How much property do we need?

I think most of us wish we had bought more land at some point. But reason has to rear it's ugly head sometimes. We have 10 acres in NE Oklahoma. There is just myself and my DH here, with a 14 year old grand daughter here most weekends. We are both retired.

Currently we have 3 head of Dexter cattle (one cow, one bull, one steer who will be butchered next year) plus this year's calf. Assuming that you could easily get a cow serviced (and not everyone can - which is why we have a bull) you would still mostly have three head most of the time - the cow, the steer you are growing out and the calf. As Dexters are smaller than "regular" cattle, we are managing to pasture these 4 animals on just around 4 acres from spring through early fall. They have, however, already eaten the most of 2 large - 1100 pounds - round bales of hay and their hay consumption will only go up over the winter. This year hay was pretty reasonable. I cannot say that about every year.

Our 9 hens totally free range except in the very worst weather, so our eggs are pretty much free and in excess of what we use. My dogs get scrambled eggs when I have too many. I usually raise a fast batch of "franken chickens" in the spring, butcher them after 8 weeks and get that over with for the year.

On another 4 acre pasture we have 8 Katahdin and Kat mix sheep and 6 adult/juvenile Nubian goats and 2 kids. They have not needed any hay yet, and are still grazing and browsing the field and looking fat and sassy. Between the sheep and goats and the franken hens we have way more meat than we need. We do share with the family, but next year we will cut numbers down again. The only beef we really enjoy is steak and the occasional stew so the cattle are actually not needed and may well be out of here next year.

All this to say that if you are wanting red meat - then goat and lamb are much cheaper and easier to raise than cattle and need a lot less real estate. If you want milk - then two goat does will provide you with as much milk as you need for drinking, cheese, yoghurt, ice cream, and more or less anything else your little heart desires. With a small acreage, cattle are not always practical.

I have raised pigs, but for me the best way was to buy a couple of weaned piglets in the spring, raise them on about a half acre or so of property I wanted tilled, and then when they were butchering size I'd sell one and put the other in our freezer. As a general rule we ended up a bit less than breaking even but a lot better than buying at the store.

Our property is a bit rocky, slightly sloping and well drained. I am having high-raised beds next year because I'm getting old and so is all the bending needed for a conventional garden. For just the two of us what I will have will be ample to provide fresh vegetables in season, with enough to freeze, can or store for winter.

You give no indication of your ages or if you have or intend to have children, so I am just telling you what works for us.

Mary

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Remember, there is quality and there is quantity. If you have better quality you need less quantity. Climate also plays a role. I have a friend from Michigan, and if we had deep, dark topsoil like they do, instead of sand and jack rock, like we do, I would have it a lot easier.

Thank you CountryWannabe, that was very helpful.

The cattle situation you have is very close to what we would ideally like (although hopefully without a bull). We know we want the meat, but since cattle need company, I'd rather have a cow provide me with milk than purchase, raise, and sell another steer. We may eventually decide we don't want the commitment level of milking and breeding a cow, but I'd prefer to have the land that would allow it if possible.

As far as a goat milk goes, I read that it was harder to separate the cream and the fat. Is that not really true? I'm more interested in converting it to butter, etc. than I am drinking straight milk. The fencing to keep the crafty goats in is another downside in my book. Plus, I just really like the taste of beef.

Your pig set up sounds like exactly what I had in mind!

By the way, we are around 30 and do not plan on having children.

Quality of land. I'm sure there is an office in your county that has maps showing what type of land the acreage is. Try the assessor's office, because the assessor has to value land by type (I, II, III, IV). One is going to be best and most expensive as ag land. Land on a paved road is more valuable than land on a gravel road or as a back lot. Five acres should do you. As for livestock, do you like sheep? Cattle are herd animals and feel safer in a group. You could run a mother and calf with a few sheep. Chickens are wonderful.

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Great suggestion! I was able to find a map that shows exact soil types, and another document that translates that into ag class. It even highlights which soil types are considering high value farmland. This will be very helpful going forward.

It is harder to separate the cream from goat milk, no doubt about it. I have a relatively cheap electric separator. However, in truth you really need to be running around 3-5 gallons through it at a time to be worth the trouble of taking it all apart and cleaning it. For me, if I have 2 does in milk, I will get around 1-2 gallons a day, depending on the stage of lactation they are in. Some get much more than I do, but then they tend to feed for milk while I just let them be goats and accept that I won't get maximum yield. I tend to use the milk for cheese and yoghurt more than anything, so don't use the separator that much other than for when I make ice-cream.

