#and he had a small amount of land for his goats and chickens etc

[rowanhoney]

Ok I also explored where my bisa and my tío and my cousins lived. I’ve never looked at a map or had their addresses but I do have a good sense of direction and a freaky memory for layouts and I think I found everyone’s homes and you can bet I’ve been absolutely weeping about every single one

[agetawayfromhere-blog]

Day 1

DAY 2 coast Ukunda or Diani 14/04 Sim, Andrea, Maxine

Started out a normal day as any other day starts out, a car alarm at 3am, didn’t shut up till 6.30, brilliant, we are awake, ready & rearing to go, may as well get stuff done…typing, updates, download photos etc as there is nothing else better to do.

May as well have a shower, no, wait no water, someone forgot to pay the water bill? the toilet works…so maybe they are on a part payment plan for that.

Wale up call at 7, down for breakfast, toast, some sort of tasteless yellow papaya? baked beans, sausages, and a really good drink of tropical red pulp, niiiice

Get onto a bus for the airport 8.30, all passengers needed to get out of the vehicle going thru the check point, a couple of guards looking at their phones, not really paying attention to the amount of people that are filing thru the body scanners, the things was going nuts as they checked a random person chosen from the flood of people, need to go thru check-in, big sign, ‘no guns or knives beyond this point’, body scanned again, this time, hat, shoes, belt… anything really that was not a piece of clothing from neck to ankle, taken off, tickets gotten, thru to the boarding lounge for an internal flight to Diani, down on the coast near Mombasa, aboard a twin prop plane with giraffe spots on its tail, before we know it, we are high above the clouds, soaring like a big tinned winged eagle, with lots of maggots (people) inside…but not really

Landing in Diani, we got off the plane to a downpour from the skies, walked across the tarmac, to a waiting or ‘holding area’, than had to wait for our bags to be spat out of the plane, 2 guys pushed all our luggage on a trolley across the tarmac, in the pouring rain, awaiting for us to take them & load & go, putting the bags in the cars, Ali & Dave arrived in NOAH, the AinA vehicle they use for the AinA activities etc

Exiting the airport, we got our first glimpse of the poverty, the streets lined with makeshift humpies & houses, chickens, cats & people living in total harmony, with open fires burning their stuff out the porch, people sitting back in their open view homes…reminded me of Glenlock camping, but this was sad to see, they have nothing, they live simple, with nothing but a roof over their heads, made from the frons of a palm tree.

Having left the Diani are, ventured to Ulundi, where we ventured to a shopping complex to get supplies for the next week at Sammy’s home, this was a first: being stopped by armed guards in a shopping centre, then to have one of those airport wands go over the top of my pants, scanning the entire belt line, scanning for what I would imagining it would be: guns

From there went to a small rented room attached to a café, where the football was on, had a great bonding with the locals in this areas, phots of the kids for the sponsorships, handed out hygiene packs, Mia & Judah had bought some bouncy balls frim Aust, they were handed to the kids to play with, which they were allowed to keep, they played handball for a couple of hours, handed some new bibles to young ladies in the ecclesia, small talk by Bro Jarrad S on God & his greatness thru his book and his son, had an interesting lunch, marinated meat chunks on one plate, tomato, onion & spring onion on another, a pancake and Ugali (flour, water made into a cake size of a saucer) alone each part does taste nice, but the ugali needed some pepper, stodgy mix of batter, roll it in  ball, add in a piece of meat, garnished with tomato, not bad, still, an authentic Kenyan meal to feed the masses, all this is to beaten with your fingers. At this point as well, Seth, Jasmine and Diane left to visit anther ecclesia for the photos, this community had been flooded in, so our AinA had to walk a couple of kms to get the ecclesia & get their things achieved once they had arrived

Finished up with the meet & greet, all participants left to go their own way home, we left to venture home to Sammy’s home, but on the way, popped into his wife Christine, who had been admitted to the Diani Beach hospital for possible pneumonia, each of the team popped into the room, to greet her, said a prayer for her by Dave, by all accounts, sounds like she will be released tomorrow GW from the hospital.

We have now left the area & ventured to the home of Sammy and the kids home he is the caretaker of, having been driving now for what seems to be forever, then realised it was actually only 3 hour detour, as a bridge was flooded over, it has not stopped raining here for 3 days now, everything is so sloshed & slippery, thick with mud  and rain, has made this 400 meters into a 4x4 adventure, driving up an incline, car got bogged, Ali and I jumped out of the car, trying to push this beast thru the clay like mire that had encased the tyres of the car, getting sprayed by the mud, pouring off the tyre, all down the front of us, Ali came off 2nd best, I think she may actually have been the winner in this situation, I also think that was the aim she was going for as well, eventually the car got free, they drove up the hill & out of sight, having put the headlamp in the car, Ali & I walked in the pitch black, African outback, sliding all over the path, puddles & very slippery mud, feet now well encased in the mud, Ali was worse off than me with a spray from the car tyres she looked a sight, not until the light we had seen the entire mess she was in ha ha. All I’m saying is that you would not do this kind of off-road experience on purpose unless you intended too

Eventually made it to the kids home, met 15-20 young people, all so eager to meet these foreign westerners, some older sisters that lie in Amani (peace) they have rooms there,, they were sitting outside their rooms, we met a couple of them as they had been cooking our meal for the night, our mission tomorrow will be to talk to these kind natured women and young people, have a talk about how they live in this rural area, free from all influences from the outside world & enjoy our time with them in this place.

Having unpacked the cars, we settled into our room, this is a new building that has just been erected, with 5-6 rooms inside, it’s a concrete floor, there is a bed, covered with a mosquito net…..that’s it, just that simple, no frills, the rain has not subsided now for 48 hours, plans for tomorrow have changed as we will not be able to get out of one of the roads due to the amount of water being received, upside, this is great for the farming as they have just or just about to plant their crops for this time of the year. We can hear dogs having a scrap behind our room, goats bleating and music with a beat, this went on all night, maybe this is to ward off any wild animals that may venture down to this community? Dunno, will have to ask about this later on and shall see.

:

[ask-jaghatai-khan]

Primarch Comfort Foods

In which I speculate on some of the foods the primarchs would have eaten back on their home planets. These tend to fall in line with my ethnicity/culture-expy theories about each of the primarchs. I’ve included some general foods, as well as popular alcoholic drinks.

Hope you enjoy! No promises all of them are going to be necessarily pleasant...

Lion El’Johnson

Simple porridge, sometimes with orchard fruit (apples). Small amount of basic bread. Roasted or stewed meat from various livestock (cow, sheep, chicken), or fish. Bread-ale often drunk (sometimes in lieu of water), and on special occasions, wine.

Calibanite cuisine is based around sedentary food sourcing, and almost never included game meats. Due to the taint that lurked within the forests, what land was good for farming was fiercely defended.

Fulgrim

Salad of small fruits or vegetables (berries, olives, etc.). Small birds and wild rodents delicately roasted in sweet bastes. Hard Chemosian moonshine diluted into more tasty cocktails. Wine drunk at special events.

Before the Phoenix’s full reforms of Chemos, the natives had to make due with what little wild sustenance they could forage. However, under the primarch’s guidance, such tiny morsels became delicacies fit for people of taste.

Perturabo

Stuffed pita or börek filled with meat (mountain goat), hearty vegetables, and herbs (mountain tubers, olives, etc.). Occasional fruits. Rationed beer or harder dark liquor. Wine only if it was taken from lowland peasants. Salted, processed meat and veg made for field rations.

Due to Olympia’s mountainous terrain, arable land was in fierce contention. Natives had to make due with what hardy fauna and shrubs managed to exist at such altitudes. Beer was often made in preparation for sieges. Stronger drinks were in high demand from beleaguered soldiers.

Jaghatai Khan

Inside-out-roasted traditional khorkhog (either Chogoran horse or sheep). Served with aaruul (dried cheese curd), milk, and heavy cream. Occasionally wild tubers cooked alongside. Kumis (milk beer) or horse blood served as drink.

The savages of Mundus Planus rarely ate more than dry cheese and jerky. When they feasted, they used every one of the few ingredients they had available: meat and dairy, from the very steeds they rode.

