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Review Of: Grow Your Soil

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I’ve told y’all many times that I am a soil nerd. I find it absolutely fascinating that you can go from poor soil to dark, rich soil in a season or two just by caring for the soil! The problem with a lot of books about soil is that they are DRY. If you aren’t interested in or have a decent foundational knowledge of biology and chemistry, you will struggle reading most books about soil. But Diane Miessler NAILED IT in her book Grow Your Soil.

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My Thoughts On Grow Your Soil

First things first, the way that Diane writes is very similar to how I write, and therefore read. I was able to finish this book in about 2 days of completely uninterrupted reading. Well, except for sleeping. This book was a VERY easy read with a ton of really helpful tips and tricks for you to try in your own garden.

Diane’s Writing Style

The ease of reading makes this book not only an easy read, but allows you fully capture what she’s trying to tell you. As you’re reading, it really feels like you are hanging out talking to her. She has a sense of humor that comes through in her writing.

Also, she doesn’t use big, huge concepts and hard to understand words. While I’m not saying that it’s “simple”, this book is formatted for ANY gardener to enjoy it. I think this is very important when it comes to getting people to understand that building soil isn’t a complicated topic.

The Main Points

I don’t want to ruin the book for anyone, but I feel like hitting the high points would be beneficial if you are looking to purchase the book. Diane’s main points are:

Bring organic matter to the soil

Stop or limit use of inputs like pesticides and fertilizers

Cover crops are our friends

This is something that is echoed through every single book that I have read in regards to bringing your soil back to life. But one of the things that I really liked about Diane’s book, and her message was that it is more geared to the home gardener than Gabe Brown’s book Dirt to Soil, you can read my review on his book here.

While I really enjoyed Gabe’s book, it was harder to figure out how that works on a small scale farm or homestead. While we have acreage here, most of my garden space is in raised beds. I am able to put his teachings to work on my pastures with more success.

In Diane’s book, I feel like the information is actually geared to my garden space and what I am able to accomplish, which was great.

Where To Buy Grow Your Soil

I purchased my copy from Amazon, linked below. I’ve mentioned in the past that we don’t have a fantastic book selection in my town so I get most of my books from Amazon. You can also purchase from Barnes and Noble at $16.95 as of this writing.

I’m sure you could buy this book at a second hand store, but I can’t tell you that for sure.

What are you doing to actively grow your soil?

Let me know below what you have found that works well for building your soil!

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Building Your Legacy: Leaving Your Mark On YOUR World

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When I was in school, there was this hype of “You can be anything you want to be”. I had thoughts of being President of the United States. Or maybe an astronaut. But I never really figured out what I wanted to do. Even now, in my 30’s with a great career, I just want to retire. I want to leave the rat race and homestead full time. Over the last handful of years though, the thought has shifted from what do I want to be when I grow up to asking myself: How are you building your legacy?

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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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Building Your Legacy

I think the first step in building your legacy, is to look at the definition of legacy. I pulled this definition from the Oxford dictionary.

noun

  1. an amount of money or property left to someone in a will. “my grandmother died and unexpectedly left me a small legacy.”
  2. the long-lasting impact of particular events, actions, etc. that took place in the past, or of a person’s life. “he left us a rich legacy of buildings that are both innovative architectural creations and genuine works of art”

For some families, the legacy is being in law enforcement or military. For other families, it’s cycling addiction and abuse. And for me, it’s the dreaded 9-5 and grocery stores.

What Was Passed To Me?

The legacy that was passed to me is the typical American legacy. It was working 40 hours a week in a job that you like just enough to keep going to. Or the feeling of being stuck in a job because you don’t have the time, money or education for something different. It was going grocery shopping at a big box store with labels, directions for cooking, and packaging galore. It was sending your kids to school to get an education that they could take to their 40 hour a week job. It was expected that I get a job at 13 and work as much as possible, or as much as my family could get me to that job.

Beyond the typical legacy, my love of creating came from the women in my life. I learned how to sew from my mom. I learned how to crochet and knit from my grandmother. My love of photography came from my aunt.

But I’ve never been one to do what I’m told. I’ve been accused of not listening or following direction on MANY occasions. And most of the time, it wasn’t in a good way. I am pure frustration for anyone “in charge” of me or any rule follower teaching me how to do something. Being a rebel has a lot of up and downsides. So those skills I picked up from my mother, grandmother and aunt were expanded upon by going further down the rabbit hole on my own.

Wanting Something Different

I’m an observer. I see what other people do, how they do it, and most importantly, how they LIKE it. Then I take that observation and pull it into whatever I’m doing. I saw what the 40 hour work week was like and knew I didn’t want to work 40 hours a week and only see my kids and husband a few hours at night. Being stuck inside 4 walls, without the ability to escape when I need it, causes HUGE amounts of anxiety. There HAD to be something better than packaged food from the grocery store. I wanted something different.

I am a VERY independent 4 year old trapped in a 34 year old body…. with access to the bank cards.

The legacy I want is handed down recipes. I want second and third generation cast iron. I want generational knowledge of gardening, canning, animal husbandry, and working WITH nature. And I KNOW it sounds spoiled but I desperately want to learn these things at my family’s knee instead of the internet.

If you are new to heating with firewood and are looking to master the finer points of it. We’ve got a great eBook that goes in depth of what tools you should consider, how and where to stack, how to build a fire and so much more!

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So we started building our legacy

Building your legacy doesn’t always start with a radical shift. Sometimes, it’s just one thing. It’s prioritizing family over work. Or making family meals every Friday night. Sometimes something small is enough to get you moving in the “right” direction for you to build the legacy you want.

Your Legacy Is In Your Hands

We definitely broke the mold over the years.

Since we were a young family and Jared was in the Army, I stayed home with the kids. My cooking skills grew and I no longer had to buy Bisquik to make pancakes. I got a job where I could work two days a week and bring home a full time paycheck. A job allows me to homestead and homeschool while earning a paycheck.

Jared broke the cycles of addiction.

We are creating a legacy of skills, hard work, and independence that our boys can take to their own families.

Do I expect them to be paramedics? No. In fact, I don’t want them to be paramedics. This job is HARD. But I will support them no matter what they decide to do.

Do I expect them to go into the military? No. Again, I don’t want them to. But if that is what they decide, I will support them.

