How much land do you have?

[Pogo0685]

DH and I are looking for new land, right now we have 45 acres, we don't use most of it, we have a 700 yard shooting range that we use 2-3 times a month, and we have a horse, but she is on less than 1 acre of it right now due to the cost of fencing. When we started looking for new land I thought I wanted at least 40 acres again BUT we are having a hell of a time finding that much land in our price range that is better than where we are now. We want to build an earth ship house, and have a small farm that can sustain us, a few goats, some chickens and rabbits, horses and a family of cows for meat and milk. We also want it to be closer to the mountains than we are now, and hopefully have trees and some sort of access to water or the ability to drill a well. How much land do you think is necessary for this? we know that even if we had 100 acres we are still going to have to buy hay to feed the livestock, so I am not thinking I will ever be self sufficient enough to not have to buy animal feed. 

I don't know if this will matter in your decision but it will be my family of 4 (I would like to have more children but DH says no), our best friend who is a single older man (in his 50's, he is paying for most of the land), and possibly another family of 4 will come with us. And when my Father in Law and Grandmother in Law die, my Mother in Law will be coming to live with us also. So we will have somewhere between 5 -10 people living there eventually. So we will eventually have at least 4 horses, 3 cows, and enough rabbits and chickens to feed us all on a regular basis, not sure how many goats we will actually have in the end, but I would think 1 or 2 for milking and a male to breed them, and then we would eat the offspring.

Thanks guys!!

[SonjaStahl]

Wow 45 acres! You can do so much with that amount of land depending if you have; water/water rights, building sites approved and so on. I would definitely check out Joel Salatins books "You can farm" and "Family friendly farming." He's got a ton of books but those seem to be the most relevant to you. He's all about pasture rotation and how if you preserve the health of your pasture, that in turn transfers to the health of your animals. We currently only live on 1 1/2 acres but have 2 horses, 1 pony, 31 chickens, (had) 3 pigs, 3 dairy cows and 2 calves. Everyone is bedded down in their stalls now that it's getting too late in the season for them to be on pasture, and they are all being fed hay, but 6 months out of the year they are on a rotational pasture schedule on the 1 acre pasture that allows them to mow the pasture efficiently promoting pasture health and then move onto the next section while the chickens go onto the previous section to take care of any parasites, fly larva or whatnot. It's amazing what you can do with a chunk of land, no matter how small if you know how to use it. My family recently bought 120 acres 1 hour and 45 mins from us now and are going to implement that rotational structure on a much larger scale in order to make a living off of it because it's what we'd like to devote our time to for the rest of our lives in any case. Good luck with your venture! Check out those books!

[SonjaStahl]

Wow 45 acres! You can do so much with that amount of land depending if you have; water/water rights, building sites approved and so on. I would definitely check out Joel Salatins books "You can farm" and "Family friendly farming." He's got a ton of books but those seem to be the most relevant to you. He's all about pasture rotation and how if you preserve the health of your pasture, that in turn transfers to the health of your animals. We currently only live on 1 1/2 acres but have 2 horses, 1 pony, 31 chickens, (had) 3 pigs, 3 dairy cows and 2 calves. Everyone is bedded down in their stalls now that it's getting too late in the season for them to be on pasture, and they are all being fed hay, but 6 months out of the year they are on a rotational pasture schedule on the 1 acre pasture that allows them to mow the pasture efficiently promoting pasture health and then move onto the next section while the chickens go onto the previous section to take care of any parasites, fly larva or whatnot. It's amazing what you can do with a chunk of land, no matter how small if you know how to use it. My family recently bought 120 acres 1 hour and 45 mins from us now and are going to implement that rotational structure on a much larger scale in order to make a living off of it because it's what we'd like to devote our time to for the rest of our lives in any case. Good luck with your venture! Check out those books!

[SonjaStahl]

Wow 45 acres! You can do so much with that amount of land depending if you have; water/water rights, building sites approved and so on. I would definitely check out Joel Salatins books "You can farm" and "Family friendly farming." He's got a ton of books but those seem to be the most relevant to you. He's all about pasture rotation and how if you preserve the health of your pasture, that in turn transfers to the health of your animals. We currently only live on 1 1/2 acres but have 2 horses, 1 pony, 31 chickens, (had) 3 pigs, 3 dairy cows and 2 calves. Everyone is bedded down in their stalls now that it's getting too late in the season for them to be on pasture, and they are all being fed hay, but 6 months out of the year they are on a rotational pasture schedule on the 1 acre pasture that allows them to mow the pasture efficiently promoting pasture health and then move onto the next section while the chickens go onto the previous section to take care of any parasites, fly larva or whatnot. It's amazing what you can do with a chunk of land, no matter how small if you know how to use it. My family recently bought 120 acres 1 hour and 45 mins from us now and are going to implement that rotational structure on a much larger scale in order to make a living off of it because it's what we'd like to devote our time to for the rest of our lives in any case. Good luck with your venture! Check out those books!

[SonjaStahl]

oops! Don't know how to delete those! Sorry!

[Pogo0685]

Your land sounds so much more efficient than mine is. We have no water rights, we can drill a well at the cost of somewhere between $40,000 -$60,000. We will never have that much money for a well. Our land is just flat and dry, the weeds didn't even grow this year due to a complete lack of any water. It rained maybe twice all summer and most of the summer was over 100 degrees outside. That's why we are looking for somewhere else, that and to get away from people. I will for sure check out the books you mentioned. I am starting to think that land as little as 10 acres would be just fine for us. If I set it up right. Thanks for the reply!