How many here are actual backyarders vs. Farmers?

[whiterock]

Backyarder here! just outside the city line on almost 1 acre. No longer have rooster just my six girls! white plymouth rocks!

 

[ponygrl6]

Quote:

ponygrl6!

thank you krcote! Been lurking for almost 2 yrs. Figured it
was time to join in!!!

 

[zoo357]

I'd say a backyarder. Almost 6 acres and all we have is our chickens Plus the cats and dog) and we're starting to sell their eggs

 

[the duck whisperer]

We're more farmers, outside city-limits. We used to have a big farm but sold a lot of our live stock.

 

[Toastyone]

Backyarder

but everyone considers me a suburban farmer! We live smack dab in the middle of the suburbs, stores all around us, a school and hundreds of neighbors! We have a buncha chickens and rabbits though lol a few goats in the past... No one complains though because they know all summer they get fresh veggies from our rabbit/chicken poop gardens and delicious fresh eggs!

 

[dawnwinds58]

We have 35 acres, 20 hens and a tired rooster, 12 geese, 6 Rat Terriers, 3 Red Wattle gilts (unbred girl pigs) with 3 Tamworth/Large Black crossed gilts coming in just over a week, 2 Berkshire gilts due from a litter in July (still looking for a Berkshire boar piglet if anyone knows where I might find one in or close to Central KY), and 3 TN Walking horses. We have 2 acres in garden and have probably 2 plus being readied to plant. Guess that makes us farmers of a sort.

 

[Scattered & Splattered]

Backyarder.

0.33 acre in town

 

[flocksalot]

We started out like so many of you with a small (.20 acre) lot that was just right for us.....at the time. Well I love gardening and canning, freezing, and cooking so the tiny garden my husband alotted me wasn't going to cut it. I used to grow much of what I and my older son ate in pots, so I added hundreds upon hundreds of pots. Big pots, little pots, pots that held trees....call me happy

call my husband overwhelmed.

He asked a friend at work if I could put a garden at his farm as nobody lived there. Well there's a horse there. My husband and young son want a horse. Gee we need more property...........I'm thinking more room for pots.

So we started looking for property, and I also started looking for a horse which I found long before I found the right property. So we boarded our beautiful tri colored yearling paint gelding. He's my big baby that my little baby can ride. But horses are like chickens you can't have just one, so I went to work finding another. In the mean time I informed my husband that we were getting chickens and they would be living in my greenhouse until he got them a coop built in the spring. He argued, threatened, whinned, begged,

and then drove my car over to pick up the chickens 6 hens and 4 roosters. It was a take one take all kinda deal. My husband didn't know that ONE rooster was sufficient. We later ate three of them. Not one of our neighbors complained about the incessiant crowing as there are at least two other roosters in town and they filled in on any quite time from mine. My seven year old fell in love. The girls started laying eggs the very first day we had them. I didn't even have nest boxes yet just a cardboard box with the bottom scatched out. I got 5 to 6 eggs a day which you would think was enough, but then we started selling them. Meanwhile I found us a chunk of property that is just shy of 14 acres and zonned AG2 which means we have NO restrictions as to how many or what kind of animals we can have.

Here I am getting out my Barnyard in Your Backyard and other such books and making all kinds of plans. Most of those plans my husband tries to stop, but only halfheartedly. He knows nothing about animals besides the little he knows about horses, so he is somewhat apprehensive. I grew up if you didn't hunt it, fish it, or raise it you didn't eat it, so I was like

everytime he tried to tell me no. Anyway I found me another horse and then another too. We are after all a three person family with my older son wanting nothing to do with the farming life we didn't need another horse. So then we/me decided that I was going to raise some chickens for meat and keep the hens as replacement layers and some turkeys for meat. Well the RIR were a bust for meat, but they are as good as any leghorn for eggs. The old girls were still laying fine so I refused to butcher them which meant we needed another coop. Here my husband tried to put his foot down, but I think he put it in something. We still had some turkeys hanging out and their coop was not going to work for over the winter. So my seven year old son and I went to work pulling apart crates and pallets and assembled a cute little coop.

The eight RIR hens and their Lakenvelder Roo were very happy and cozy in their little coop. Even Rudy our older rooster tried to huddle up in there. He was in big trouble with the girls the next day though. Well things went on and we sold our home so we could now start building a home at the "farm" and guess what then we have time for MORE chickens. We got 25 rainbow layers in early March which we lost some and had them replaced when we got our 50 Cornish x (the bird I know how to raise) along with 25 turkeys (up from 15 last year) 4 Chinese White geese and 7 Khaki Campbells. We get 30 more egg layers in a week. We also were given 35 3 1/2 month old Red Star and SLWs in March. My husband built them a new coop. The young ones from this year will be living in a coop that the local FFA has been building. They didn't get it completed before school got out, but they will get it done before the month is out. The same day we got the babies in May we were given a 30 lb. feeder pig that had been injured and could no longer walk or even get up on his legs. The vet said to put it down, but I'm persitant. Hammy now runs, jumps, rolls over and generaly plays like a dog. He will fetch a stick but his return is pretty messy. If he hears an egg being cracked he can fly out of his house so fast you would think he had wings. He loves raw eggs and rag weed. Hammy is going to be good eating this winter even though my husband said NO.

Seriously I don't know why he bothers when he knows I'm just going to go and do it anyway. He does seem to enjoy scratching Hammy now that he is no longer terrified of him. Of course that may change over time as he gets much much bigger than the 100+ that he now weighs. Next I want a calf or two. Our son wants 3 goats, 8 sheep, and tons more chickens. Right now he gets between 48 and 54 eggs a day and he is required to do most of the work with the birds. The only thing he doesn't do is wash the eggs and disinfect the coops. Of course I'm right there with him teaching and helping him. Last fall our turkeys wouldn't lay an egg unless Alex crawled into the 55 gallon drum they used for nest boxes. Then the hens would cover him with grass, lay their egg and come out to tell me. So he even gives them emotional support. We don't even have the house built yet and my husband is saying that in a few years he wants to move further north. So does that mean I can get more chickens?

So if he's my human equivilant to a rooster how come I'm finding all the food? Poor guy just doesn't know what to do. That's OK honey just keep thinking of things you would improve and do them on the next coop. So we are little but we farm really big.

 

[TACEYPERKINS]

I'm a hobby farm. I have a decent sized garden and many chickens. I sell both eggs and veggies to a local co-op. I only live on an acre, but we live in a rural town and we have all sorts of farm animals around us.
This is a great topic, it is fun seeing all the backyards. Keep posting pictures!!!!!!!

This is last fall when I was letting everything dry out and growing pumpkins in the back gound.

I also have more pictures on my website.

 

[Frizzle Farmer]

Farmer! Hutson Heritage Hogs! We raise Hereford Hogs and Frizzle Crosses. Went from Hobby Farm to Profit Farm by the grace of God