Chickens

People across the country are concerned with the state of the grocery stores and supply chain. People who previously thought they could get anything they needed from a store, have quickly come to realize that is no longer the case. Shortages of basic necessities are becoming more common and leading many people to think about starting a homestead. But how to start a homestead?

Starting A Homestead

Most people don’t know where to start when it comes to farming, livestock, and other “farming” things. Well, welcome to the club. If you were not born into the lifestyle, and many of us weren’t, starting a homestead can be a daunting task. The good news is when you dive into the world of homesteading you will realize that it looks very different to everyone. Not mention the amount of resources available.

Before You Start a Homestead

“Starting a homestead” doesn’t mean doing everything at once.
It means choosing one system and building from there.

If you’re still figuring out what homesteading actually looks like in real life, start here:
👉 What Homesteading Really Means (and What It Doesn’t)

I talked in another posts that homesteading is a spirit, not a set of hard fast rules. I know homesteaders that live in a subdivision on less than an acre and others that have hundreds of acres. Some people love keeping pigs and some that don’t. We have goats, not everyone likes them. There are no rules to homesteading because homesteading is about independence, not acreage, livestock, and gardens.

Understanding Why You Want To Start A Homestead

I suggest really thinking about the why. Why do you want to homestead? What does homesteading look like to you? Can you do the things that you think a homestead is? What are your current capabilities and disabilities? Can you overcome them? What does the infrastructure of your homestead look like?

Our dream of homesteading started as a cabin in the woods fifteen years ago. As the world around us has changed, so has our dream. I wanted a garden for fresh produce, now I want a garden that will fully sustain us. Livestock? Nah, I’m good with my dogs and cats. Until we saw what the price of meat was doing. Your dreams can evolve and devolve and that’s just fine.

This Is Where Most People Get Stuck

Homesteading only works if you turn ideas into a plan — otherwise it becomes overwhelming fast.

This is the system I use to decide what to tackle first and what can wait:
👉 My Daily Homestead Schedule (What Actually Gets Done)

Let’s Start With Animals

Every new homesteader thinks they have to have pigs, cows, chickens, and other livestock when they start homesteading. We almost fell into this trap and thankfully cooler heads prevailed before we dove in head first. However, we have had our share of Uh-Oh’s and it has been a very expensive lesson to learn the hard way. We weren’t ready for goats and it has been a very steep learning curve. But worth every penny and heartbreak. So start small and grow from there.

Chickens

Chickens are a great way to have that homestead feel, without all the extra work of a homestead. They are relatively easy creatures that don’t require around the clock work. Our chickens are set it and forget it. Once they were out of the brooder and into their coop, they had feed in the morning and night, and free range during the day. They also have access to plenty of water throughout the property. They don’t require a ton of upkeep.

Raising dual purpose meat chickens is also a great way to reduce your dependence on the grocery store without breaking the bank. You can have a steady stream of fresh eggs from hens and butcher the roos for meat. But there are some downsides to raising chickens, like escaping, predators, and getting into your garden.

Meat rabbits are another good animal to have on the homestead. Rhonda at The Farmer’s Lamp has a great post about the ins and outs of meat rabbits. Having meat rabbits allows you to close gaps in your food security and they don’t take up much space. Since it’s hard to automate their care, they are more work than chickens. But once you get used to what they need, it should only take about 10-20 minutes in the morning and evening. We will be adding them to the homestead this fall when its a little cooler. The biggest downside of rabbits is the cuteness factor. Many people will struggle to butcher them because they are really cute.

Goats

Goats are cool critters for the homestead. Unfortunately, I don’t recommend them for beginners. I say this as a beginner who had no clue what was happening and we have paid a hefty price for not knowing what I was doing. The value of learning about them mixed with the milk they give, possible meat, and income from breeding make them a good creature to have when starting a homestead.

If You’re Ready to Start, Start Small

The biggest mistake new homesteaders make is trying to do too much at once.

I start by setting a few realistic, seasonal goals and building systems around them:
👉 50 Realistic Homestead Goals to Start With

What About Gardens?