Do I want them to have a homestead? Yes. Because then I know they will be able to take care of themselves and their families. But if not? That’s okay too.

Do I want them to homeschool their kids? Meh. It’s what worked for us.

Before we get too far into this, I have a great course on the basics of goat care. I call it Goat Crash Course: Goat 101. In this course, I explain things like types of shelter, types of feeds and hays, basic assessments and so much more! Check it out!

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So What Is My Legacy?

I don’t know, yet. I know what I want my legacy to be. I want my legacy to be a person who is supportive of not only my family’s endeavors and decisions but my own. I want to raise boys who are good and capable men. I want my family to be able to grow their own food, raise and butcher their own animals, and be good stewards to the resources they have been entrusted with. Whether they do those things or not is irrelevant.

I want my children and grandchildren to know that I will pass down second or third generation cast iron. I will teach them how to cook from the heart and not a book. I will always be willing to teach them the skills that I have learned so they don’t have to learn them from the internet. They will learn how to raise and butcher animals. They will know how to put in a garden.

But most importantly, when I die, I know that I did everything I could do to raise a family that doesn’t roll over when things get hard. I know that I have taught the next generation skills that will help them thrive no matter where they find themselves.

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!

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Review Of: Dirt to Soil

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As always, when I do a review, I am going to give you my honest opinion of every book, tool, and product that I do. Reviews do no good if they are not real. I recently reached out to a homesteading Facebook group in search of a couple books about building good, healthy soil. Man, did they deliver! The first book is Dirt to Soil by Gabe Brown.

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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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Why I Read It

I absolutely love all things soil and biology. We are also working with Georgia clay in our gardens which is causing a far amount of issues with it. The soil in our big garden is very compacted in the areas that we haven’t covered it. We’ve had a ton of issues with the soil this summer between soil and water run off, compaction, and stunted plants.

So my goal was to spend this winter learning as much as humanly possible about soil. My first question is why is my soil not great. The second was what can I do to fix it. So off I went in search of a book that could answer those questions but also the more technical questions about the biology of soil.

I already knew we had clay soil, but…

I didn’t realize that I could “fix” it so quickly! I thought it would take years and years to properly build up my soil. I had considered that we were going to have to bring in a lot of inputs to get the soil back to a place where it was healthy.

But after hearing a ton of horror stories about toxic compost, I am really leery of bringing in soil or compost from outside sources.

Save on Seeds

I already knew that we could use the animals to work with us to bring our 8.5 acres back to life. But I wasn’t sure how to do it exactly. I knew that we could rotate the pigs through areas to root the soil and break it up. Doing this would allow organic matter to get into the soil. We could also seed the areas that they had worked and pray that we could keep the chickens and goats out of the seeds.

But nothing we were doing actually worked. We really struggled to hone in on the finer points of building soil.

While the book doesn’t offer clear, concise, step by step instructions on HOW to build soil, Gabe DOES give his 5 soil principles as well as a very thorough recounting of what he did. He even goes in depth about how he has made his farm profitable. Giving a little bit more interest and insight on how to make a homestead or farm profitable.

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Where To Purchase

I purchased my copy from Amazon because it’s what’s easiest for me. However, I found it at Barnes and Noble for close to the same price. Sadly, we don’t have bookstores that are local to us, so Amazon tends to be where I get the majority of my books.

How The Book Reads

I love the style of the writing in this book. It’s very conversational and Gabe walks through how he got started on his farm. As the book moves through, he not only tells you how he did it, but gives the basic foundation for what you can do.

There is an amazing compilation of science, experience, and options for you to try as well. But the foundation stays the same. Follow these principles, experiment, and watch your soil grow.

One of the things I didn’t like was the constant “you can do it too”. Now, I understand completely that the book is not necessarily meant for the small homesteader. It ABSOLUTELY applies to us, but I am already interested in regenerative farming and hearing again and again that it can work for us was slightly annoying. Not enough to discredit what he was saying but enough for it to be redundant.

My Take Away’s From Dirt to Soil

There are 4 main points that I took away from Dirt to Soil, though they aren’t in any specific order.

Cover Crops

I knew the importance of cover crops, but couldn’t wrap my head around exactly how to do it. Do I plant things I can harvest? What if I still need that space? Which crops do I plant? Isn’t the soil still going to be bare in the winter when the plants die back? Won’t I have to remove the cover crops when I plant for spring/summer? Gabe answered most of these questions in his book.

Tillage Kills

There is a lot of satisfaction when tilling because you can see that beautiful soil (or clay in my case) break up and see the bed take shape. Except, I always struggled because I knew earthworms are GREAT for a garden, but I was rending them into pieces every time I tilled. So how do I create beds that don’t require tilling but keeps the soil healthy and beneficial critters happy? Simple answer? Stop tilling, start using cover crops, limited to no inputs.

Building Soil Is…. Easy?

I figured this out when I started using our animal bedding as compost. Within a few months of using the animal bedding, I noticed that had actual soil in my beds. Now, I had added top soil to my beds when we created the kitchen garden. But I found actual soil when I started planting for fall!

Use The Animals

We have been using the pigs and the chickens to work the soil and it’s been working pretty well. But one of the things we have been “struggling” with is that we let the goats and chickens free range. We had not truly been practicing rotational grazing. Sure, we rotated the chicken tractors through the gardens but we never really did much with them or the goats.

Save on Seeds

My Garden Process After Reading Dirt to Soil

My garden process now is actually quite simple: animal bedding to compost over time, a couple inches of compost or top soil, plants, then mulch. When the bed is done producing, we cut all the plants down and lay them to the side. If we are “done” with that bed for a season, we add a cover crop then put the plants we cut and put them over top as mulch.

Once the cover crop has been established, we let the goats go through and eat down an area. Then we put the pigs through, and finally the chickens. This process has been amazing because the goats cut down and tamp down the crop. The pigs tamp it down more, and eat closer to the ground. Finally, the chickens come through and peck through the poop and spread it. They also eat all the bugs and parasites. This has GREATLY dropped our need for dewormers.

The following season, when we are ready to plant, we chop and drop the cover crop. Usually, we will use the cover crop as mulching until it fully composts down.

This process has been working well for us and I’m excited to see what happens in this summer when we plant the big garden!