Leman Russ

Roasted beast (ox, deer, mammoth?) over a roaring fire pit. Fish and sea-life, when the ice permitted it. Sometimes served in stew of rich roots (potatoes, carrots, sour berries). Veg often pickled to last the winter, and meat salted/dried. The juice is mopped up by tough bread, and washed down with gallons of Mjød (mead).

The Fenrisians ate hearty, for who knew how tough the winter would be? Rich foods were popular, though dry bread and heavily-preserved meat meant everything had to be followed by plenty of drink.

Rogal Dorn

Blubbery sausage from the meat of sea-mammals and huge land beasts (caribou, bear). Fish was often pickled to last longer, or made into vorschmack. Occasionally tough vegetables could be found under the permafrost. Eggs and berries might be foraged, made into stew, or eaten by themselves. Beer often served warm.

The Inwit tribes were proud people, though their options were few. No matter what was made, it was often soaked in fat from numerous ingredient, so as to keep the body warm and well-fed in the face of constant ice and cold.

Konrad Curze

Cheap patties or homogenized sausages made from dubious meats (dog, rat, or pigeon - if you were lucky) The closest things to vegetables or fruits would be processed food-bars. Cheap mass-produced beer and liquor used to wash away sorrows. Konrad himself often had to subsist on wild vermin and scraps.

Nostramo was ruled by exploitation and horror. If high fat and alcohol content could give the locals some temporary reprieve from their awful lives, they would overlook the otherwise horrible tastes.

Sanguinius

Mixed-grain flatbread, cracker-like. Occasionally leavened if a tribe settled down for a while. Butter and milk was common (from sheep equivalents), but slaughtering an animal was saved for special ceremonies. Wine was also drunk at these times, or the blood of the animal, in honor of the creature.

Wild game on Baal Secundus could not be trusted, and might often kill you before you could kill it. Eating involved strict ceremonies of cleanliness, and herds were more valuable than gold, being under threat of mutant raiders.

Ferrus Manus

Thick gruel, served hot or cold, though often bland. Easy to mass-produce and portable goods like sausage or jerky were common. Scarce vegetables were preserved (tubers, gourds, cabbage). Both meat and veg might be rendered down to thick mash that was then canned. Medusan liquor could double as cheap engine-fuel.

On a world as polluted and unforgiving as Medusa, every drop of nutrition had to be squeezed from foodstuffs, while making sure they lasted. Such foods weren’t the most delicious, but they were efficient.

Angron Thal’kyr

Pudding or hash made from tough grains (rye, barley) mixed with blood (often from animals, but sometimes from gladiators). Cheap beer might be given out, especially to those slated to die. Hard liquor often awarded to victors in small quantities.

Though the lords of Nuceria ate the finest fare, gladiator food had to be cheap and filling. Only the most entertaining could be allotted “treats”. For some of the more deranged warriors, stealing someones food or drink was grounds to become a meal yourself.

Roboute Guilliman

Veritable feasts of fish and livestock (pork, veal, chicken), or sometimes served as small meals to be eaten with company. Rich porridge of vegetables or fruit were common, served with glassy-crusted loaves of bread. Everything was paired with honey, butter, or both. Dilute wine provided taste and calmed nerves, while not clouding the senses.

The marvels of civilization brought even the peasants of Macragge a decent meal. Variety and freshness were tantamount, and most every meal was meant to be eaten during business - financial transactions, visits from guests, or even during the morning trip to the baths.

Mortarion

Thick, fatty stew of meat (pork, freshwater fish) and heady vegetables (onions, potatoes). Made with dark beer and strong-smelling seasonings (garlic, more onions), and served with tough, leavened bread. Horrible but rich beer served alongside.

The only land fit for agriculture lay far below the noxious clouds of Barbarus. Anything that wasn’t pulled from the deepest earth, or drank from the lowest stream, might be polluted by the high air. Heady seasonings helped mask the smell of the rot that quickly set in.

Magnus the Red

Rich, heavily-seasoned meats (all kinds) served as kebab. Accompanied by creamy sauces and small vegetables and fruits (olives, dates, figs, peppers). Small cakes and candied fruits for a treat. Meals often served with flatbread to allow for eating without dirtying fingers. Dilute wine for flavor while not slowing the mind.

Every fruit was always in season on Prospero. A thousand meats, vegetables, and sweet treats were prepared with ease by enchanted kitchens. The only limitation was ease of eating - one did not want to stain book pages with sauce or wine!

Horus

Game barbecue (mutant stag, rabbit), seasoned with spare liquor/beer and foraged spices. Processed goods might still be found in the ruins, though only the brave dared to eat them. Fruit and veg could be stolen from sedentary gangs or peasants. Grey-liquor (mixed alcohol) common drink to consolidate bottles.

In the ruins of Cthonia, even the most powerful gangs were only afforded so much luxury. Maybe you preserve your food only for someone to steal it, or maybe you eat it now at the risk of going hungry later.

Lorgar Aurelian

Fine stew made of any combination of fish, meat (sometimes sausage), vegetables, and hundreds of strong spices. Served hot or cold. Simpler meals could still be found with ease, and were no less delicious. Monastic beer and blessed wine were the main alcoholic drinks, and seldom used for leisure.

Ingredients on Colchis were plentiful and varied, and the Colchisians were fond of experimentation. The tastes of heaven could be found in both simplicity and complexity, and ingredients often changed as different fasts were observed throughout the year.

Vulkan

Giant reptile barbeque, roasted over open flame or in earthenware ovens. Ground-meat wat was also enjoyed alongside sweet and spongy bread. Meat was often seasoned with intense spices that would make lesser humans’ eyes water; though sweet volcanic yams made for a good pairing. Harsh but flavorful liquor might be enjoyed, or even used for fire-breathing displays!

Though the people of Nocturne enjoyed sweet stuffs, their fetish for the flames of their homeworld was mirrored in their spice-heavy cooking. Visitors should always have a bottle on hand, or some sweet bread or yams, before they indulge in any meat dishes.

Corvus Corax

Before the Liberation, meals were often simple mash (potatoes and cabbage), gruel, and maybe some meat scraps or weak alcohol. After the capture of Kiavahr, richer stews of tubers, grain (rye, corn), and fruits (berries, apples) were enjoyed. Roast fowl or fish stuffed with nuts and berries was common, as well as hearty bread, and rich beer.

When the slaves of Lycaeus regained access to the forests of Kiavahr, a bounty was available to them. The peasant meals they were once forced to eat were remade into richer versions fit for hard workers.

Alpharius

??? Space-pirate grog and scavenged xenos-beast meat?

Many tales were told of the mysterious twins. Some say Alpharius spent his days trapped on a dead world before his salvation. Others, that he was a scourge of the outer space-ways. Some say he never was lost to begin with. Who can say?

[the-firebird69]

