self sufficient farming and preparing: please help

Wow, that is alot of questions in one post.. so first, hi back attach from small farmer.

I keep pastures, done that can work without electic power if needed, I keep alot of seeds and work yearly on the knowledge on how to seed save, I garden to help with feed cost bills, I breed and butcher based on feed timing, I work a very tight but effect small farm loop, I try hard to have nothing wasted as much as possable.

I don't use gas powered tools now (the odd time I do hire help in the form of a tractor once in a while) otherwise we already do everything by hand or draft power, so we learn the skills now and we know what we need now for "if" that happens, we have the skills and in some cases the strength built up..

You can grow fodder and hay, I don't have the land or time to grow grains.. Winter Grazing is not viable where I live.

I try and keep a vet kit, if you look and track it, most of the time you can get meds/wormers that are good for two to five years and if you work with your vet on this it helps, I will always check dates and I would raither pay extra to have something new brought in with a three year expire date, then buy what is on hand that is going in three or six months..

As for the Vitamins and vaccines, learn what your area needs and if possable breed for health, cull hard, and ideally "if" comes, you will have breed a herd of animals that are strong and healthy without the need for vaccinations, and who do well with herbal dewormers you can grow in the gardens, along with your pastures that are devided so you can roate and use all your pastures in turn for either pasture or as a hay field.. in my neck of the woods normally, we can get three cuts, which means if each pasture is done right, you can grow it out, get one of the best cuts on it, then use it for limited graze the rest of the time.

As for vitamins, feed the soil, so that "if" comes, your soil will feed you for years to come.. that means getting a few tests done, and learn what your land is lacking and start adding it back in now..

Example, the great lakes area used to be called the Goeter belt as our soil lacks idine, but you can build it up in your soil by using different orangic methods, I have started feeding the soils with molassies sprays, green sand and this year I will also be spraying the pastures with raw whole milk as a fertilizer.. The more you feed the soil the better quality your veggies will be..

Go back to growing old hertiage veggies they were much more vit/mineral dense then many of the new ones are.. they have studies this and in many cases as they pushed for this or that in the newer strained they also reduced the health benafits in the veggies themselves..

Example, You can make your own vinagers but you should have the ability to test the acid level and you can use that for your tomato's as well so that you can learn to grow the hertiage ones that are still good in acid content, this will allow you to can much safer in that "if" time then if you are trying to can with limited sugar, salt or no pressure canner for the safer acid levels needed..

Its all a learning curve, just pick the goals for this year and work on them, figure out the basic's and start there, then add in one thing in each area that you have read and then do it, most of the time, you will find that either its bang on, it needs tweeks or it flat out will not work for you..

Better to know that now then when you need it..

Example, I have learned how to make a lovely basic cheese this year that requires NO imputes other then time, age and heat, this is awesome in that we like the cheese but it also means that I didn't have the ability to buy or use stored cheese making strains, I know have the skills needed to make a good product with none of that.

I can vividly remember back in the 1950s at my Grandparents' farm before they had a tractor, they had 2 draft horses, a few cows, a sow/piglets, and chickens ...... as well as a huge garden. They were pretty self sufficient. The horses were the backbone of the farm and earned their keep - they pulled the hay mowers, rakes, hay wagons, plows, etc. They ate that hay during the winter along with the other animals. The cows gave milk, calves = food. Ditto the pigs. Pigs got all the leftovers that were put in the slop pail every day. Chickens gave eggs and meat and ate anything in the summer and farm grown grains in the winter. No vets existed.
Nowadays, sadly there have been several generations who have been raised without the influence of old time farming. Having farm animals is a tremendous responsibility and work.

look up information on;
permaculture
aquaculture
hugleculture

Sepp Holzer, Bill Molenson, and permies.org

watch the movies, Future of Food and Future of Farming
get off the bio energy ride, animals and Permaculture work together great.
That is my future, just need to get over some People hurdles first, some better luck would help to boot.