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The Real Homestead

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As the years have progressed, there has been a huge influx of people wanting to homestead. Which I am ALL FOR! I think it’s absolutely fantastic that we have people rushing out of the cities and onto land. Or turning their lawns into food, either for themselves or pollinators. I love the fact that we have people that are wanting to grow their own food, preserve it, and get away from the overprocessed life. But I’ve got a really big problem when I see the content that people are making and it’s these carefully curated posts or reels. It’s not a real homestead!

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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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Why Is It Not Real?

This blog post has been on my mind a lot over the last couple of months. To be honest, I wasn’t sure how to write it without sounding judgmental and nasty. While that is not my intent, I feel like I am seeing so many more posts about “I can’t do that because… insert reason here” and it absolutely breaks my heart. And I’ve had enough.

While I know it’s not great for my sleep habits, I scroll TikTok and Instagram at night. I have seen a ton of these carefully curated reels of homesteads and gardens. I see women and little girls in these prairie dresses picking vegetables from the gardens or collecting eggs. Men and little boys working a tractor or building a barn in perfectly crisp wranglers and a pearl snap button down shirts.

Or I see designer chicken coops with perfect eggs and chickens that don’t escape their run. A beautiful garden that has not a single pest, bruised leaf or dropped veggie. Perfectly cropped lawns with beautiful houses.

And I want to scream from the roof tops, IT’S NOT REAL!

Go check out my Instagram feed, I’ll wait.

What you see on my profile is the real stuff. Sure, I try not to get the trash pile from clearing the land or burn pit in the pictures because who wants to see my amazon addiction. But I will gladly tour my homestead and show you the REAL homestead. The one where the chickens have pooped on the deck and I’ve not had a chance to get it cleaned off.

Or the real homestead where Jared is building my greenhouse and there is paint EVERYWHERE. There are piles of scrap wood that needs to be close to the greenhouse for some reason or another.

The fallen trees that we won’t take care of in the summer but will work on in the fall or winter. The goat barn or hay shed that is absolutely not designer. It’s REAL!

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy those reels because it’s visually pleasing to watch. It’s amazing to dream. But if THAT reel is why you want to homestead, keep reading.

Why Does It Make Me Mad?

It absolutely infuriates me when I hear new homesteaders that are upset that they can’t start their garden because they think they have to have perfect garden beds. Or they give up hope because they saw a TikTok that showed an obviously manufactured chicken coop and run, and they don’t have enough money to buy one.

Content creators are taking the spirit of homesteading out of it and creating this world where people don’t want to try because they think they can’t afford to homestead the way they see on reels. Or they are making people believe that what they are showing is what homesteading is. And people give up before they even start. And that breaks my heart.

Save on Seeds

I could spit nails when I see someone say they just popped out to harvest a couple things from the garden in their white linen dress. They are making a from scratch meal with their fresh bread made from their sourdough starter.

Let me tell you this, that is not what homesteading looks like.

Not a single person would be caught dead wearing WHITE LINEN in their garden, at least not to harvest anything.

I can just imagine wearing a white linen dress, dodging the pigs that have found a mud pit on my way to the garden, dogs playing and the chicken poop on the walkways. While in there, I am having to hold my dress up so it doesn’t get caked with Georgia red clay and trying to harvest a couple of tomatoes, squash or melons. All while knowing I should have brought a basket (and I always forget one) because my dress doesn’t have POCKETS! It’s freaking hysterical! Mainly because I don’t even own a dress.

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Let’s not mention that my fresh bread rarely looks Insta-worthy, though it’s pretty delicious. And my sourdough starter jar is NEVER clean. In fact, it’s usually caked in starter residue from it overflowing the jar.

But you know what my homestead is? It’s the place that I don’t have to pretend. And I am honored by that.

What Is A Real Homestead?

So if those reels are not entirely accurate, what is a real homestead?

It’s a spirit of self sustainability. A person or family that simply wants better, not just for themselves but for their food, animals, community and the earth. It makes you FEEL every time you step outside.

It’s a perfectly ripe tomato on a hot summer day.

It’s the cry from you and a brand new baby goat that you had to pull from momma.

It’s humanely butchering an animal that has been loved and taken care of from birth.

It’s watching your kids come to you, absolutely filthy, holding a frog, snake or lizard they found.

It’s sitting at the dinner table, talking about your day with those that share what you hold so dear.

It’s creating a legacy were you previously didn’t have one.

It’s slow dancing with your partner in the kitchen while dinner cooks on the stove.

It’s watching your sons learn how to be capable men.

It’s watching your daughters learn to be capable women.

It’s working with nature to bring forth the harvest.

It’s freezing nights in a barn with a momma who is scared.

It’s bringing animals into the house because they are hurt or sick.

It’s NOT asking why there is goat vomit on the ceiling, a duck in the bathtub, or a chicken perched on the shower rod.

It’s syringes by the sink and hay in your hair.

It’s flies in the house, poop on the deck, broken eggs and hearts.

It’s a tearful good bye to a beloved animal.

But most of all, it’s this soul soothing, living and breathing thing that brings us back to nature in a way that a weekly hike or walk through the park just can’t do. It’s something that no content creator can make you feel.

It’s a deep breath and a weight off your shoulders when you realize that more doesn’t equal better.

While I am not a country fan, like at all, because heavy metal is life in this house. I have to appreciate what Zack Bryan said in Fear and Fridays….

“I’ve learned that every waking moment is enough and еxcess never lеads to better things, it only piles and piles atop the things that are already abundantly in front of you like breathing and chasing and slow dancing and love making, fighting and laughing“–Zack Bryan (Fear and Fridays)

My Dearest Homesteader In The Making

I beg you not to look for your life on social media. It doesn’t matter if you are a homesteader or not. The internet is not honest. It’s brief snippets of life, whether real or created. But YOU are real, your dreams are real and you will create YOUR real homestead.

So buy that property, make it YOURS. Make mistakes and learn from it. Dig into the dirt, and feel. Feel every single possibility and make it YOURS.

“Save it with the blame game
I’ve heard it all before
Ain’t nothing holdin’ you down
‘Cept your own feet on the floor
So go on, roll your sleeves up
Put your hands down in the dirt
It’s alright to follow your heart
And take what you deserve” –Charles Wesley Godwin (Here In Eden)

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10 Things To Start Preparing For Winter

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I know, I know! It’s only September. BUT you can never be too prepared, especially when you have lives depending on you. Here in north Georgia, it’s 90*+ and it feels like winter is forever away, but trust me when I tell you, it’s all down hill from here. The leaves are already starting to fall, albeit one at a time. The mornings are cooler and though it’s still hot, it’s not as unbearable. So I figured I would talk about the things we are doing now, to prepare for winter.