and i help my sons build New Vegas and he is shilo and is surrounded now we moved several inlast night...and have foundations being built if we have to we move. one casino by s only we surround him.  and moved several in, about ten.   and it is huge each casino dwarfs Vegas Casinos which are vast, ours are ten times the size several million square feet each, about 50 thousand rooms each...tons of space no we have it now..the raili s almost done and lots paved tons of equipment...tons. and we see it is about the future... huge Casinos  and we speak to Hooters they are wiating.....he sits adn thinks...this always goes pop in my face.   we use thier girls in ours. they can go on the outskirts.  no Hardrock they took him for a ride too, we use it now...no to Hooters nope....stole it from our boy and used it on him lots and he hurts still..nah....we f you up too. we have a few in they want to knoow which Willie Wonka’s Chocolate Factory and it is fully operational and you wear protective gear and enter and sign an agreement noswimming touching even w your gloves and so on y ou may veiw it remotely in the store, and movecameras and all. it is amazing most see it in the store and run to the line.  huge pieces of candy that are edible for aprice you may buy a piece or the whole thing andedible decorative pieces are for sale in thelobbytons of them all different shapes....a favorite the white swan...all candy and fluffy marshmellow mainly, but the kind at easter,and he says it...tons love it...huge ones too that are about the sizeof a giantpolar bear in the shape of men women and more even ofy ou.  tons do it and bring it to tier parties they hvae off campus or in rented rooms or halls tons of halls huge ones. and he will be offered candy bars by bg. tons.  each scanned so they wont let him no want him to and be dissapointed. he doesnt want to go to iether so ou watch ok. Kid Hotel  we named it that.  and it is for you s and your kids your kids now ok.  a baby lamb or soemthing yes.  goat.  and it has the track.  they check first and entered thier cars to be in the ride only a few were selected as were collectors items.  wie hadone.  and th two with him.  we knew....and they loaded up all collectors cars.  old new and the first off the line. tons willride moslty adults at firs to the kid hotel. Auto Mile it is a big attractor he says anchor.  and it is massive.  it has tons of his dispensors and it is usually Pennywise Inc most  think it is these here.  and we hear himno wedont care it is not.  huge too and plenty of showrooms andhis ideas, a track to try them and all feed to it....it is massive, tons like it and hit has a main street you go to and from the  track on. and beep and play loud music.  nad more.....huge with ppl huge. they all go and buy tons of things. his cars too are intermingled and are like Tesla, no, same name only branded differently.  he calls them Thor but are not called that  go and see.  he is a genius with marketing with yours s.  genius.   we have our brands too that are intermingled lots buy them we know what to do with the money Apollo showed us. and it is good.  bg runs Willie Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, and he is happy doing it.  has funny costume as he does in the movie and it is geat tey all love it...says try wait thought a few days too.  then vrooooommmmmm  you will wash away iwth customers....wash away..he laughs and booze there too, tons of candy flavored....and mine yes....for those who need health..he laughs....tons of cars all big four.  all fast car makers.  all specialty, alltrucks up to six tons.  and all other means basically, Harley all japanese and all usa ktm and the trke one and the smallco he liked.  asked they sent some....are a huge hit on the strip...he likes it asked to be in the Man Cave....so he did they like seeing him...and he is like this what am i to do it is buietifiul a bueitiful ride lol. ohno fun. and he runs the Hammer the popular Carnival strength test but right in the middle of th man cave you hear the ding and he chose, the prize, a free room.    the Hammer and bell means your the man...and its yourhammer and night etc.  so not many can. bill hit it right away....and preston...have the swing and arc.  tons laughed it is them.  they won.  saw went at it..... thror tried missed came back jacked an hour or two later andwon. got a roomloved the room too had a great time...beer galore the room is setup like a mancave allof them and you can pick Patriots and so on..not just pillows,chairs and tbles lamps andash trays and much much more you can buy thingsin the room too almostany of them.  amarkenting guru but wethougt of that.  he had itfor a while we did too lots of hft so no Movie Casino and of course bob wanted more and gt it, ceo of the movie casino...a real one and ours.  a drive in or three, huge. roller skated servers.....tons of movie theatres like man caves rentable,headlinemovies in the middle, and more...and we see allare in and weheari t cfo is Enzo fromhere.  and John C Rielly is the Ceo  Death Race Casino and Bar and Raw Bar lori runs the latter saki served there too. ahuge track. she is the CEo and it is massive.  tons of space and huge tracks.  massive and weloadedit allin.  tons of it is fromcali.  huge amounts. and down the street all the refinery stuff  and we see t is like howw ilwe and we know how. massive lines to this one folks it is an alltimefav....and weheard this like Arlen Ness they can buy sign certify and race.  tons like it andneeded the break lol..... we outfit them too.  racin gear customized....and a special request for veep, crazy chicken el polloloco heagreed has sharesnow....and knwe who andwas upset allnight...youi can bo buy a car like the transporter had and outfit it using our stuff, and go and race, get up on the board your name too, tons of stars signedonright away most go for hp first and other stuff later, smart if you canarmor as wieght ruins speed and we know it s true tons of drop plates and more...huge with fans.tons see stars buy one and drive it in traffic it is only outfited the day of the race. not before entreing the pit area...you watch it fromabove andtattoed guys there...and Kat von d has a shop there in New Vegas only two shops now are yours s.  one is  a casion it is Shilo’s  but named Saul’s..and is huge.  he is rich already.  tons go there are comfortable... Bar Cafe is huge too it has so many bars you could choke a thousand small ones pubs from allover Earth are replicated he says a bunch are real lots of real memorabilia from Three Cheers and Bullfinch...and more tons of boston bar memorabelia. a realone here and theretoo.  lost fromnh the strip. huge ones there arefrom all over all clean. decon notnecessary...wekeep it allnice. and ahuge beer factory,allcan see andor tour. it is huge samples at each batch.  and are safely handed out.  no trouble pls or arrested...it is easy no thsor that simple rules.  huge vats of beer. huge. tons arrive. and wine halls thatare massive and cigars and bill is ceo. a huge jobhe says i have to count it andmore tonsof things could g wrongor right.  it is hard. like a factory ihadin lewof this beer thing.  so i am disgruntled.  weill lastonly  afewmonths nah he says it willmove...if need be. wesee it hesays. dontlike it. but im the bar restoring guy who never gavehim  abreak got a job ok.  see how itis  Superhero Bar and Casino  tons of cosplay and all workers are in costume some are s some are not real ones and cosplay all have fun and like it.  occasionally Superman shows, looks real form the last movie series Zod too and co all look real helmets and all. ons love it..huge huge conventions now...huge.  allover Earth they show tons of star wars and Darth Maul allover he is athome now it isterrible again. lol.  huge crowds ovewhealm him andhe hisses at them like the real thing would.  they are shocked he moves so fast and they call thiers security always intercepts, he is agymnist and they move on bt mark him up somehow some stick things to him athey did caa.  huge lines there too to get  in get a room or play the outragesou games wonder women is there....and he got it off the Seminoles, who want him to open a branch there a whole branch....Superhero Branch, says ask Uriel on  a seperate occasion they shall...and will. and they laugh ti will sell Vegas but it is a taste of it and they see he gets it. massive cranes get it done and we plan need land andhe sees.  we work now. tons see it more friendly or appearst o be Jurrasic Park and Casino with real dinasours setup like he said vip pay and get a real view.  others the zoo and it has relics there meaning old lions and tigers and bears no Kaiju. it is very tame but holy crap real dinasours..real. and eat large animals that areskinned anddead.  full cows trex swallows one a day. huge ones too.  fullblownsteer. and he eats allday too. snacks. on chickens andmore.  tons seehim andboast i can kill that and more. and wesee....he likes tosee it live.  it is the dinasour....andhe is the LIzard King andhe has justin as Ceo well justin says he is andi s.  and he is Jim Morrison........and he thankshim but no ok lol. movies yes and a few theatres and tons of film like museums and tons of toys and artifacts for sale and viewing real fossils galore tons...and we see. more there now ok he is tired. Thor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=094MOX6ALMc

[josephkitchen0]

Synergy for The Most Profitable Farming

By Ken Johnson Waupaca, Wisconsin

These days, the most profitable farming involves a synergy of economics, land use, and understanding livestock.

Maybe there is a gene in us that tells us there is satisfaction in being self-reliant. For many, if not all of us, there seems to be a certain comfort in the ability to raise and process our own food. It’s like: if other food sources fail at least we have something to eat if we raise our own. For those who do not have access to garden space, they must rely on the efforts of others who attend to seed and soil. Public gardening space (“community gardens”) is an alternative, and for me it is great to witness the trend toward urban style meat and vegetable growing. Raising a substantial amount of one’s own food can go a long way toward relieving a family’s budget. Plus, there are other benefits, like personal satisfaction and even stress relief. It may be a stretch, but wouldn’t it be nice if some two-income families could sustain themselves with one income, a stay-at-home parent, and a productive garden?

I have been a farmer at heart all my life, which has been about two-thirds of a century. Even before becoming a teenager, being raised on a 100-acre farm in northwest Iowa, I realized that farming was in the throes of change. Sometime during the year 1947-48 my parents finally gave up their pair of heavy Percheron horses and bought their first tractor, an Oliver 60. Although kerosene and gasoline farm tractors had been around for some 30 years, workhorses had been around a whole lot longer, and although gasoline wasn’t all that expensive, it couldn’t be raised on the farm. Cars were a different matter.