You do not need a acre garden when you are starting out. Yes, I am currently reminding myself of this right now as I am looking at my garden space, which is almost a half acre. You don’t need a greenhouses or other large, expensive purchases. Start small. Grow your tomatoes and peppers to make your salsa. Plant herbs and keep them alive. Make sure whatever you are planting you have a plan for. If you do not like cucumbers, do not plant 20 plants just because you think you should. Once you have a handle on what your family needs and what your land can produce, then you can start growing the size of your garden.

Learn how to preserve your garden so that you can enjoy your harvests well past summer. If you don’t know how to can, you can check out our canning page or go to YouTube, Pinterest, and Google for amazing resources. Also make sure that you have good storage for your jars of food. There is nothing worse than spending tons of time canning just to have your plastic shelves fail. If you don’t want to can and have some money to burn, invest in a freeze dryer.

Finances

Starting a homestead with no money is just not feasible. Whether you decide to make homesteading your fulltime job or simply a way to live more independently, you need to make sure your finances are in order before you start. Our first year homesteading cost us over $20,000 between buying fencing, animals, lumber, and vet bills. So make sure you have the ability to cover those expenses.

Setting up your infrastructure so that you can reduce costs over time is extremely important to your long term finances.

Your Next Step

If you’re serious about starting a homestead, the first thing you need isn’t land or animals — it’s a plan that fits your life.

👉 How I Structure My Homestead Day (So Things Actually Get Done)

Remember….

When everything is all said and done, you have to remember that starting a homestead comes down to your goals and your ability. You are only limited by your resourcefulness and imagination. There are no rules to what you have to do to be a homesteader. You don’t have to have or know everything to start a homestead. A dream, drive, and determination are all you need to start a homestead. Don’t get hung up on the details.

I hope this helps you start on the path to starting your own homestead. Leave us a comment below on your thoughts of starting a homestead.

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As winter comes to a close, homesteaders and farmers brace for the spring race. The sunshine lasts a little longer each day. Livestock is giving birth. Chicks are in the stores. Plants are ready to be put in the ground. All of this means that homesteaders have a spring to do list that is a mile long. But instead of being overwhelmed by it, we are going to eat an elephant one bite at a time.

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✅ Schedule F Tracker – Simplify tax prep
✅ Profit Calculator – Track earnings
✅ Hay Calculator – Plan livestock feed
✅ Garden Journal – Digital & printable
✅ Herd Health Tracker – Monitor animal care
✅ Simple Budget – Manage finances
✅ Backyard Homestead eBook – Essential tips

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The Spring To Do List

The goal of our spring to do list is prepping for summer, but also deal with all the things that come with spring itself. The reality is that we are just not going to be able to get to some things done once the garden is in full swing. That means that we have to get as much of this list marketed off. But what should YOUR list look like? Below is how we break down our spring to do list into categories.

• Garden
• Livestock
• Poultry
• Clean/ Organize

Everyone’s to do list for spring is different because every homestead is different. Some people focus on firewood during spring, others their garden is their only focus. But everyone can agree, spring is a busy time for any homestead.

The Ultimate Homesteader’s Starter Bundle – Only $47!

Get the tools you need to stay organized, track profits, and manage your homestead with ease!

Includes:
✅ Schedule F Tracker – Simplify tax prep
✅ Profit Calculator – Track earnings
✅ Hay Calculator – Plan livestock feed
✅ Garden Journal – Digital & printable
✅ Herd Health Tracker – Monitor animal care
✅ Simple Budget – Manage finances
✅ Backyard Homestead eBook – Essential tips

$99 value – now just $47! Start your homesteading journey today!

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Spring To Do List: Garden

For us, putting in the garden is the highest priority every year. The first summer we were on our property we couldn’t get a garden in. We just had so many other things going on that it just wasn’t feasible. Last year, we got our garden in, but even with the woven ground cover, there was a ton of weeds. Which is scary because what would it have looked like without it?