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!

Buy Now

Preparing For Winter Is Easy…When You Do It Early

First thing is first, go ahead and make a list of all the things you think you’ll need. Then check it against my list and maybe google some other blogs like Southern Dreams Homestead, The Homesteading RD or The Farmer’s Lamp to help give you a few more ideas. Below is simply part of my list that I think everyone could benefit from.

The List

Firewood!-Seriously, if you haven’t started sourcing, chopping or collecting firewood, stop everything and go do it right now. Like, now. If you haven’t been able to get around to it, make the time. You still have some time to get a few cords chopped and drying if you make it a priority. You can check out our latest eBook Heating With Firewood to help get you started.

Also, check around with neighbors or even different market places. You may find that someone has a tree they need cut and hauled away. Easy firewood. You can find a small electric log splitter less than $300 or even a big gas powered one for less than $1,500

I’m going to throw candles in here too. A small tea light candle can heat a small room for several hours. It can even cook food when placed in terracotta pots. So maybe having a million of these little buggers around would be a good idea too.

Pantry Restock– I go through my canning inventory sheets and check it against my shelves in the basement. I restock our pantry/ food storage room quarterly. That means that I go through and find all the things we have used or are running low on and make a run to the store. This tends to be a big haul for us and has things like toilet paper, laundry detergent, etc. But you don’t want to find out in the middle of a snow storm that you’re out of toilet paper. If you don’t have a place to store it, check out Home Depot for wire shelves or check out my post on our shelves.

Canning– The entire month of September, I am canning the last bit of the summer garden and soups. I will put up about 300qts and 200pts of soup to prepare for winter. The way I see it, if the power goes out, I can still heat soup on my wood stove. If you haven’t already, check out The Canning Diva’s cookbook. She has a ton of amazing soups. This book is my holy grail for soup season.

Coffee– If you are a coffee drinker, go ahead and can several quarts of coffee. I know, it sounds crazy, but when our power went out last year, guess who didn’t have coffee? So yea, can a couple quarts. I waterbath can my quarts for 20 minutes. Now, I can just heat it in a pot on the stove. I’ve also got a great recipe for homemade creamer too.

Extra Blankets– We have a million blankets and every year, I am tempted to throw out half of them. BUT it’s nice having the ability to close off rooms, layer up, or even insulate freezers if necessary. Not to mention if livestock needs to come inside because it’s freezing or they are injured.

Finn had to come inside when he busted his shoulder.

Portable Battery Banks– We have a bunch of these guys around and they are really handy to have. When the power goes out and the boys last device is dead, this thing saves my sanity. Plus, we can hook it up to our kitchen radio and still have news updates and more.

Animal Feed– This isn’t just Fido’s dog food. If you have any kind of livestock, now is the time to make sure you are sourcing enough for winter. For us, that means finding enough hay to get through the winter. It also means sourcing grain, alfalfa pellets, and other miscellaneous food stuffs they need.

The Hay Calculator:

If you aren’t math-y (don’t worry I’m not either), check out our Hay Calculator. It literally does ALL of the math for you and gives you totals based on what you want your goals.

On the second page, you can track where you’ve bought hay, what you spent and how long it lasted.

Buy the Hay Calculator

Animal Bedding– Don’t forget their bedding! While it doesn’t get super cold in Georgia, it does still get cold. And wet. So make sure that you’ve got some form of bedding for them. We use the deep litter method and pine shavings. The deep litter method really helps insulate them in winter and helps keep them off the cold ground. We also spread Diatomaceous Earth between layers to help keep down bugs. Again, it doesn’t get super cold here so winter Lice/Mite infestations happen. The great thing about it is we can use all that bedding as compost in the spring!

Emergency Medicines/ First Aid– This looks different from homestead to homestead, but having the ability to treat various illnesses or injuries is extremely important. I talked about the basics needed to care for goats but you also need to include yourself here. Sometimes band aids just aren’t going to cut it. You may need sutures, super glue, etc to close lacerations. Or when you’re animal suddenly develops pneumonia, having the ability to treat that without calling for a vet is a huge time and money saver.

Something to alleviate boredom– It’s true. The hustle and bustle of summer makes way for a slower winter. Maybe not 100% of the time, but more often than not, the weather keeps us inside. Extreme weather could keep us inside for days. I am a bookworm and have at least twenty books on standby waiting to be read. But my boys and Jared are not so lucky. We have games, puzzles, cards and more. They still refuse to let me read, but at least they have something to do.

Tractor Supply

Preparing For Winter

I hope this helps you start preparing for winter at least a little bit. This is not an exhaustive list by any means, but it is a start. Only you know what you are going to need to get through the winter. And while this may be your first winter on a homestead, it’s not your first winter. So get a list going and start stocking up!

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Animals For New Homesteaders

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Welcome to the homestead family! It doesn’t matter if you are on less than an acre or have 200+, you are welcome here. At some point, you will want to get some animals for your homestead, whether that is a couple chickens, a cow or two, or maybe just a good farm dog, it doesn’t matter. I wanted to give you my picks for animals for new homesteaders and why.

animals for new homesteaders

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Setting Yourself Up For Success

Before we can get too far down the rabbit hole of what animals you should get, I think we need to first start with what your goals are for your homestead. If you go through my posts on this website, you will find that I am extremely goal oriented and tend to be pretty obsessive about it. I have good reason for it.

If you don’t know what a successful homestead looks like to you, you are going to spend years chasing your tail before you ever hit the first goal. When we start adding animals to our homestead, we are adding more financial strain to the budget. While a bag of feed here and there may not seem like a lot, it adds up really quick. Especially in winter. So be aware that what seems like not a big deal now, could end up being a big financial and emotional deal later.

Which Animals For New Homesteaders?

Now that we have cleared up the fact that you should WAIT before adding animals to your homestead, even though we all know you’re not going to. Let’s start looking at some different animals to bring to the homestead and their uses/ purposes. PS, this list is going to include some things that are not livestock, but bear with me you will see what I’m talking about in a minute.