Nobody went to town in a buckboard anymore. Although there were some huge grain farms around the lower Midwest and some in the far western states, most farm tractors in the middle decades of the 20th century were built for farms operated by individual families. A typical farmer might own one or two horse teams, and the typical farm tractor was built to replace them. They were pulling tractors and often pulled the same equipment that the horses pulled, and tractors didn’t have to be curried down after a day’s work. Innovations did come along for the most profitable farming.

Although the technology had been around for several decades, in 1920 International Harvester put into production a tractor engine-driven “power-take-off” that provided propulsion for harvesting machinery that was previously wheel driven. Other farm tractor manufacturers followed suit. Improvements to PTO systems continued including a separate clutch for independent operation, different rotation speeds, and other innovations.

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The year 1938 saw the inclusion of Harry Ferguson’s three-point hitch hydraulic system on Ford farm tractors. The combination of a tractor with a PTO and three-point hitch system in effect made self-propelled units out of any farm equipment attached to them. Remote hydraulics, which can control a ram for lifting and lowering farm implements from the tractor seat was also a very useful invention. By the 1950s the combination of these inventions and cheap petroleum fuel for the most profitable farming pretty much destroyed the trade in farm horses.

It wasn’t long after Dad’s first tractor that he wanted a different one. He had a nephew who happened to be a farm implement dealer and he sold Dad a newer Farmall C. It had about the same horsepower as the old Oliver and it proved to be more reliable, however, it did not perform well with a two-bottom plow in the heavy soil. One day Dad had delivered a really old McCormick 10-20, probably a late 1920s version. It was a heavy, blocky, vibrating machine. It did have rubber tires though. The fat back tires were of the knobby variety. It had big, wide rusty fenders upon which I could sit as we slowly but steadily plowed the “rounds” (up and back across the field). One round and my entire little body was pretty numb as I recall.

This pair of tractors sufficed for another couple of years, then Dad traded for another Oliver, a six-cylinder model 70 which he kept until we bought a farm of our own in central Wisconsin. This was 1953 and I was 10 years old by then. I was aware of what was happening to farmers around our area. They were getting bigger; farm equipment was getting bigger, and farmers were leaving and/or going broke. My parents and our nearest neighbors, my Dad’s brother and his family, and my uncle’s in-laws who also lived just a couple miles away, all moved, the aforementioned to Minnesota, but we went to Wisconsin. At the time I was of the opinion that it was the cost of the machinery that broke so many farmers and the farmers’ incessant desire to one-up their neighbors with newer, bigger, better equipment and most profitable farming. I may not have been that far off in my assessment.

As the years went on in Wisconsin, we had some learning to do. Dad’s first year of corn turned out to be nothing but nubbins. The sandy loam soil needed fertilizer. The rich Iowa soil needed none. We couldn’t grow 110-day corn either. Eighty-five-day corn with its smaller ears and lower yield were more in order. In Wisconsin we had a small herd of dairy cows and replacement stock, so we had to learn how to fill a silo with chopped corn or silage.

My little brother and I went from a big consolidated school in Iowa to a small one-room country school in Wisconsin. We went from picking corn with a tractor-mounted picker to picking corn by hand, and from using a combine, to bundling and thrashing oats. Dad seemed to take it all in stride like he was in his element, and the rest of us went right along with it. Mom still had her chickens. She milked with a milking machine now. In Iowa, she milked by hand, although fewer cows. In Iowa, my folks had a cream separator, sold the cream and fed the skim milk to the pigs and chickens. In Wisconsin, we sold grade B whole milk in 10-gallon milk cans. We had what’s known as a “general farm.” We had a variety of enterprises: pigs, sheep, chickens, sometimes geese, a huge garden, lots of blackberries, gooseberries, hazelnuts, an apple orchard. We rarely seemed to have much in the way of spending money, but I can’t recall ever wondering where our next meal was coming from. Thinking back on it, we worked pretty hard and long hours compared to what’s expected today, but I don’t think we noticed it back then. Some of my fondest memories are of those days and I only wish I could share them in some meaningful way with all children. How different are today’s “farms.”

There was a time during my teens that I wondered how I was going to get a start in the most profitable farming. I divided farming into separate but related businesses. First there was land; then livestock; machinery; buildings; operating capital.

Capital

First, you will need to raise some capital to buy or leverage finance some portion of your most profitable farming enterprise.

Land was and is very expensive. If you own land, you can rent it out or sharecrop it, but if you do the math, ordinary farmland will never pay for itself, let alone generate an income. Over time your land should increase in value. This is why speculators buy land and drive up land prices beyond the point of anyone making a living on farming it. You can “improve” your land by putting a building on it, such as a house. You’ve got to live somewhere, right? Put a fence around your land, and raise some sheep. The sum of all the parts is usually greater than the worth of the individual parts on their own.

There are substantial up-front expenses when buying land. Can you rent land to farm? Not likely, especially if you are not related to or are a stranger to the owner. I’ve heard of an instance or two where a young person was helped by a relative. One operation rented a large dairy barn from an uncle, and the young woman raised milk cows from calves. The last I heard she was milking 60 cows and growing. She bought all their feed.

Livestock

There’s a lot to raising livestock; there are all kinds of challenges. First you need a place to put them, which requires land and usually some kind of shelter. If you can graze them, so much the better. Buy young stock in the spring, graze them until about snow time in the fall, and market them. Good fences and the ability to rotate pastures is a big plus. Your choice of livestock will determine your profits.

The idea of having to feed grain to finish out livestock has proven not to be absolutely true. Livestock may take a little longer to reach market weight by finishing on forage alone, but the profit margin could well justify the extra time. You can graze sheep, cattle, goats, chickens, geese, ducks, rabbits, pigs and horses. Certain breeds do better on grazing than others. Some pig breeds require grain supplements, others only minimal. There is more to raising healthy animals than just sufficient food and shelter, but that’s a big part of it.

Some countries like Argentina and the U.S. eat a lot of meat, but the trend is changing in the U.S. because of health concerns about cholesterol and heart disease, obesity, diabetes and other issues. Vegetables don’t have cholesterol and have far fewer calories than meat. The more profitable meat animals to raise are currently geese, especially during holidays, and guineas (on restaurant menus). Goat (called “chevon”) and rabbit are becoming more popular, especially in restaurants. Just about any appropriate fish (perch, bass, trout, etc.) raised in tank arrangements is gaining popularity and is apparently lucrative for the moment. These are potential opportunities for the more flexible “general” farm.

There are grazing strategies or synergies that may lend themselves to the most profitable farming. If your grazing land is cross-fenced to allow for rotation grazing, you can graze goats with cattle. The two species eat differently. (Cattle graze while goats browse.) Rotate the cattle and goats out and follow with sheep and geese. Follow the sheep and geese with chickens. Sheep and geese are grazers (geese are vegetarians). Chickens eat almost anything, including larvae left behind by the sheep.

Pigs are a little different. Some breeds are good grazers, especially the heritage breeds like Large Black, Red Wattle and Tamworth. My dad raised Durocks and Tamworths. Tamworths are rooters, which is what pigs with long snouts are supposed to do, but they can also root up fences and invade your neighbor’s garden or get into trouble with your neighbor’s dog. Large Blacks and Red Wattles on the other hand, don’t need such an impenetrable barrier of a fence.

Goats too, unlike sheep, need extensive fencing unless one opts for the Myotonic breed. There are several varieties of Myotonic goats, some small, some with long silky hair. The Tennessee Fainter or Myotonic is the large, muscular meat goat of some 200-pounds, more or less. Texmaster goats are a cross of Tennessee Myotonic and Boer, another meat goat. Myotonic goats have been crossed with all kinds of other goat breeds with no guarantee of the myotonic feature of not being able to jump fences. Such a cross with a dairy goat that could produce a non-jumping, good-milking dairy goat seems to me to be a good idea. Wethers of such a combination might be worth something for meat too. Newborn dairy goat bucks are worth little to nothing to dairy goat farmers. Check Craig’s List, they are often free if you don’t mind bottle feeding them for a month or two.

