rocks are soil-y?

Srsly, we've got a first year dig-up full of corn growing just fine. Raised beds are what we've always used for food gardening, so that's nothing new to us.

And we're way ahead on rain this year. Still, when I see a cloud forming in the sky, I pray that it comes over the gardens and lets loose!

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Je ne suis pas Alice

http://homesteadingfamilies.proboards.com/

Do you currently have horses? They are an eternal expense not even counting the problems associate with them. I would put them on the liability side of the homestead formula.

The acre question in my mind has to do with what part of the country ? How much rain and how long the growing season.

I think you have gotten some good advice and would only say to look for properties from 75 to 5 acres. Small property may very well sell for the same as 20 acres and the 75 acres in hills and woods without electric or a home.

Evaluate each one and go for the one that you think will fit your needs.

If you only ask to see 5 acre lots then you may not be showed the same cost place with 20 acres, a pond and an older home/no home but with a nice tight Morten style insulated, heated with toilet and sink shop.


I would also put a lot of importance in who your neighbors are. Are they small farmers, market growers if so that is a huge plus.