I want to add a disclaimer here. You and your homestead are YOURS. I practice the your kitchen, your house, your land, your rules. These are my thoughts and feelings. You may not agree with what I am saying and that is absolutely ok. I am not saying you HAVE to get these animals or feel/think/do what I say. So please keep that in mind as you read through this blog post.

Dogs

To be clear and transparent, on a homestead, a small dog is usually a vulnerability because of predators, risk of injury from livestock, and costs associated with caring for a pet vs a working dog. It’s the reality. I’m not saying you can’t have a small dog, but you do need to be prepared for predation.

There is a difference when dealing with dogs on a homestead. You’ve got your farm dog, your working dog, and your livestock guardian dog (LGD). These are 3 completely different dogs and should be used accordingly.

All 4 of my dogs are farm dogs. Their job is to raise the alarm if a predator is close, keep the pigs off the porch, and to hang out with the family. Bear’s only job is to make me happy, which he does perfectly because he’s the best boy.

animals for new homesteaders

I believe that with enough training, any dog can be a farm dog. Yes, that is a blanket statement, but it is something I truly believe. Bear is a typical pound special that we rescued 9 years ago from the animal shelter in Texas. He was never, ever raised around livestock or allowed to roam off leash/out of a fence. But he has taken to farm life like he’s been living it forever. A lot of his patience and lack of drive to chase could be because he’s an old man but a lot of it is the work I have done with him over the last 9 years.

A working dog is going to be your active dogs that have a job, think heelers, shepherds, etc. These are dogs that you need to be aware of their breeding and genetics before bringing them onto your farm. If you have a heeler, there is a very good chance that they could hurt or kill your goats or chickens. This is were training is going to be the most important thing you could do for this dog. I would not recommend these dogs unless you have training on lock.

An LGD is a great addition to any farm that has smaller livestock. BUT, and it’s a big one, make sure you are getting an LGD from a working line, that is being trained with livestock, before bringing one to the homestead. While in search for an LGD for the farm, we found a TON of LGD’s that were not bred to or actively protecting animals. That is going to cause a problem for you. An LGD is going to be a whole post on it’s own because their training is so important that it won’t fit into a couple paragraphs.

Cats

If you are going to have livestock, you are going to have issues with rodents. Period. When you start bringing hay, feed, or installing pasture, you are going to start having a rodent problem. While I’m NOT saying get one despite being allergic to cats, I am saying that you need to weigh your allergy against having mouse droppings in your house.

There is a lot of opinions on how cats should work on a homestead. Some people say not to feed the cats because it will make them lazy. Others feed their cats. I don’t think there is a right or wrong answer as long as the cat is fed (either by hunting or you) and healthy. I’m going to leave the rest of that alone.

Snakes

While I have a pet snake, I am not talking about that. I am talking about having several king or racer snakes that live on your property. I live in the south and a walk in the woods or through the garden can easily lead to an ER visit from a snake bite. A king snake will eat rattlers, moccasins, and copperheads while also keeping your rodent population down.

I totally understand that you may not want snakes on your property, but I would highly recommend having a few. We have several king snakes on the property and Frank is my favorite. He hangs out in the hay barn and keeps the rodents out of my hay. Frank lives here rent free until he doesn’t want to because he does such a good job keeping unwanted creatures out of my hay barn. But he will scare the crap out of you if you’re not expecting him.

If you don’t have a king snake on your property or you’re not sure, a good option is to contact your local exterminator or pest control person and see if they will bring one that they catch. Yes, this is a thing and most of the time it’s free.

Chickens And Ducks

Now for the livestock! Chickens are a great way to enter into the farm scene without having a TON of expense, depending on how you set them up. You can absolutely break the bank bringing these animals to the property, but you don’t have to. You can free range your chickens with a small coop and be done. You can throw a kiddie pool down for your ducks.

But be warned of 2 things: 1) chickens are the gateway animal and 2) they are easy targets for predators.

Before you know it, you will have 60 chickens and not really sure how it happened. You will also lose some to predators or sickness. Or in my case, they just wonder off. The ducks stick around better and don’t cause as much issues in the garden but they are messy creatures.

After having chickens and ducks for several years, I am only buying/ breeding ducks from here on out. We will raise meat chickens every year for the freezer, but I am not interested in chickens. The reason is that while ducks are messy, they don’t get in my garden unless it’s not secured. They don’t get on my decks and poop everywhere. They don’t get attacked by predators as often if ever. They produce eggs year round. They are freaking adorable with their quacks and cheese feet. Yea, those chickens got to go.

Other Fowl/ Poultry

I would highly recommend staying away from other feathered creatures until you have a lock on chickens or ducks. Quail would be the exception. Turkey’s are hard to raise. Emu’s are huge. Peacocks are weird. That being said, I would also have a plan for what exactly you are going to use other feathered beasts for. If you like the way they look, ok but if you are trying to set up a working farm? Try not to get a bunch of unprofitable creatures.

Rabbits

While we were researching, planning and learning, the plans were to use rabbits as a meat source…. That never happened. Not because they are cute and cuddly and would be hard to send to freezer camp but because we just don’t have a good place to put them. It gets HOT here in the south and most of the time rabbits don’t do amazing if they are not kept shaded with good air flow. Our options for their space was limited and we just couldn’t do it.

But rabbits can yield a LOT of meat very quickly and pretty cheap. A batch of meat chickens can run you about $1500+ in 8-16 weeks, after everything is all said and done. A trio of rabbits can crank out the same amount of meat for less money. Plus they are much quieter.

Pigs

Despite Bacon eating one of my brand new doeling from our favorite milk goat, pigs have to be one of my favorite animals on the homestead. They eliminate food waste, break up the soil, and taste delicious. They are truly one of the few multi-purpose animals, just by existing. But they have some draw backs.

Pigs are incredibly smart. Bacon and Delilah learned how to sit for their feed within a few days. They also learned how to break out of the electric fencing. So now we have porch pigs until they are big enough for butchering.

The work they do on the homestead has been invaluable for us. We got them after going to the HOA conference and listening to multiple speakers talk about using pigs to help break up the soil and heal the land. When we got home, we bough 2 American Guinea Hogs. Since then they have helped us reclaim a lot of areas that the goats cleared but left us with hard rocky soil. They have tilled the soil and we have the starts of some amazing pasture.