Look into getting some Woofers to help you out, they work for food and knowledge, also google Farm Helper?? something like that, it is an Ontario Based program. Not sure where your from as you did not fill that part out.
good luck

I'm in agreement with all the above but I also suspect that farming may be your full time profession. Then your question depends on what exactly you are preparing for. A few months of interrupted service for feed and supplies? A hydro interruption for a few days to a few weeks? An all out end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it (TEOTWAWKI)

Preparing for a few weeks is a good place to start. Keeping your supplies topped up and rotated for feed and meds etc. is a great place to start and then start thinking about how you can lengthen that time.

Going back to the old ways makes sense much of the time but I doubt you could make a full-time living like that right now without more people to help as you mentioned.

The advice is the same for whatever scenario you are preparing for. Start small and keep building from there. Take care of the basic things first - waterand a way to pump it or move it without electricity, food systems that make sense for the shorter team first and the longer term later.

I'm looking forward to your participation as you get going!! Please let us know how it goes!

hi all im also new to the prepper network and prepping. im more of the live off the land- be self sefficient in the middle off the woods type. i grew up and live in very rural ns, hunting, fishing and farming. we currently have a 110+ acre farm that has all we need to live off, although i'm a little short on hay land we've got lots of pasture and wood land. i have to admit i never took prepping seriously until 12/21/12 and started watching doomsday preppers, after my two kids were born i started paying more attention to the world's affairs wondering about their future, it was a real wake up call. all though we try to be as self sefficient as we can i can see we need to do more. i look forward to learning as much as i can and mabey contribute some of my back woods knowledge. thanks

Hi, I clipped out your introduction on the N.S. board as it helps fillout a bit more info on what you have right now, in regards to the question above for when folks are reading the thread for the first time, there is small farms (under ten acres) and then there are small farm but you still have all the land you need, its just a matter of figuring it out..

lots of good information there farmgirl, where i live in NS i dont think winter grazing is viable but it depends on how hard the winter sometimes its very mild. i've been a "hobby" farmer all my life, mostly had horses, we are into fiber producing now with our alpaca. they are very easy keepers and we get a great return from them both from their fleece and their fertilizer. i sold my team a few years ago cause i didnt have the time to use them and bought a new tractor cause its faster now i want to reverse that choice and will probaly be getting another team this year and mabey some pigs agine and mabey a cow or two, luckly i keep all my horse drawn equipment. this summer i want to reseed the pasture and will be getting some soil samples done. keep the good ideas coming thanks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hou91pLDvDs Just watched this 8 part series on how they farmed in England during the early 1940's wartime...these 3 historians have done other series as well...good luck!

Yes, Wartime Farm was an exillent series. I recomend it to all

lots of good information there farmgirl, where i live in NS i dont think winter grazing is viable but it depends on how hard the winter sometimes its very mild. i've been a "hobby" farmer all my life, mostly had horses, we are into fiber producing now with our alpaca. they are very easy keepers and we get a great return from them both from their fleece and their fertilizer. i sold my team a few years ago cause i didnt have the time to use them and bought a new tractor cause its faster now i want to reverse that choice and will probaly be getting another team this year and mabey some pigs agine and mabey a cow or two, luckly i keep all my horse drawn equipment. this summer i want to reseed the pasture and will be getting some soil samples done. keep the good ideas coming thanks

Hey CB. How are the alpacas holding up. We were considering lamas but have heard they would have problems with the damp cold of NS. How has your experience been with them.Also, Do you think they could be trained to pull a cart

I’ll weigh in on this as well. I, too, am working toward a more sustainable lifestyle and also survive the coming collapse.

I have to live in today’s world but everything I do on the homestead is with an eye toward putting things in a better position for the future. For example, we are moving away from keeping animals that rely on mostly store bought feed to a more grass-based farm. This means no more hogs that eat $27.00 bags of feed. Our cow lives quite well on grass and stored hay and gives us a calf for beef every year. We do raise meat birds but we also have heritage dual-purpose chickens. We get eggs now and eat the odd cockerel. In a grid down situation the chickens would survive on bugs, grass and kitchen scraps. In the winter we would cut back to a small flock that could survive on scraps, etc. We keep a small flock of sheep and they lamb in Feb/Mar and rely on purchased feed at lambing time. Grid down, we would have them lamb later in the spring when there is grazing available. Also, everything we raise is "for cookin' not for lookin' ". I use the "broken leg" rule. If an animal breaks it's leg, can I butcher it to eat or sell? If it is an animal that no one eats, then it is a dead loss.