Sheep come in different varieties, too. Some are raised for their wool, some for meat, some for milk or a mix of the three. Meat sheep can be of the wool variety or hair variety. The hair variety do not need to be sheared. There’s lots of readily available information about sheep.

The wool our sheep produced, without the government subsidy, would have run our operation in the red. The sheep had to be sheared, but there was no market for the wool. Our wool competed with cotton and synthetics and cheap wool from overseas. Cottage enterprises using wool have remained for specialty markets and there is some renewed interest. We need a new use for wool.

Milk from sheep is not yet very popular in the U.S. Commercially, it is usually collected, frozen and shipped to a processor for cheese. Milking sheep can be quite lucrative in the U.S., and sheep are usually a pleasant animal to work with. Milking sheep also are wool-bearing sheep and need periodic shearing. A cross between a hair meat sheep such as the St. Croix and a dairy sheep such as the East Friesian, could produce a high milk-producing hair sheep.

Cattle: dairy and meat choices. Holstein dairy cows dominate the milk industry in the U.S. There are markets for special cheeses made with milk from specific breeds of cattle. Jersey milk is known for its high-fat content in small globules. Jerseys are small cattle compared to Holsteins and are easier to handle. Dexter cattle are smaller still. Dexters are a heritage breed with an interesting history and like Jerseys are very productive for their size. Raising purebred heritage breed cattle can be a lucrative enterprise. Google ALBC (American Livestock Breed Conservancy) on the Internet for heritage breeds.

Learn how you can register the progeny of your purebred bull and grade cows. Raising beef cattle can be interesting too. Dexters are considered to be either beef or dairy cattle. They are a stocky breed, with smaller cuts of meat. There is some interest in miniaturized cattle, but so far I think more as a novelty and not for the most profitable farming. (Some can be quite pricey.) Some meat and some dairy cattle have retained their genetic ability to thrive on forage alone. These are the cattle I am most interested in.

Chickens: We can talk about chickens and other poultry including waterfowl. Eggs have traditionally been very cheap at the grocery store. If you know the story behind most grocery store eggs, you probably feel a bit squeamish about using them. Despite their high cholesterol content, eggs are a convenient source of animal protein and a key ingredient in many dishes, cakes, and breads. There is not much profit in raising chickens and selling their eggs.

The profit from organically produced eggs is only marginally better. If possible, buy from a local producer and buy fresh. I have purchased organic eggs at a supermarket only to have flat yolks and runny whites. Not very appetizing. If you want yolks that sit up and thick whites that don’t run, buy duck eggs. Selling fresh duck eggs vs chicken eggs to bakeries and restaurants can be lucrative.

Factory farm meat chickens do not appeal to me either. The chicken is crossbred to produce fast growing, oversized breast portions. The chicken breasts grow so fast the chicken’s legs and internal organs can’t develop fast enough to support it. Life expectancy of these birds is measured in weeks. A normal chicken can live several years. Do the research, find out the rest of the story behind factory chicken.

Healthy chickens are easy to raise, colorful and fun to watch. Dual-purpose chickens have not been crossbred for heavy breasts and quick growth. You can have both meat and eggs from the same chicken. Just because it says “free range” on the egg carton doesn’t mean the chicken has access to an outdoor environment or pasture. Geese are grass and weed eaters.

Have you priced a frozen supermarket goose lately? Geese used to be more popular than turkeys for holiday meals. They may be somewhat noisy but there is no domestic animal prettier than a flock of geese grazing in a pasture, and the potential for most profitable farming is encouraging. Geese need protection from predators, especially at night.

Organic turkeys are not cheap but still a better value than factory turkeys in my opinion. Guineas anyone? A dark meat bird, guineas are more difficult to raise because they are flighty and may decide the best roosting place is the roof of your house. Having a broody chicken hatch and brood guinea keets can solve several problems. Guineas don’t usually attend to their young like chickens do. Most keets are usually lost if left for their parents to raise them. Keets who think they are chickens behave more like chickens, at least initially. Clipping some flight feathers of young guineas will keep them grounded, but also make them more vulnerable to predators. Guinea meat can serve as wildfowl or pheasant in restaurants.

Buildings

The question becomes, “What am I going to use the building for?” One barn building can suffice for all your animals, or you can build several animal-specific buildings. Even during inclement weather, horses and most cattle can get by with a three-sided structure that faces south or southeast. Highlander and Galloway cattle often prefer to remain outdoors during any weather. Sheep do not like to get wet, especially wool sheep, but they do fine in snow if it’s not too deep.

Buildings can be expensive to build, and then there are the property taxes that also discourage putting up buildings. There is a tendency of late to keep livestock outdoors regardless of the weather, including dairy cows. Such a practice would have been unheard of during years past. Not only do I think livestock suffer while out in inclement weather, they undoubtedly are less productive because what they eat has to provide more energy for just survival alone. All livestock need shelter at least some of the time for protection from the elements or predators.

Ken has a seven-foot International Harvester sickle mower for which he paid $325. He also has a back blade, three-point quack digger, and a few other pieces for the tractor.

Machinery

This may be an area where a beginning farmer may be able to skimp, to achieve the most profitable farming. New machinery depreciates quickly. Older farm equipment may still get the job done and may already be more or less fully depreciated. There is lots of old machinery available at close to salvage or scrap iron prices, and lots of parts available to keep them going. If you don’t mind doing the maintenance, it’s pretty hard to lose a lot of money on old machinery. Fixing up and using old machinery has its own rewards, but if your farming operation is kept as simple as possible, you won’t need a lot of machinery.

As mentioned above, your operation could be as simple as having access to grazing land that is well fenced, buy grazing stock in the spring, graze and water them until the snow flies then sell them. If you would rather not work with animals but like working with machinery, buy or lease some equipment and rent yourself out. You may want to choose between tillage, planting or harvesting. The scale of your operation will depend on your initial resources. Modern tractors used for tillage are all diesels of several hundred horsepower. The tillage equipment they pull is often of the one pass variety and you are done. The concept of no-till has been around for decades where seed drills or planters are designed to work up the soil enough to plant without any other seedbed preparation.

There are a lot of large old 60- to 150-horsepower fuel-guzzling tractors available that represent cheap horsepower. A good portion of these tractors are diesel, which are less costly to operate than gas tractors. Although they can’t measure up to modern tillage horsepower requirements, they are still capable of a good day’s work, and because they can be found for a comparatively small investment, the potential for the most profitable farmimg with them is there. For hobby farmers, smaller tractors are much more practical. One 25hp tractor could suffice for up to about 100 acres. Anything above 45hp is probably overkill. The larger the tractor the more fuel it consumes, so it should be matched to your requirements. New tractors within the above horsepower range may run $15,000 to $20,000, and that might include front wheel assist and a loader. I chose a 1966 Massey 150 diesel with a three-point hitch for $3,600. I could have chosen an older tractor without three-point for less than $1,500. Old tractors look great when they’re all fixed up and painted! They are a part of Americana. (Google “old iron” on the Internet. Check out www.tractorhouse.com and Craig’s List for local sales).

My Hobby Farm

Not long ago I bought 20 acres of beautiful rolling hills in west-central Wisconsin. About 14 acres was rented out for cash crops while six acres remained in a mixture of pine and hardwood trees. The farmland is now in the process of recovering. It is seeded with grasses and clovers. My plan is to fence it and graze it with a variety of animals, mostly of heritage varieties. The wooded area has a sloping southern exposure ideal for a basement building open to the south. My Massey Ferguson has a three-cylinder Perkins diesel engine that is very efficient and so far reliable. I have an old eight-foot Van-Brunt seed drill in good shape that I paid $350 for. Behind it, I pull an old Brillion packer: $150. I have an old Danuser posthole digger: $150, that I reworked for the three point on the tractor. I have a seven-foot International Harvester sickle mower: $325. I have a back blade, three-point quack digger, and a few other pieces. What I intend to buy is some hay equipment: a mower-conditioner or just a conditioner, hay rake and a baler, probably a 4×5 round baler, because they are simple, don’t use a lot of twine and I can handle the haying operation by myself.

