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wyoDreamer said:
@limited25 It is different weather every year here also. I try to plant a couple varieties of each vegetable - like 5 different tomatoes, 3 different carrots and 4 peppers - hoping that one will do good that year. Living in Wyoming, I kept loosing my plants to a late (or early) frost, the growing season was just too dang short - so my husband built me a little grow house to extend the season. The original plan was to have removable sides - one set with plastic and one set with machine fabric to keep out the rodents. As it turned out, I only changed out one of the sides and we left the other 3 sides on to protect the plants from the wind. Keeping the wind off the plants also increased the humidity so they didn't dry out too fast.
Moral of the story - see if there is a way to protect your plants from the wind. A couple of hoops covered with plastic would be a huge help - just make sure you have a way to vent it really well. A neighbor in Wyoming put some hoops over her raised beds and needed a machete to get in through the door to pick tomatoes.
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Was thinking about a grow house or hoops, seems like they need shading, which would also keep off the wind; right? Probably do the hoops this year since trying to get other projects done. We get a lot of high 90s-lower 100s temps here in summer. Would those hoops still work or make it hotter still?
 
We moved the chicken coop and runs yesterday and cleaned up the area where they were for the last 6 months. Not too bad, think a little grass fertilizer (10/10/10) will have it growing back together. Put them in a weed area and they are quite happy, also scoring about 100 bugs from under stuff we moved out of the runs. Now need it to rain, pretty dry here. DH turned on the water from the well to the outside faucets then too, and we got some yard work done.

Now I want to get Brandywine tomatoes too. Did start reading this post from 2016 and now on page 281: got a quiche recipe and bookmarked some sites you all recommended. But I do want to keep up-to-date with it too.

Sounds like all of you are busy or getting ready to be soon.
 
Beekissed said:
I agree....pound for pound, rabbits will out produce chickens any ol' day for meat and they do it on relatively little feed compared to, especially if one incorporates a pasture feeding system for the rabbits and stays away from pelleted feeds. They take up less space, produce more young, are quiet and their manure is a cool manure...can be applied directly to pasture, orchard or garden.

You might find keeping a bull very challenging on small acreage....bulls have to be penned separately most of the time and they are costly to keep, dangerous to be around~especially for children, and not so good for cost efficiency. Much easier to either borrow breeding with a neighbor's bull or do AI....with AI you can get some really good stock online, just watch for the sales. MUCH much cheaper and you can learn how to do AI pretty easily....usually your local vet will help you with storage of the semen until you can use it.

If you choose to do hair sheep(my favorite is Katahdin), one way of getting your ewes bred is to buy a young ram lamb from a good breeder, keep him long enough to breed your girls and then sell him ~still as a lamb~ at the local stock auctions or even sell him to an individual....that way you won't have to have separate penning for your rams. Many, many people do that.

I recommend hair sheep for first time stock owners simply because they are easy to transport, can be bred easily and lamb easily and you can double or triple your herd in a very short matter of time. They also stay fat on grass and hay and eat less than cows, grow out quicker, are naturally hardy...their meat also brings more per pound than beef at auction. And they taste incredible!
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When I was a teenager my sister and I kept rabbits as a hobby, we fed them 100% pasture no pelleted or purchased feed, we used to have fun going into the farm to get their favorite weeds. At that time I didn't even know there was any pelleted feed and even if I had known our family could not have afforded to buy feed for them. Come butcher time Dad or neighbor would do the deed so I never saw them die. I did try keeping some here in 2014 but for some reason I reacted to their dander, something that never happened before.

Keeping them was cheaper than mom's chickens.

Now this weather better make up it's mind, we had some snow flurries and rain today,hope my greens out in the beds survive, they did survive the last unexpected snow on Tuesday.
 
Beekissed said:
I agree....pound for pound, rabbits will out produce chickens any ol' day for meat and they do it on relatively little feed compared to, especially if one incorporates a pasture feeding system for the rabbits and stays away from pelleted feeds.  They take up less space, produce more young, are quiet and their manure is a cool manure...can be applied directly to pasture, orchard or garden. 

You might find keeping a bull very challenging on small acreage....bulls have to be penned separately most of the time and they are costly to keep, dangerous to be around~especially for children, and not so good for cost efficiency.  Much easier to either borrow breeding with a neighbor's bull or do AI....with AI you can get some really good stock online, just watch for the sales.  MUCH much cheaper and you can learn how to do AI pretty easily....usually your local vet will help you with storage of the semen until you can use it.  

If you choose to do hair sheep(my favorite is Katahdin), one way of getting your ewes bred is to buy a young ram lamb from a good breeder, keep him long enough to breed your girls and then sell him ~still as a lamb~ at the local stock auctions or even sell him to an individual....that way you won't have to have separate penning for your rams.  Many, many people do that. 

I recommend hair sheep for first time stock owners simply because they are easy to transport, can be bred easily and lamb easily and you can double or triple your herd in a very short matter of time.  They also stay fat on grass and hay and eat less than cows, grow out quicker, are naturally hardy...their meat also brings more per pound than beef at auction.  And they taste incredible! 
Click to expand...
AI it is. Sounds much safer. As for the space needed for livestock that is not a problem. I have use of most of the hill I live on , in exchange for a small amount of meat, eggs and milk.

Rabbit I have an idea of how the housing and pasture will work and as soon as I get it on my tablet I will show it to you.

Hair sheep is where I will start my research. I love the idea of being able to make money back towards the farm by raising and selling. Farms a blasted expensive, and it's not even the animals that cost a ton.
 
MoonShadows said:
WOW! If you read from the beginning, you won't have time to do anything on your homestead this year!

Welcome to the thread. Glad you found it.
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Haha, we are in the middle of a chicken coop build and have already planted our garden this year. It's only 400 square foot plus a handful of containers on our deck. Te rest of the acreage is overgrown with brush. The majority of our time this year will be clearing it out. Since we don't have access to big equipment, we are doing it all in very small portions. I read through forums and research largely at night after the kiddos have gone to bed and when the husband goes to work (overnights ).
 
Crazy like a fox....
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