Goats/ Sheep

I added these two small ruminants together because they are pretty similar but also vastly different. Sheep are grazers and need to have mostly grasses to eat. Goats are browsers and need mostly woody plants to eat. If you have a ton of brush, get goats. If you have a ton of grass but not space, get sheep. Goats will do okay on pasture but they really prefer brush.

Goats are incredibly smart and require waterproof fencing unless you plan to free range them.

Sheep are not incredibly smart but will stay put for the most part. But beyond that, I can’t really talk about sheep because I don’t have any. But I can tell you all about goats.

goat kidding

Before we get too far into this, I have a great course on the basics of goat care. I call it Goat Crash Course: Goat 101. In this course, I explain things like types of shelter, types of feeds and hays, basic assessments and so much more! Check it out!

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If you are looking to increase self sufficiency I would suggest getting full size dairy does and a meat buck. The reason for this is because you can have high production, high butter fat milk produced by the dairy doe and the meaty body of a meat goat. While the babies will be mixed, you can easily fill your freezer with quality meat and milk with just a few goats.

Cows

I would LOVE to have a milk cow! I want one so badly but it just not in the cards for us right now. We have the land but not the grass. The pigs are working on it for us but it takes time to build established pastures. But cows are the ultimate machine when it comes to filling a freezer and you don’t need to worry about having a bull on stand by!

Your homestead cow operation would look something like this: milk breed cow + AI meat breed bull semen= meat in the freezer and 1-3 gallons of milk or more per day.

That extra milk can feed your chickens, pigs, dogs, cats, etc. It also freezes well once the cream has been skimmed off. That cream can make heavy whipping cream, butter, creamers, and so much more. Let’s not mention the cheeses, ice creams, sour creams, etc.

Yall, I want a cow!!!!

What Are Your Favorite Homestead Animals?

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Ways To Make Money As A New Homesteader

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When you are looking to start your homestead, you may be looking for ways to bring in an income. There are tons of ways to make money on a homestead that all depend on your abilities and skill sets. If you are unskilled at growing food, maybe setting up your entire homestead with that as the goal isn’t a great idea. That doesn’t mean that you can’t do it! But there are some things that you should consider before quitting your job and moving to the country. Below I am going to go over some considerations and ways to make money as a new homesteader

money as a new homesteader

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✅ 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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Considerations For Making Money As A New Homesteader

Before you jump in to your homestead, buy the first animal, or drop a ton of money on seeds, you should take some time to figure everything out first. It would suck for you waste a ton of money on seed starts and hate gardening. Or realize there is very little profit in raising goats.

Profitability

This is literally the most important part of making money as a new homesteader. We all want to quit the rat race, but if there is no profit in what you are doing? Why are you doing it? I have a great profit calculator that I use when I am researching a new revenue source.

The reality is that money is what makes the world go around. Sure, you can get away with the minimum but at the end of the day, you need money to purchase land, animals, feed and so much more. Rarely, are you going to be able to trade for these items right out of the gate.

Sustainablity

This is another tag word that we are all to familiar with in the homesteading community, but I don’t think people look at it from the “other” side. When you are looking for a way to bring in an income, you have to look at the sustainability of that revenue. If you want to start content creation, you need to look at your ability to stay consistent.

You also want to look at whether this revenue source is something you can sustain. Burnout is real on the homestead and dealing with the constant demand of marketing, creation, etc are really hard to keep up with.

Your Skills

There is always the ability to learn new skills. But if you are looking to start a wood working business and you don’t even know how, you are going to struggle while getting your skills up to speed. Again, this isn’t to say that you can’t do it, but you need to really look at what skills you have and if they are marketable.

Another option is to find a way that allows to use the skills you already have while homesteading. This can look different for everyone but doing blood draws for animal testing can bring in a fair amount of money if you know how to do them.

Multiple Revenue Streams

Much like “regular” business or wealth building, you don’t want to limit yourself to one revenue or income stream. But when it comes to homesteading, the reason is a little different. The reality is that you are probably not going to make enough money to cover your all expenses by selling eggs.

As a homesteader, you need to understand that your income will be seasonal. You may get $100/mo selling eggs between March and October. You’ll make another $300/mo selling cut flowers from April to October. Maybe you’ll make another $1000 selling a couple goat kids in March and again October. But having multiple income streams are really important to leaving the rat race.

Your Local Market And Regulations

Depending on what you are looking to make, raise, grow or sell, you need to look into your local regulations to see if you can. Up until here recently it was illegal to sell raw milk (for human consumption) in the state of Georgia. If I wanted to sell raw milk, I had to sell it for animal consumption. If I wanted to sell bread at the local farmers market, I would have to get a cottage license.

But other things that you should look at is your local market for these items. Where I live, it doesn’t make a bit of sense to sell eggs because everyone at the local farmers market sells eggs. I would have to go closer to the city to sell at a farmers market that wasn’t completely saturated with egg sales.

Making Money As A New Homesteader

Now for the information you really want!

Sell Your Abundance

Anyone who has livestock understands chicken math and goat-a-plication. But there is a benefit to the extra livestock. You can sell it. We have a lot of chickens and ducks. This means that I can sell eggs, chicks or poults. I love goats and their milk is one of the few that I can tolerate. But to get milk, I have to breed my girls and this leads to babies. So we sell goat kids after they are weaned.

This goes for your garden as well. We all know that you planted WAY too many cherry tomato plants, or zucchini, you can sell your abundance to friends or family and even local grocers.

Consider what you are already growing, raising, breeding, etc and how you can sell the extra. It won’t bring in a lot of money in one shot, but it can bring a several hundred dollars a year and that could be an extra mortgage payment.

Content Creation

This a big one for homesteaders, especially the generations raised with the internet and social media. **Raises hand** Content creation is a great way to bring in an extra income at any point in your homestead journey. You don’t have to be a pro goat owner, gardener, canner, etc. In fact, a lot of people are dying to see the real thing. People want to see real life people, doing real life things.

The main thing with content creation is to be purposeful, and research the topics or areas you want to talk about. Again, this goes back to market research. You also need to look at your niche and what you can talk about for years and years.

Selling Your Craft

This is one that a lot of people struggle with and I am one of them. I struggle with Why would someone want what I made, it’s not that good. But the reality is that there are people out there that want to buy what you sell. You just have to find them.

I would love to get back into selling my candles, because I really enjoy making them.

Jared is building my greenhouse so I can sell my plant starts and house plants.

I am getting back into making tea diffusers.