As you can see, my machinery is pretty minimal, old and inexpensive. I enjoy working on old machinery. I prefer trailer equipment with a hydraulic lift as opposed to tractor-mounted three-point. Trailer equipment (attachment) has its own chassis on wheels that are positioned at the proper lift and pivot points. When mounted on the tractor’s three-point, the pivot point ( the tractors rear wheels) is in front of the attachment which has to be continually monitored and adjusted for depth etc. With trailer attachments, you just back up, hook on, plug in the hydraulic hose and go. With three-point (or two-point on some tractors) it can be a struggle, especially for one person, to get an attachment mounted. The advantage of three or two-point is the ability to get into tight places. If you have a lot of post holes to dig, a three-point digger is almost a must.

If you are in the market for trailer equipment be aware that older models may have a clutch lift and not a hydraulic lift. Clutch lifts usually work just fine but with a clutch lift the wheels must be turning for the lift to work. If you are plowing with a plow with a clutch lift and you get stuck (hung up on a rock or something) and can’t go forward you will have to unhook the plow and pull it off the rock (or out of the mud or whatever) with a chain. With a hydraulic lift chances are all you have to do to get unstuck is move the hydraulic lever mounted near your seat and the plow pops right up, (you may have to back up a little first).

There are all kinds of older wheeled hydraulic implements available of 1940s-50s vintage. My seed drill has a clutch lift. My quack digger is three-point, but I want to trade it for a trailer type. My sickle mower is the trailer and hydraulic variety and it works just fine. A side-mounted mower is easier to watch because you don’t have to be looking over your shoulder to see it but they are also a pain to mount under the tractor. Once mounted, side mowers are handy machines, they are also not nearly as common as other styles.

One other neat thing about trailer attachments is you don’t need a modern tractor with three-point to use them. Some of the old vintage 1940s and early 50s tractors are simple to work on and fun to drive. Many are available for under $2,000. Salvage price is in the $500–$1,000 range. If the old tractors don’t have hydraulic pumps (and some do) it is possible to retrofit a pump on the front of the engine or on the tractors PTO, or some other place. If you use implements with clutch lifts then you don’t need hydraulics. Some of the old tractors have clutch lifts built on them that raise and lower implements like cultivators and other side mounted or rear mounted equipment.

Ken has an old Danuser posthole digger: $150, that he reworked for the three point on the tractor.

There is a movement today for people who want to get closer to nature and to the food it provides. There are many reasons for this, perhaps the main reason being it’s in our genes. It‘s only been recently in human history that we have separated ourselves so far from the land. My parents were perhaps among the last generation of mainstream general farmers. The last 10 years before he retired at age 70, my dad worked for two farmers who owned or were in control of several thousand acres. These farmers were not general farmers, they were potato and green bean farmers. One of these farmers reintroduced potatoes into central Wisconsin in a big way after previous potato failures had diminished their production for many, many years. As a result, two giant potato corporations from Idaho became interested in central Wisconsin. The rest is recent history. With innovation, it’s not too late for small farms to grow and thrive once again with the most profitable farming.

Whatever turn your operation takes, always maintain a ledger of your expenses. Take encouragement from old-timers like Gene Logsdon who have lived close to nature, and listen to what your own genes tell you about the most profitable farming.

Originally published in the March/April 2012 issue of Countryside & Small Stock Journal.

Synergy for The Most Profitable Farming was originally posted by All About Chickens

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Synergy for The Most Profitable Farming

By Ken Johnson Waupaca, Wisconsin

These days, the most profitable farming involves a synergy of economics, land use, and understanding livestock.

Maybe there is a gene in us that tells us there is satisfaction in being self-reliant. For many, if not all of us, there seems to be a certain comfort in the ability to raise and process our own food. It’s like: if other food sources fail at least we have something to eat if we raise our own. For those who do not have access to garden space, they must rely on the efforts of others who attend to seed and soil. Public gardening space (“community gardens”) is an alternative, and for me it is great to witness the trend toward urban style meat and vegetable growing. Raising a substantial amount of one’s own food can go a long way toward relieving a family’s budget. Plus, there are other benefits, like personal satisfaction and even stress relief. It may be a stretch, but wouldn’t it be nice if some two-income families could sustain themselves with one income, a stay-at-home parent, and a productive garden?

I have been a farmer at heart all my life, which has been about two-thirds of a century. Even before becoming a teenager, being raised on a 100-acre farm in northwest Iowa, I realized that farming was in the throes of change. Sometime during the year 1947-48 my parents finally gave up their pair of heavy Percheron horses and bought their first tractor, an Oliver 60. Although kerosene and gasoline farm tractors had been around for some 30 years, workhorses had been around a whole lot longer, and although gasoline wasn’t all that expensive, it couldn’t be raised on the farm. Cars were a different matter.

Nobody went to town in a buckboard anymore. Although there were some huge grain farms around the lower Midwest and some in the far western states, most farm tractors in the middle decades of the 20th century were built for farms operated by individual families. A typical farmer might own one or two horse teams, and the typical farm tractor was built to replace them. They were pulling tractors and often pulled the same equipment that the horses pulled, and tractors didn’t have to be curried down after a day’s work. Innovations did come along for the most profitable farming.

Although the technology had been around for several decades, in 1920 International Harvester put into production a tractor engine-driven “power-take-off” that provided propulsion for harvesting machinery that was previously wheel driven. Other farm tractor manufacturers followed suit. Improvements to PTO systems continued including a separate clutch for independent operation, different rotation speeds, and other innovations.

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The year 1938 saw the inclusion of Harry Ferguson’s three-point hitch hydraulic system on Ford farm tractors. The combination of a tractor with a PTO and three-point hitch system in effect made self-propelled units out of any farm equipment attached to them. Remote hydraulics, which can control a ram for lifting and lowering farm implements from the tractor seat was also a very useful invention. By the 1950s the combination of these inventions and cheap petroleum fuel for the most profitable farming pretty much destroyed the trade in farm horses.

It wasn’t long after Dad’s first tractor that he wanted a different one. He had a nephew who happened to be a farm implement dealer and he sold Dad a newer Farmall C. It had about the same horsepower as the old Oliver and it proved to be more reliable, however, it did not perform well with a two-bottom plow in the heavy soil. One day Dad had delivered a really old McCormick 10-20, probably a late 1920s version. It was a heavy, blocky, vibrating machine. It did have rubber tires though. The fat back tires were of the knobby variety. It had big, wide rusty fenders upon which I could sit as we slowly but steadily plowed the “rounds” (up and back across the field). One round and my entire little body was pretty numb as I recall.

This pair of tractors sufficed for another couple of years, then Dad traded for another Oliver, a six-cylinder model 70 which he kept until we bought a farm of our own in central Wisconsin. This was 1953 and I was 10 years old by then. I was aware of what was happening to farmers around our area. They were getting bigger; farm equipment was getting bigger, and farmers were leaving and/or going broke. My parents and our nearest neighbors, my Dad’s brother and his family, and my uncle’s in-laws who also lived just a couple miles away, all moved, the aforementioned to Minnesota, but we went to Wisconsin. At the time I was of the opinion that it was the cost of the machinery that broke so many farmers and the farmers’ incessant desire to one-up their neighbors with newer, bigger, better equipment and most profitable farming. I may not have been that far off in my assessment.

As the years went on in Wisconsin, we had some learning to do. Dad’s first year of corn turned out to be nothing but nubbins. The sandy loam soil needed fertilizer. The rich Iowa soil needed none. We couldn’t grow 110-day corn either. Eighty-five-day corn with its smaller ears and lower yield were more in order. In Wisconsin we had a small herd of dairy cows and replacement stock, so we had to learn how to fill a silo with chopped corn or silage.