You are also right about the fences. I have Nubians and a couple of Nubian x Boer crosses. The old Nubian buck could clear a 4' fence from a standstill without a thought. He did so frequently. He made good curry. My current buckling is young and so I am hoping that he won't learn bad habits. We have field fence with offset 3 strand electric fence inside that. The girls tend to stay inside the fence as long as there is plenty of juice in the electric wire and as long as there are no obvious breaks in the fence to tempt them. Nubians were intended as duel purpose animals, so are relatively heavy-bodied. I have them in a pasture where there is a slope away from the fence, thus effectively increasing the amount of effort it would take to clear it. My neighbor has a 5 strand hot wire between our properties and none of the animals have offered to challenge it. He assures me that they would only try once (I asked him about me putting fence up along that boundary and he told me that I didn't need to as the fence would keep our animals separate) He has Angus cattle - but he has 50 acres plus several Great Pyrenees that patrol his property.

Mary

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15 acres.

Figure 5 of it will be water, or brush, or hill. This will make the land affordable, and you can use it for a bit of pasture, or firewood, or buffer space. So it is not worthless, but has low value. The cattle will like it, give them room to frolic.

Need 2-3 acres for the house, yard, well, septic, driveway, few trees, a storage building or barn or 2.

That leaves 7 acres for the cow yard, the pasture, and the gardens and hay land.

This will be comfortable.

You can get by on less, but then you are squeezed.

An added note, around here several counties said you couldnt have livestock or horses on less than 10 acres. Gets too close to your well and septic to be safe.

So many parcels got sold as 10 acres over the years. Then they reviewed the regulations, and realized it was worded you needed 10 acres for the critters, aside from the house and well/septic areas... So you needed at least 11 acres if you wanted the big critters.

Gotta watch for local regulations......

At the same time my neighbor has had as many as 12 horses on his 7 acres, but his pastures are just short weeds and he buys lots and lots of hay, and the manure is stacked up pretty high.....

Paul

No.1 Cows like to eat, if the weather is good, moisture is right, I can graze 1 cow and calf to the acre easy. Have bushhog to keep the grass tender. If we have a droughtlike the last couple years it goes down to maybe 3 acres...especially when it's 102 F and no rain for 2 months.
No. 2 More land gives you more oppertunities for diversification. You may not need but 2 acres of pasture....you might have 3 2 acre lots, 1 with calves weaned, one with bull ect.
No.3 You might find you have neighbors move in that don't like your farm...enough room for hedgerows might come in handy, privacy planting ect.
No.4 Livestock is like popcorn....you always end up with more than you realize.
No.5 If you're in a good pasture growing area, be glad. It doesn't take long to pay the taxes on a few extra acres of pasture when your buying extra hay and feed.
No.6. Having more land can make it easier to build up and improve your soil. Instead of having to hurry and purchase alot of additives, you can for instance fence in three pieces of land and alternate you're garden. Say garden in one, compost piles in one, soil building crops in another. Alternating patches every year.
No. 7 Above all things rember that 1/4 acre garden well tended is better than 10 acres half-tended. The same thing applies to farms as a whole

Assuming that your area is not drought-prone, than I would say 40-acres is a good rule of thumb.

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You did mention a cow for milk? A cow (or goat) has to be milked twice a day, at least cows do, 7 days a week. It dosen't take long but it is confining.

COWS

That's correct. I'm pretty confident we can handle milking twice a day, my hesitation for the dairy cow (or goat) would come from what happens when we go out of town and getting involved in a birth. The latter takes homesteading to a whole new level in my book!

Many a cow has been milked once a day, or once a day and the calf let run with the cow. You don't need a super producer to milk like that though. I raised 3 calf on my last guernsey, and when I dried her off a year and a few months after she last calved I was milking once a day, get a gallon a day.

I grew up in California near the bay area on 5 1/2 acres. We had ~4 to 6 beef cattle and chickens most of the time, and pigs for ~6-8 months out of the year and a couple of goats. There was enough room, but not enough pasture to provide all the feed - in other words, we had to bring in additional feed for the cattle at times and all the feed for the goats. Pigs were fed corn / pig feed, also brought in.

So, 5 acres may be enough room have, but it is not enough room to be sustainable for that number of animals. So it depends on you goals. I think you could have the number of animals you are describing on 5 acres, but 5 acres won't support them.

Milking - I usually milk twice a day, however when I worked off the farm I have separated the kids from mamma overnight, milked early in the morning and then let the kids run with mamma and nurse during the day. This is very easy to do, and I found that an advantage was that the kids learned how to be goats a lot easier than when they were completely separated while still allowing them to become tame.

Mary

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In politics the truth is just the lie you believe most - unknown