These various products have the potential to bring in a lot of money and could allow me to stay home, which is the goal.

You could sell handmade pottery, quilts, stain glass, and so much more. The sky is the limit and with enough business, could keep you from a 9-5 with ease.

Meat Animals

If this is not something that interests you, keep scrolling. But raising meat animals can be extremely profitable if you can get your set up right and source the animals and feed well. Pasture pork, grass fed beef, and pastured chicken are all high value animals for people that want to eat meat but don’t want to get it from the grocery store.

If you already know how to butcher animals, look into what it would take to open a processing facility. Seriously, there are more and more people who want to raise animals but can’t process them themselves. I can tell you right now, there are not enough meat processors/ butchers to keep up with the demand.

Or, you could set up a business were you travel around showing people how to process their own animals. This can be incredibly lucrative.

Find Something You Do Well, and Make Sell it

At the end of the day, making money as a new homesteader doesn’t need to be hard. In fact, it can be quite easy IF you can figure out a way to make it sustainable, profitable, and work for you. There are a lot of ways to make money homesteading. The issue comes with the hard work, time needed, regulations/local markets, etc. But once you figure that out? You can spend your days hanging out wth your goats.

4 Ways To Reduce Food Waste

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The simple answer is get a couple pigs or chickens. That’s it. End blog post here. But that’s not an ideal answer. If you can’t have pigs or chickens, or you don’t like or want livestock. What are your other options? How can you reduce food waste?

reduce food waste

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✅ 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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Can It!

Sometimes reducing food waste is as simple as making a larger batch and canning it. For example, beef stew is literally the easiest meal on the planet to can. Make a big batch of it and can the left overs. You will need a pressure canner. Though it’s not absolutely required, it is strongly recommended.

If you don’t want to make a large batch but still want to get a couple jars of left overs canned? This little canner is a great option. It’s a little pricey but for the ease of use and not having to lug out one of the big canners? I think it’s definitely worth the investment.

Canning can be pretty nerve-racking to start. Especially, if you are teaching yourself how to start canning. But I promise, the old days of pressure canners exploding are WAY less likely to repeat themselves.

Dehydrating To Reduce Food Waste

I talked here about my new love for dehydrating and I have to say it’s one of my favorite ways to not only reduce food waste, but also to put up food for a rainy day. I love the “set it and forget it” ability with dehydrating food. With a couple hours of prep (for large batches), I can fill up my trays and be done. One of the ways that I work my dehydrator schedule is to cut a large batch of a veggie while prepping/cooking dinner and then fill the trays. Usually, by morning it’s done and ready to be put into jars.

If you are only cutting a cup of carrots but have another pound that will go bad? Just cut all of them and throw what you don’t need in the dehydrator.

When it comes to using a dehydrator to reduce food waste, I mainly use it when I find great deals or sales. Or when my garden is over abundant. I have two dehydrators, one that is a DIY that we picked up from our local Habitat For Humanity and our Excalibur. I have to say the mac daddy one that we picked up? Absolute favorite because it is MASSIVE.

reduce food waste

Can You Feed Food Scrap Your Livestock

Another fantastic way to reduce food waste is to feed it to your animals! This goes for ALL animals on the homestead but is only where applicable. We have a 5gal bucket on our back deck that is strictly for our chickens and pigs. Every evening fill the bucket about half way with feed if it’s not full and throw it on the ground for them.

By feeding kitchen scraps to your livestock, you can effectively reduce not only your food waste but also your feed bill! In fact, we have a whole section of the garden that is for livestock fodder. Another cool hack is to bring a small covered bucket to work and have your co workers fill the bucket with their food scraps! We have been feeding our pigs and chickens for months like this.

A word of caution though, not all animals can eat all food scraps. So be aware and prepared for that. Goats can’t eat meat. It’s taboo for a chicken to eat chicken. Cows shouldn’t have large apples. Etc. So just be cautious when feeding your livestock out of your kitchen scraps.

Meal Prepping To Reduce Food Waste

Lastly, meal prepping will help you reduce a lot of food waste. I talked here about how to stretch your meals out to reduce the stress of cooking after a long day of work. When you have a plan of what you are going to eat for the week, it really helps to reduce food waste and stress!

If you are working towards reducing your need of processed foods, that not only feed your family but the scraps go to your livestock, I talk about cooking from scratch here. Because buying the non-gmo, no corn/soy feed for your meat animals doesn’t make a lick of sense if you turn around and feed them a box of mac and cheese.

Bonus Tip: Compost!

The reason why this wasn’t included in the main group is because composting has some “rules”. The general rule of thumb for compost is to put in organic matter. Things like leaves, grass clippings, garden waste, and most kitchen scraps. BUT!

You really don’t want to put meat scraps in your compost. You can put meat or bones in your compost, but you chance predators or the meat going rancid and causing problems in your compost. Another problem is using things like oil, butter, etc can also go rancid. But if you have left over carrot caps, watermelon rinds, etc? Abosultely put them in the compost.

Putting Chickens To Work In Your Garden

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Chickens are the gateway animal for new homesteaders. After getting a few, there is usually a period of “I could get more” or “I’m not a fan”. I am definitely the latter of the two. I don’t love my chickens. But I do value the work they can do, so they stick around. Besides giving us eggs, we can put chickens to work in the gardens and compost piles for them to earn their keep.

Chickens to work

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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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How To Put Chickens To Work

Chickens are pretty cool little creatures. While I may not be a fan of the chickens themselves, the reality is that they can do a lot of work, just by being chickens. A chicken’s natural behavior is to scratch, peck and make babies. Obviously, some are better at it than others, but they are all pretty good at their jobs. Chickens don’t need to be confined to a run 24/7. If that’s your philosophy, then by all means. But they can do so much more than just hang out.

Putting chickens to work is also great when you have WAY too many chickens and you’re not really sure what to do with them.

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Chickens In The Empty Garden

One of the ways we put chickens to work is by putting them in empty garden spaces. They are great tillers and pest control. But when they get into empty gardens, they also get to eat any left over greens that are still there.

To get the most out of the beds and chickens, we usually put them in an empty garden from January to March. It gives us about 3-4 months for the manure to compost before the next planting. When it comes to plant again, I usually add a couple inches of soil or compost to keep their manure from burning plants.