My little brother and I went from a big consolidated school in Iowa to a small one-room country school in Wisconsin. We went from picking corn with a tractor-mounted picker to picking corn by hand, and from using a combine, to bundling and thrashing oats. Dad seemed to take it all in stride like he was in his element, and the rest of us went right along with it. Mom still had her chickens. She milked with a milking machine now. In Iowa, she milked by hand, although fewer cows. In Iowa, my folks had a cream separator, sold the cream and fed the skim milk to the pigs and chickens. In Wisconsin, we sold grade B whole milk in 10-gallon milk cans. We had what’s known as a “general farm.” We had a variety of enterprises: pigs, sheep, chickens, sometimes geese, a huge garden, lots of blackberries, gooseberries, hazelnuts, an apple orchard. We rarely seemed to have much in the way of spending money, but I can’t recall ever wondering where our next meal was coming from. Thinking back on it, we worked pretty hard and long hours compared to what’s expected today, but I don’t think we noticed it back then. Some of my fondest memories are of those days and I only wish I could share them in some meaningful way with all children. How different are today’s “farms.”

There was a time during my teens that I wondered how I was going to get a start in the most profitable farming. I divided farming into separate but related businesses. First there was land; then livestock; machinery; buildings; operating capital.

Capital

First, you will need to raise some capital to buy or leverage finance some portion of your most profitable farming enterprise.

Land was and is very expensive. If you own land, you can rent it out or sharecrop it, but if you do the math, ordinary farmland will never pay for itself, let alone generate an income. Over time your land should increase in value. This is why speculators buy land and drive up land prices beyond the point of anyone making a living on farming it. You can “improve” your land by putting a building on it, such as a house. You’ve got to live somewhere, right? Put a fence around your land, and raise some sheep. The sum of all the parts is usually greater than the worth of the individual parts on their own.

There are substantial up-front expenses when buying land. Can you rent land to farm? Not likely, especially if you are not related to or are a stranger to the owner. I’ve heard of an instance or two where a young person was helped by a relative. One operation rented a large dairy barn from an uncle, and the young woman raised milk cows from calves. The last I heard she was milking 60 cows and growing. She bought all their feed.

Livestock

There’s a lot to raising livestock; there are all kinds of challenges. First you need a place to put them, which requires land and usually some kind of shelter. If you can graze them, so much the better. Buy young stock in the spring, graze them until about snow time in the fall, and market them. Good fences and the ability to rotate pastures is a big plus. Your choice of livestock will determine your profits.

The idea of having to feed grain to finish out livestock has proven not to be absolutely true. Livestock may take a little longer to reach market weight by finishing on forage alone, but the profit margin could well justify the extra time. You can graze sheep, cattle, goats, chickens, geese, ducks, rabbits, pigs and horses. Certain breeds do better on grazing than others. Some pig breeds require grain supplements, others only minimal. There is more to raising healthy animals than just sufficient food and shelter, but that’s a big part of it.

Some countries like Argentina and the U.S. eat a lot of meat, but the trend is changing in the U.S. because of health concerns about cholesterol and heart disease, obesity, diabetes and other issues. Vegetables don’t have cholesterol and have far fewer calories than meat. The more profitable meat animals to raise are currently geese, especially during holidays, and guineas (on restaurant menus). Goat (called “chevon”) and rabbit are becoming more popular, especially in restaurants. Just about any appropriate fish (perch, bass, trout, etc.) raised in tank arrangements is gaining popularity and is apparently lucrative for the moment. These are potential opportunities for the more flexible “general” farm.

There are grazing strategies or synergies that may lend themselves to the most profitable farming. If your grazing land is cross-fenced to allow for rotation grazing, you can graze goats with cattle. The two species eat differently. (Cattle graze while goats browse.) Rotate the cattle and goats out and follow with sheep and geese. Follow the sheep and geese with chickens. Sheep and geese are grazers (geese are vegetarians). Chickens eat almost anything, including larvae left behind by the sheep.

Pigs are a little different. Some breeds are good grazers, especially the heritage breeds like Large Black, Red Wattle and Tamworth. My dad raised Durocks and Tamworths. Tamworths are rooters, which is what pigs with long snouts are supposed to do, but they can also root up fences and invade your neighbor’s garden or get into trouble with your neighbor’s dog. Large Blacks and Red Wattles on the other hand, don’t need such an impenetrable barrier of a fence.

Goats too, unlike sheep, need extensive fencing unless one opts for the Myotonic breed. There are several varieties of Myotonic goats, some small, some with long silky hair. The Tennessee Fainter or Myotonic is the large, muscular meat goat of some 200-pounds, more or less. Texmaster goats are a cross of Tennessee Myotonic and Boer, another meat goat. Myotonic goats have been crossed with all kinds of other goat breeds with no guarantee of the myotonic feature of not being able to jump fences. Such a cross with a dairy goat that could produce a non-jumping, good-milking dairy goat seems to me to be a good idea. Wethers of such a combination might be worth something for meat too. Newborn dairy goat bucks are worth little to nothing to dairy goat farmers. Check Craig’s List, they are often free if you don’t mind bottle feeding them for a month or two.

Sheep come in different varieties, too. Some are raised for their wool, some for meat, some for milk or a mix of the three. Meat sheep can be of the wool variety or hair variety. The hair variety do not need to be sheared. There’s lots of readily available information about sheep.

The wool our sheep produced, without the government subsidy, would have run our operation in the red. The sheep had to be sheared, but there was no market for the wool. Our wool competed with cotton and synthetics and cheap wool from overseas. Cottage enterprises using wool have remained for specialty markets and there is some renewed interest. We need a new use for wool.

Milk from sheep is not yet very popular in the U.S. Commercially, it is usually collected, frozen and shipped to a processor for cheese. Milking sheep can be quite lucrative in the U.S., and sheep are usually a pleasant animal to work with. Milking sheep also are wool-bearing sheep and need periodic shearing. A cross between a hair meat sheep such as the St. Croix and a dairy sheep such as the East Friesian, could produce a high milk-producing hair sheep.

Cattle: dairy and meat choices. Holstein dairy cows dominate the milk industry in the U.S. There are markets for special cheeses made with milk from specific breeds of cattle. Jersey milk is known for its high-fat content in small globules. Jerseys are small cattle compared to Holsteins and are easier to handle. Dexter cattle are smaller still. Dexters are a heritage breed with an interesting history and like Jerseys are very productive for their size. Raising purebred heritage breed cattle can be a lucrative enterprise. Google ALBC (American Livestock Breed Conservancy) on the Internet for heritage breeds.

Learn how you can register the progeny of your purebred bull and grade cows. Raising beef cattle can be interesting too. Dexters are considered to be either beef or dairy cattle. They are a stocky breed, with smaller cuts of meat. There is some interest in miniaturized cattle, but so far I think more as a novelty and not for the most profitable farming. (Some can be quite pricey.) Some meat and some dairy cattle have retained their genetic ability to thrive on forage alone. These are the cattle I am most interested in.

Chickens: We can talk about chickens and other poultry including waterfowl. Eggs have traditionally been very cheap at the grocery store. If you know the story behind most grocery store eggs, you probably feel a bit squeamish about using them. Despite their high cholesterol content, eggs are a convenient source of animal protein and a key ingredient in many dishes, cakes, and breads. There is not much profit in raising chickens and selling their eggs.

The profit from organically produced eggs is only marginally better. If possible, buy from a local producer and buy fresh. I have purchased organic eggs at a supermarket only to have flat yolks and runny whites. Not very appetizing. If you want yolks that sit up and thick whites that don’t run, buy duck eggs. Selling fresh duck eggs vs chicken eggs to bakeries and restaurants can be lucrative.

Factory farm meat chickens do not appeal to me either. The chicken is crossbred to produce fast growing, oversized breast portions. The chicken breasts grow so fast the chicken’s legs and internal organs can’t develop fast enough to support it. Life expectancy of these birds is measured in weeks. A normal chicken can live several years. Do the research, find out the rest of the story behind factory chicken.

Healthy chickens are easy to raise, colorful and fun to watch. Dual-purpose chickens have not been crossbred for heavy breasts and quick growth. You can have both meat and eggs from the same chicken. Just because it says “free range” on the egg carton doesn’t mean the chicken has access to an outdoor environment or pasture. Geese are grass and weed eaters.

