OK, this is going to be practical advice:
Making money off of a farm is typically hard work, and takes a lot of sheer labor and ingenuity.
Just maintaining the property (even at a hobby farm scale) can be a BIG job (this is why not all farmhouses and barns look perfect or perfectly clean when you visit them -- the people are too busy taking care of the out-of-doors).
The good news is you live in NC where there is a long growing season.
There are 2 ways to make a living on a farm: Sell a product and/or provide for your own needs off the farm in order to minimize spending.
I would either sell at an on-farm stand (if you're in a good location) or at a farmers market or two. You might be able to make a couple hundred dollars a week but only IF it's a very busy market and you have good, consistent product. I would not join a new market since they take a while to build clientele. I would vend only at an established, high-traffic market, possibly even in a nearby city if there is one, where you can charge higher prices.
I've heard varying reports about using a website --it really works for some people, others not well at all... You have to take into consideration all the shipping costs, etc if you're shipping anything farm-raised or perishable.
DON'T undersell your product. Lots of people are looking for bargains but I don't know many farmers supporting themselves who can survive giving others bargains. On the other hand, if you can BARTER for anything, that can be really helpful. Forget about bargain hunters and sell to people who are willing to pay your price and then maintain those relationships.
It's hard to make money selling eggs because of feed costs. If you want to make any money at all, charge a LOT for your eggs ($4 - $5/dozen if you can) and get control of feed costs by having efficient feeder pans and letting birds forage and keeping them from wasting feed.
If you can stand to raise and butcher a lot of broilers yourself, you might want to look into raising broilers for sale. But again, you have to be extremely efficient with feed, and keep the birds from dying (some newbies on here have struggled with that) because broilers are notoriously not the healthiest birds and there can be a big learning curve and investment in equipment.
Pigs are considered "mortgage lifters" because they eat absolutely anything and can have large litters. But again there's a lot of work involved in setting up pens and/or fencing to hold a pig in. You might sell 40-lb feeder pigs or invest in show quality pigs and sell them for 4-H products rather than for meat.
I'm writing a book here so I'll stop. But no animal or garden is easy. Animals have to be fed, watered, and given shelter even in pouring rain and the coldest winter snowstorm. You can never foresee what might happen -- an animal gets sick, or hurt, or dies and you incur vet costs or loss of that animal or damages or accidents. And gardens require constant work too.
By the way, I'm not discouraging you at all. I'm encouraging you. I just think you have to look at it as business, not as a "pastoral venture full of sunshine and pleasantries."
Here's a great book on all things farming: Carla Emery's "Encyclopedia of Country Living". It will tell you absolutely everything you need to know -- I'm not kidding.
You also might want to consider if you have a secondary non-farming skill to supplement -- like, can you make any crafts or do consulting (computers, accounting, etc), anything you may have learned skills on in the military for example.
Good luck!
Making money off of a farm is typically hard work, and takes a lot of sheer labor and ingenuity.
Just maintaining the property (even at a hobby farm scale) can be a BIG job (this is why not all farmhouses and barns look perfect or perfectly clean when you visit them -- the people are too busy taking care of the out-of-doors).
The good news is you live in NC where there is a long growing season.
There are 2 ways to make a living on a farm: Sell a product and/or provide for your own needs off the farm in order to minimize spending.
I would either sell at an on-farm stand (if you're in a good location) or at a farmers market or two. You might be able to make a couple hundred dollars a week but only IF it's a very busy market and you have good, consistent product. I would not join a new market since they take a while to build clientele. I would vend only at an established, high-traffic market, possibly even in a nearby city if there is one, where you can charge higher prices.
I've heard varying reports about using a website --it really works for some people, others not well at all... You have to take into consideration all the shipping costs, etc if you're shipping anything farm-raised or perishable.
DON'T undersell your product. Lots of people are looking for bargains but I don't know many farmers supporting themselves who can survive giving others bargains. On the other hand, if you can BARTER for anything, that can be really helpful. Forget about bargain hunters and sell to people who are willing to pay your price and then maintain those relationships.
It's hard to make money selling eggs because of feed costs. If you want to make any money at all, charge a LOT for your eggs ($4 - $5/dozen if you can) and get control of feed costs by having efficient feeder pans and letting birds forage and keeping them from wasting feed.
If you can stand to raise and butcher a lot of broilers yourself, you might want to look into raising broilers for sale. But again, you have to be extremely efficient with feed, and keep the birds from dying (some newbies on here have struggled with that) because broilers are notoriously not the healthiest birds and there can be a big learning curve and investment in equipment.
Pigs are considered "mortgage lifters" because they eat absolutely anything and can have large litters. But again there's a lot of work involved in setting up pens and/or fencing to hold a pig in. You might sell 40-lb feeder pigs or invest in show quality pigs and sell them for 4-H products rather than for meat.
I'm writing a book here so I'll stop. But no animal or garden is easy. Animals have to be fed, watered, and given shelter even in pouring rain and the coldest winter snowstorm. You can never foresee what might happen -- an animal gets sick, or hurt, or dies and you incur vet costs or loss of that animal or damages or accidents. And gardens require constant work too.
By the way, I'm not discouraging you at all. I'm encouraging you. I just think you have to look at it as business, not as a "pastoral venture full of sunshine and pleasantries."
Here's a great book on all things farming: Carla Emery's "Encyclopedia of Country Living". It will tell you absolutely everything you need to know -- I'm not kidding.
You also might want to consider if you have a secondary non-farming skill to supplement -- like, can you make any crafts or do consulting (computers, accounting, etc), anything you may have learned skills on in the military for example.
Good luck!
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