[Farnorthfarmer]

The biggest thing, is to have a plan on how much you want work, grass etc. I just inherited 640 acres and another 160 of bush. The farm was run as a tax write off for my grandfather who worked the oil industry. While i have lived and worked here since 97 i haven’t had a say in how things were done now i have to turn the farm around while dealing with the mentality of it not making money so don’t put money in it lmao strange I know. It is a daunting task when i look at the 640 acres trying to figure out what to plant what rotations etc I would so like to have started with only 20-40 acres. A good but dated book to read is Ten Acres Enough he makes the point that it isn’t how much land you have it it is how much land you can manage and properly fertilize so for me that would be two acres to start lmao.

here is a link to the book http://books.google.ca/books?id=KjsMAAAAYAAJ&oe=UTF-8&redir_esc=y in the top left corner there is ebook -free put your mouse over it than click which version you want to download. I prefer PDF they are savable once they come up and easier to read.

[Farnorthfarmer]

Ah the big can of worms…

no pun intended. We do feed some animal protein to our chickens and pigs. At this time it is the frozen meats that aren’t any good anymore. (ie freezer burn or getting up there in storage years) They also get the left over milk we cant use as a protein boast. I know my wife has talked about this on her chicken forums which have turned into pretty heated debates between the give protein and the they only need plants groups. we are looking into adding some milking goats to our farm to serve the purpose of extra milk for the animals and meat for our dogs to help cut back the dog food bills and some meat for us. We have some pretty step areas here on our farm that my milk cows cant get to but a goat certainly would. we are also looking at stocking our ponds with fish which will be used to make fertilizer and be dried for use as animal protein once we get them going I can let you know how that works out for use.

I agree with raising your own, since one never knows how the animal was raised. As for mad cow it came from feeding sheep brains and spinal bits to cattle, not the meat its self since these were the leftovers from processing. Not sure if it is just me but when I see a kill our in the bush here all I generally see left is the head and the spine so I don’t think nature intended those bits to be eaten… could just be me though????

[Farnorthfarmer]

Hi Rookie, you might want to look at keeping a journal of how you do things on your farm as you gain the knowledge for future farming generations. I am in the same boat you are in. My great grandfather use to farm with horses, raised pigs etc but he passed away before i was even born if he had kept a journal it would have been a huge help to know how he fed etc in our local conditions. sadly my grandparents who farmed with him have Alzheimers and can’t remember it all, I have managed to get some bits and pieces but the loss of know how is pretty great.

[Farnorthfarmer]

@Geoff saltwater cowboy 38033 wrote:

Hi there, I am from a little farther south . I live north of Edmonton near Thorhild . We have shires too about 4 teams so if you are looking for added power we may have a team for sale . We mostly do sleigh rides and a few wagon train trips in the summer . This past summer we did a little trip on the old peace river landing trail from Athabasca to smith. It was about 80 km or so the first wagon train on that trail in over 100 yrs . We like to disc , harrow and sometimes seed with our horses about 10 acres.

Hi Geoff,

I don’t currently farm with horses but want to switch over to them in the next 5 years and would like to go with shires. At some point when I am down Edmonton way, me and my wife would love to meet with you and see your team and talk about farming with horses.

[Farnorthfarmer]

lmao yeah I really wasn’t ready for the snow and we have 4 inches already. Still finishing the new pens for the chickens and the houses for the pigs.

As for plowed acres we would be doing 5-10 acres every 4-5 years here in the yard, I am not really expecting them to plow the larger fields 140-210 acres in size every 4 years I would still be doing that with tractors due to time limits, but having them haul in the round hay bale wagon we have and run the round baler with a pto cart would be nice. I would also be planning to use them for the feed grinding with a treadmill system. I could probably go with a lighter team if I can lower the amount hauled with the round bale wagon. 15 bales 1800lbs each at a time. I would also be interested in using them for some on farm tree hauling and moving wood grainarys around that we use for mobile housing. Lol not quite sure that all made sense if not I can try again.

Hey Roscoe where are you at down south of us?

[Farnorthfarmer]

we are located at Three Creeks Alberta which is north east of the town of Peace River Alberta and north of St.Isidore a small french community *5 hours north of Edmonton*. we are a zone 2b almost a 1 for planting zone. Atleast we still have some trees and not just tundra that is 5 hours drive north of us. lol

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