We are expanding our gardens this year to include a kitchen garden. The original garden was great and produced a surprising amount of food, but it just wasn’t was I expected. The tomatoes we had just didn’t wow us with big tomatoes or even a decent harvest. BUT we did grow tomatoes which is always awesome. This spring we will be installing our kitchen garden and turning the original garden into our “bulk” garden.

The biggest project for spring in the gardens (after installing the kitchen garden) is to get the pigs and chickens in the gardens and let them root, till, and poop in the gardens. We are hoping that will boost our harvests and keep down the weeds.

We are also going to be starting all of our own seedlings this year. Which is going to be intense and we will probably run out of room in the basement, but that’s ok. We built a greenhouse to hold all the seeds. To put that into prospective, we plan on starting at least 100 tomato plants. Yes, 100. That may seem like a lot, but we eat tomato sauce in some form at least once a week. Then there’s ketchup, BBQ sauce, sloppy joes, etc. We need a ton of tomatoes.

If you haven’t already, I suggest getting your seeds now. You can order online or you can stop by pretty much any big box store and get your seeds from them. Personally, I order my seeds from Territorial Seed Company and Baker Creek. I have also ordered from other sites but I prefer these two.

Spring To Do List: Livestock

Kidding season for the goats is pretty intense. Mainly because I am a nervous wreck. These girls are my favorite and I don’t want anything to happen to them. Plus, getting to see new favorite creatures born is amazing. But to prepare for it takes some effort. On my list is making sure that their birthing kits are ready and I have everything I need.

If anyone is interested, we filmed our most recent kidding. Be warned, it’s a goat giving birth so it’s pretty graphic. Bella gave us two beautiful babies; Mavrick and Goose. We will be retaining both of them and I’m so excited!

Spring To Do List: Poultry

Chickens, ducks and turkeys get their own category because we are placing a HUGE order this spring. We are talking 60 laying hens, 100 meat chickens and 15 turkeys. Why?

****Spoiler alert**** There are cons to raising chickens…. Just so you know.

We have had a lot of issues free ranging the chickens. The chickens will wonder off or we can’t find their eggs. It’s been one thing after the other. My previous flock of 60 chickens and 25 ducks is now down to 16 chickens and 9 ducks. Though we did butcher 6 meat ducks. So I have to get the various brooders ready to go for them.

I’m going to do a blog post on why free ranging the chickens didn’t work for us and what we plan to do different this time. But the reality is that true free ranging has cost us a TON of money. Between the initial costs of buying the chicks and then having to rebuy plus the lost income of selling eggs and chicks? It’s sickening how much money was spent or lost. So we are working on some strategies to stop the bleed.

Because we are raising some chicken for friends and family, we are going to be raising 100 Freedom Rangers. We realized with our last batch of crosses that we just weren’t feeding them enough which led to them not gaining enough weight. That led to us having to wait to butcher them, making the meat tougher. This time we plan on moving them to a different area that is full of bugs, grass, and other yummy treats as well as feeding them all the feed they want.

The goal is to get all of this done before summer really kicks in but we will see what happens.

Finally, We Clean and Organize

This is another long spring to do list for our homestead. We have slowly but surely been working on getting the property cleaned up and things moved around. It’s been a long process. We usually wait until fall/ winter to start working on the outside because the weeds and grass will hide a lot of the debris. When all the grasses die back, we can find these things and get them in the pile for trash.

Come spring, it’s the final push to get the unusable stuff off the property. Also on our spring to do list is gutting the basement to allow us to get our food storage room built and the rest of the animal storage done. It’s a tall order.

Also, I am a terrible cleaner. I have ADD and I go through crazy, spastic cleaning urges and everything MUST BE CLEAN. And then I squirrel out or get too busy and the house cleaning falls apart. Every late winter/ early spring, I try to get as much of the house cleaned and organized. I know as soon as summer hits, I’m going to be in the garden.

These are just some of the things we are doing this spring on the homestead. I would love to hear about what you are doing!

If you like the content I put out, feel free to buy us a coffee! It helps keep this site running, marketing and the goats in grain!