Have you priced a frozen supermarket goose lately? Geese used to be more popular than turkeys for holiday meals. They may be somewhat noisy but there is no domestic animal prettier than a flock of geese grazing in a pasture, and the potential for most profitable farming is encouraging. Geese need protection from predators, especially at night.

Organic turkeys are not cheap but still a better value than factory turkeys in my opinion. Guineas anyone? A dark meat bird, guineas are more difficult to raise because they are flighty and may decide the best roosting place is the roof of your house. Having a broody chicken hatch and brood guinea keets can solve several problems. Guineas don’t usually attend to their young like chickens do. Most keets are usually lost if left for their parents to raise them. Keets who think they are chickens behave more like chickens, at least initially. Clipping some flight feathers of young guineas will keep them grounded, but also make them more vulnerable to predators. Guinea meat can serve as wildfowl or pheasant in restaurants.

Buildings

The question becomes, “What am I going to use the building for?” One barn building can suffice for all your animals, or you can build several animal-specific buildings. Even during inclement weather, horses and most cattle can get by with a three-sided structure that faces south or southeast. Highlander and Galloway cattle often prefer to remain outdoors during any weather. Sheep do not like to get wet, especially wool sheep, but they do fine in snow if it’s not too deep.

Buildings can be expensive to build, and then there are the property taxes that also discourage putting up buildings. There is a tendency of late to keep livestock outdoors regardless of the weather, including dairy cows. Such a practice would have been unheard of during years past. Not only do I think livestock suffer while out in inclement weather, they undoubtedly are less productive because what they eat has to provide more energy for just survival alone. All livestock need shelter at least some of the time for protection from the elements or predators.

Ken has a seven-foot International Harvester sickle mower for which he paid $325. He also has a back blade, three-point quack digger, and a few other pieces for the tractor.

Machinery

This may be an area where a beginning farmer may be able to skimp, to achieve the most profitable farming. New machinery depreciates quickly. Older farm equipment may still get the job done and may already be more or less fully depreciated. There is lots of old machinery available at close to salvage or scrap iron prices, and lots of parts available to keep them going. If you don’t mind doing the maintenance, it’s pretty hard to lose a lot of money on old machinery. Fixing up and using old machinery has its own rewards, but if your farming operation is kept as simple as possible, you won’t need a lot of machinery.

As mentioned above, your operation could be as simple as having access to grazing land that is well fenced, buy grazing stock in the spring, graze and water them until the snow flies then sell them. If you would rather not work with animals but like working with machinery, buy or lease some equipment and rent yourself out. You may want to choose between tillage, planting or harvesting. The scale of your operation will depend on your initial resources. Modern tractors used for tillage are all diesels of several hundred horsepower. The tillage equipment they pull is often of the one pass variety and you are done. The concept of no-till has been around for decades where seed drills or planters are designed to work up the soil enough to plant without any other seedbed preparation.

There are a lot of large old 60- to 150-horsepower fuel-guzzling tractors available that represent cheap horsepower. A good portion of these tractors are diesel, which are less costly to operate than gas tractors. Although they can’t measure up to modern tillage horsepower requirements, they are still capable of a good day’s work, and because they can be found for a comparatively small investment, the potential for the most profitable farmimg with them is there. For hobby farmers, smaller tractors are much more practical. One 25hp tractor could suffice for up to about 100 acres. Anything above 45hp is probably overkill. The larger the tractor the more fuel it consumes, so it should be matched to your requirements. New tractors within the above horsepower range may run $15,000 to $20,000, and that might include front wheel assist and a loader. I chose a 1966 Massey 150 diesel with a three-point hitch for $3,600. I could have chosen an older tractor without three-point for less than $1,500. Old tractors look great when they’re all fixed up and painted! They are a part of Americana. (Google “old iron” on the Internet. Check out www.tractorhouse.com and Craig’s List for local sales).

My Hobby Farm

Not long ago I bought 20 acres of beautiful rolling hills in west-central Wisconsin. About 14 acres was rented out for cash crops while six acres remained in a mixture of pine and hardwood trees. The farmland is now in the process of recovering. It is seeded with grasses and clovers. My plan is to fence it and graze it with a variety of animals, mostly of heritage varieties. The wooded area has a sloping southern exposure ideal for a basement building open to the south. My Massey Ferguson has a three-cylinder Perkins diesel engine that is very efficient and so far reliable. I have an old eight-foot Van-Brunt seed drill in good shape that I paid $350 for. Behind it, I pull an old Brillion packer: $150. I have an old Danuser posthole digger: $150, that I reworked for the three point on the tractor. I have a seven-foot International Harvester sickle mower: $325. I have a back blade, three-point quack digger, and a few other pieces. What I intend to buy is some hay equipment: a mower-conditioner or just a conditioner, hay rake and a baler, probably a 4×5 round baler, because they are simple, don’t use a lot of twine and I can handle the haying operation by myself.

As you can see, my machinery is pretty minimal, old and inexpensive. I enjoy working on old machinery. I prefer trailer equipment with a hydraulic lift as opposed to tractor-mounted three-point. Trailer equipment (attachment) has its own chassis on wheels that are positioned at the proper lift and pivot points. When mounted on the tractor’s three-point, the pivot point ( the tractors rear wheels) is in front of the attachment which has to be continually monitored and adjusted for depth etc. With trailer attachments, you just back up, hook on, plug in the hydraulic hose and go. With three-point (or two-point on some tractors) it can be a struggle, especially for one person, to get an attachment mounted. The advantage of three or two-point is the ability to get into tight places. If you have a lot of post holes to dig, a three-point digger is almost a must.

If you are in the market for trailer equipment be aware that older models may have a clutch lift and not a hydraulic lift. Clutch lifts usually work just fine but with a clutch lift the wheels must be turning for the lift to work. If you are plowing with a plow with a clutch lift and you get stuck (hung up on a rock or something) and can’t go forward you will have to unhook the plow and pull it off the rock (or out of the mud or whatever) with a chain. With a hydraulic lift chances are all you have to do to get unstuck is move the hydraulic lever mounted near your seat and the plow pops right up, (you may have to back up a little first).

There are all kinds of older wheeled hydraulic implements available of 1940s-50s vintage. My seed drill has a clutch lift. My quack digger is three-point, but I want to trade it for a trailer type. My sickle mower is the trailer and hydraulic variety and it works just fine. A side-mounted mower is easier to watch because you don’t have to be looking over your shoulder to see it but they are also a pain to mount under the tractor. Once mounted, side mowers are handy machines, they are also not nearly as common as other styles.

One other neat thing about trailer attachments is you don’t need a modern tractor with three-point to use them. Some of the old vintage 1940s and early 50s tractors are simple to work on and fun to drive. Many are available for under $2,000. Salvage price is in the $500–$1,000 range. If the old tractors don’t have hydraulic pumps (and some do) it is possible to retrofit a pump on the front of the engine or on the tractors PTO, or some other place. If you use implements with clutch lifts then you don’t need hydraulics. Some of the old tractors have clutch lifts built on them that raise and lower implements like cultivators and other side mounted or rear mounted equipment.

Ken has an old Danuser posthole digger: $150, that he reworked for the three point on the tractor.

There is a movement today for people who want to get closer to nature and to the food it provides. There are many reasons for this, perhaps the main reason being it’s in our genes. It‘s only been recently in human history that we have separated ourselves so far from the land. My parents were perhaps among the last generation of mainstream general farmers. The last 10 years before he retired at age 70, my dad worked for two farmers who owned or were in control of several thousand acres. These farmers were not general farmers, they were potato and green bean farmers. One of these farmers reintroduced potatoes into central Wisconsin in a big way after previous potato failures had diminished their production for many, many years. As a result, two giant potato corporations from Idaho became interested in central Wisconsin. The rest is recent history. With innovation, it’s not too late for small farms to grow and thrive once again with the most profitable farming.

Whatever turn your operation takes, always maintain a ledger of your expenses. Take encouragement from old-timers like Gene Logsdon who have lived close to nature, and listen to what your own genes tell you about the most profitable farming.

Originally published in the March/April 2012 issue of Countryside & Small Stock Journal.

Synergy for The Most Profitable Farming was originally posted by All About Chickens