Land quantity

If only I could! My heart is in MO, but my husband is a New Englander, and thus I have to become one to. I just have to make the best of. CT isn't too bad, I suppose, but it certainly isn't MO.

as far as quantity of goats, do you wish milk year round for your family to drink? or just part of the year? do you want to make cheese and soap? these come into play. i had 5 milkers, about 3 gals of milk a day, didn't force higher production. w/5 milkers, i was able to have milk year round, can some, give some to hogs and chickens, make cheese from time to time. i have 4 kids. made ice cream too. rotate breeding to allow milk year round. i'd have at least 3 if you want yr round milk.

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What is the picture? The one in your mind that you are looking at when you think "home"? Do you like to garden? If you enjoy working in a garden, planting flowers, pulling weeds, getting dirt under your fingernails, you will want a different system than if you don't like gardening. Do you see flowers around your house? One large garden or several small gardens? Personally, I like smaller gardens. You can incorporate vegetable (cabbage, onion) or herbs into your flower gardens so that you can enjoy the beauty while reaping the bounty close to the house. I like lasagne (layered) gardening and I think you will be able to have a much bigger garden if you use this method. This is the Ruth Stout method and we are sold on it.

Trees? Trees take longer to establish than tomatoes, so you'll want to know what trees will do well on your homestead and plant them sooner rather than later. Livestock can graze under trees (though you may need to protect them) so you can have an orchard that is also a pasture. You can buy pastured beef from neighbors, and probably pigs, so unless you really want to raise them yourself, I wouldn't. Small breeds of sheep are easier to handle, and if you can't find the coldness to kill them, you at least have wool (so get a breed that produces decent wool). If you don't like animals, don't have them. It's not fair to them, and caring for them will sour you on the homesteading gig. If you are nuetral, that's okay, but people who really can't stand animals do not take good care of them.

Chickens don't take up any space at all, and you can get by with a dozen egg layers, then decide if you want to raise them for meat.

When you are looking at land, find out how good the soil is before falling in love with it. Poor soil can be improved, depending on what makes it poor soil. Get the best ground you can, then the most. If you have ten acres, but realize you will only really be using two acres for your food needs, you will still have room to have horses or woods. That extra acreage may come in handy some day if you wish to add a crop/need firewood/don't like your neighbors, or in your old age you can sell off part of it (land usually goes up in value), or give it to your kids for their homesteads.

Are you going to use a tractor or horses for work? You may not need either.

The property we have is not what I was looking for, but it is what we could afford. It is too wet and too clayey, but because of this were were able to put in a small pond, which helps to drain the area around the house. The six acres is only 120 feet deep, so it is all along the road, which I don't like since we have sheep and donkeys, but it would be great if we wanted to sell off a piece.