I bought a small hobby farm this past summer. I'm pretty ambitious, don't have a lot of spare cash, mechanically inclined, and like old farm equipment. Our place is just shy of 12 acres, 4 acres is fenced into 5 pasture paddocks with a 12' gate on each paddock. Almost 7 acres are tillable but currently in grass/alfalfa that is getting pretty thin on alfalfa with lots of weeds and needs to be plowed down. The remainder of the property is buildings and yard around the house. The property is on a busy stretch of road with thousands of cars passing every day.
Here is what I would like to do. We want to start raising chickens for both meat and eggs to sell. We bought a pair of breeding gilts last summer which we plan to AI and farrow in April. Hoping to finish 20-30 pigs per year once we get into a routine. Pigs and poultry will be partners on in an intensive grazing on 4 acres of pasture. My nature, I'm going to have to at minimum overseed pastures with legume/brassica mix on a regular basis. We also want to convert part of the area to an orchard with ~20 assorted fruit trees and a place for berry patches to sell at roadside stand.
My first year experience with a flock of 100 broilers and 4 berkshire pigs is telling me that I need to be able to grow my own feed in order to be profitable. Since pigs and chickens are both monogastric this means a good portion of their diet is grain. We also want to convert part of the area to an orchard with ~20 assorted fruit trees and a place for berry patches
Dad just picked up and Oliver 77 that we're bring up here. It's probably not quite enough tractor, I'd like something with 3-point hitch and maybe a loader (more of a nice to have item). I bought an OMC 95 mixer-mill at a farm sale down the road shortly after we moved in for $200 to handle mixing feed. It's a well kept unit and I went back after the sale and got the manual from the son. I'm going to pick up an Allis Chalmers All Crop 72 combine this weekend that i bought for a very reasonable price but will cost a little bit in fuel to go get it.
Here's what I think I need beyond what I have, please critique my choices.
1) 8-10' disc
2) grain drill
3) field cultivator
4) cultipacker or drag harrow
5) gravity box(es) for storing grain
We're probably just going to buy grain at the elevator to grint into feed for the next year until we can get all the other equipment located, bought, and in good working order. I'm interested in keeping my costs low so I'll be scouring auction sale bills and consignment sales looking to pick up old equipment ideal for small scale farming for basically scrap prices or a little more if I have to keep it out of a scrappers hands in order to save it.
Here is what I would like to do. We want to start raising chickens for both meat and eggs to sell. We bought a pair of breeding gilts last summer which we plan to AI and farrow in April. Hoping to finish 20-30 pigs per year once we get into a routine. Pigs and poultry will be partners on in an intensive grazing on 4 acres of pasture. My nature, I'm going to have to at minimum overseed pastures with legume/brassica mix on a regular basis. We also want to convert part of the area to an orchard with ~20 assorted fruit trees and a place for berry patches to sell at roadside stand.
My first year experience with a flock of 100 broilers and 4 berkshire pigs is telling me that I need to be able to grow my own feed in order to be profitable. Since pigs and chickens are both monogastric this means a good portion of their diet is grain. We also want to convert part of the area to an orchard with ~20 assorted fruit trees and a place for berry patches
Dad just picked up and Oliver 77 that we're bring up here. It's probably not quite enough tractor, I'd like something with 3-point hitch and maybe a loader (more of a nice to have item). I bought an OMC 95 mixer-mill at a farm sale down the road shortly after we moved in for $200 to handle mixing feed. It's a well kept unit and I went back after the sale and got the manual from the son. I'm going to pick up an Allis Chalmers All Crop 72 combine this weekend that i bought for a very reasonable price but will cost a little bit in fuel to go get it.
Here's what I think I need beyond what I have, please critique my choices.
1) 8-10' disc
2) grain drill
3) field cultivator
4) cultipacker or drag harrow
5) gravity box(es) for storing grain
We're probably just going to buy grain at the elevator to grint into feed for the next year until we can get all the other equipment located, bought, and in good working order. I'm interested in keeping my costs low so I'll be scouring auction sale bills and consignment sales looking to pick up old equipment ideal for small scale farming for basically scrap prices or a little more if I have to keep it out of a scrappers hands in order to save it.