I also like to develop the homestead’s infrastructure whenever I can. Water has already been big on my mind. We have a gravity feed system to the house and one of the pastures. I had a well dug by the barn and last year, a pond. The barn well has an electric pump but there is also a hand pump. I’m trying to get all of the “big” work done while I can. That means anything that requires a backhoe or excavator – pond, well, ditches, culverts, concrete septic tank, large corner posts, etc.

I do have a tractor but I like to have a ground drive manure spreader. Ground drive equipment can be hauled behind draft animals. I plan to restore my horse pulled mower so I don’t have swing a scythe post collapse.

I also keep a vet box in my porch. I stock up on needles and syringes, castrating bands, long acting penicillin, vitamins, wormer, iodine, pink-eye spray, mineral oil, etc. Salt is another big thing on my mind. I keep salt/mineral blocks for the animals and at least one 100lb bag of loose salt on hand at all times.

Probably the biggest thing to have is know-how. We’ve all heard folks say that they don’t need to prepare because they’ll just raise their own food or go hunting after the collapse. Well, raising animals is no easy chore. I’ve been raising critters my whole life and still make mistakes and suffer losses. The time to get experience is now.

lots of good ideas being heard, i've been thinking about putting gravity fed water for a while a i guess this summer i'll try and get it done, luckly we own a piece of the south mountain and i've found a few springs the closest being a good 1200 yards. we have lots of water in the pastures just need to hook up the house and barn.
we chose alpaca over other wool producing animals because they are such easy keepers. they dont need to be shut in the barn all winter and eat little "store bought feed" mostly hay. even on rainy or snowy days they'll be outside rather then inside and all they're hay is inside so they must like it out there. we haven't had any issuses due to the heat or humidity, they have to be sheared in the spring or it might be a issue though and you get the wool to turn into clothing. although we haven't tried yet their meat is supossed to be really good, very lean, so they really are a very giving animal. as far as them pulling a cart i dont see why they couldn't be trained to they are very smart critters, you would probably need a driving type harness rather then a work type one. its just like any animal you get out only what you put into them. mabey ill start one of the younger ones this spring, ill let you know how it goes 😀

Thanks guys. Its funny. last night we were actualy having a discussion about only having pigs intead of hay feeders because cutting and storing hay would be problematic and I figured the pigs could be fed on stored squash and apples (cold stored or dried). Yes, a sicle bar is a priority must find for us. I dont think our Massey 35 will handle one of the new versions and have been hoping for one of the old fasioned ground drive...but Ill take what ever works. If anyone knows of one for sale, please let me know

those old ground drive mowers are great we still have our old mccormic-deering but haven't used it for a few years. we use under belly mount sickle bar mowers on our cub and super a and i love them, the knives and guards are interchangable on all three so we all ways have lots of spares (the knife bars are different lengths). one update i made was to use bolts and lock nuts off combine knives so you don't have to try to grind or punch out rivets on broken knives, makes a field repair way to easy. saddly alot of that old equipment was sold for scrap when the prices were high, i had one guy want me to give him my old one just cause "you don't use it any more it just setting there" i didnt make a new friend that day. keep looking you'll find one, even if needs some repair its worth getting, any old equipment is worth keeping just for a spare something someday. yeah i'm kind of a hoarder to i guess, but its all good stuff 😀

Ya, I heard that about them being sold for metal price from a farmer. I almost lost my manly composure right there and then to burst into tears. What a fucking waist of valuable tools that wont be made again. I can envision Road Warrior battles over the last of the old farm impliments. The Lord Humungus rules the Farmland. That must have been some other movie