But that doesn’t mean that January through March is the only time they get put in the gardens. In fact, we put the chickens to work in our green bean bed a couple of months ago. They turned the soil as well as added PLENTY of manure to it. All I had to do was dump a couple bags of top soil in the beds because they kicked some dirt out and the beds weren’t super full to begin with.

chickens to work

Free Range In The Empty Gardens

If you don’t have raised beds, or don’t want them, another option is to have them free range within the empty garden. In winter of 2024/2025, we plan to put the chickens to work by letting them have free access to the big garden from December to March, or whenever the fall garden is done. We want them to get in there and dig up any bugs they can find as well as till the soil.

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Chickens In The Compost

Another good option is to put chickens in your compost piles. This is going to look different for every one. But having chickens spread compost is probably the easiest way to move that compost. The biggest problem is that they will spread that compost everywhere so getting it back into one spot may be hard. Or you can put the compost pile where you want it and then let them do the work of spreading it around.

Putting Chickens To Work In Active Gardens

I’ve given plenty of examples of putting chickens to work in inactive gardens, but what about gardens that are actively growing? We don’t want to chickens to ruin the work WE are doing.

Chicken tractors are a great option for getting them in the garden without them killing plants or eating fruits or vegetables.

Chickens to work

This tractor is 4ft x 8ft and fits perfectly between our rows in the big garden. It also sits perfectly on our raised beds in the kitchen garden. This allows us to put them over a bed where they will scratch, peck and poop. When the chickens work the bed, it increases aeration, kills bugs, and deposits animal waste into the bed.

When a bed is done being harvested, we will place the tractor over the bed. We place 5-10 chickens, depending on the amount of greens/ bugs available and size of the chickens. Then they get to work. Usually, they get a scoop of feed in the morning and we make sure to refill their water.

Save on Seeds

In our big garden, we run the tractors up and down the rows. When we laid out our rows, we made each walkway 5 feet wide to account for the tractors. We wanted to make sure there was plenty of space not only for us to move through the rows but also to make sure the chickens couldn’t get into the harvests.

Using this method has significantly cut down on pests and weeds without having to spray anything on the gardens.

Putting Chickens To Work When You Have Predators

While we are a big advocate for free ranging our birds, we have lost some to predators. If you are opposed to free ranging but still want your chickens to have access to your garden, runs or tunnels are a great option.

When you put your fencing up for your garden, you can easily add chicken wire or hardware cloth tunnels to allow them to run around the edges of the garden without risking them to predators. You can absolutely make these much cheaper than the link but it’s the idea I wanted you to see.

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Another option is to build tractors if you haven’t already. I am trying to get Jared to create plans for you guys but he is in the middle of building my greenhouse. So it’ll take some time.

Putting Chickens To Work

It can look like just about anything. So don’t think that you have to keep your chickens confined to a run. You can put them to work and reap the benefits of having tiny dinosaurs around the homestead.

What To Do With Used Goat Bedding

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Put it in the garden! No, really! Don’t let that beautiful, nutrient dense material go to waste. The reality is any animal bedding is great for compost, but the “wrong” types of compost or bedding is going to cause you a lot of issues and potential heartache. Some composts are too hot and must be aged. Other composts can be used cold. The same is true for bedding. Some bedding won’t compost as well as others. But I’m going to tell you about how we use animal bedding as compost.

animal bedding as compost

Why Use Goat Bedding As Compost

The first reason to use goat bedding, and really any animal bedding, as compost is because it’s already on your property, you might as well use it, right? The second reason it is a great bulk material that is free. Third, your soil will get depleted of much needed nutrients the more that soil is used, compost helps bring those nutrients back to the soil. Finally, compost can improve the texture of your soil! Here in Georgia, we have red clay that struggles if nothing is added back to it.

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!

Buy Now

Use What You’ve Got

Why spend money on compost from the store or nursery when you can clean out your barn? I am a big fan of “reusing until it’s broke”. Those bags of bedding are $6-7/ each and I need at least 2 every time I put down new bedding in the barn. But if I can reuse that goat bedding as compost, I have used that $7 3 times. I used it for bedding, urine absorption, and then as compost.

I talked pretty in depth here about how to keep your livestock warm in winter and I talked about using the deep litter method. Every spring when we clean out our barn, we have a bunch of “wasted” bedding and some of it has already started composting. Every winter I go through about 25-30 bags of shavings. This really depends on the winter. If it’s cold and wet, we will get close to that 30 number. If it’s cool and dry? I don’t need very much bedding.

animal bedding as compost

Now, before you run to your chicken coop to do the same thing, this is goat bedding. Goat poop is a cold manure. That means that I could take a handful of goat poop and put it straight on the roots of my plant and it wouldn’t hurt it. But hot manure, like chicken poop, will burn your plants if you don’t let it mature. I’ll go more in depth below. But I didn’t want you to think you could use whatever you wanted and not finish this blog post.

Bulk Materials

If you are asking yourself, “what to do with used goat bedding?” The answer is simple. Use it as a bulk material to fill beds, planters and more. This year, after installing our kitchen garden beds, I needed to fill the beds. I knew that I was going to need a ton of compost and dirt. I also knew that I hadn’t cleaned out the barn yet.

So I paid the boys to haul out load after load of the goat’s bedding. After 2 days of bringing the goat bedding up to the garden, I had 14 4x8ft beds just under half filled with compost. This allowed me to only have to buy 10 yards of top soil!

animal bedding as compost

When you homestead and have livestock, you have a ton of waste that you have to do something with. The best thing you could do is to start a compost pile for all of it. And it doesn’t just have to be for animal bedding. You can use wasted hay, food scraps, grass clippings, wasted feed, leaves and branches.

Adding Nutrients To The Soil

If you have gardened for even a minute, or have had house plants, you know that over time the soil needs fresh nutrients. Compost is the best way for you to get those nutrients to the plants. The cool part about using animal bedding as compost is that you are giving the soil nutrients that it can use over time. Most fertilizers (even from organic sources) are quick-ish acting. Meaning that when you spray them, the plants will take up what it needs right then. The rest will sit there until the next rain or watering. Then all that fertilizer is gone.

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But when you mix compost into your soil, your plants will be able to uptake nutrients as they are available or composted. For example, I said that we filled the beds with goat bedding and then added soil on top. As the animals bedding composted, the plant roots were able to uptake nutrients over time. I have a 15ft tomato plant in the kitchen garden right now with a ton of cherry tomatoes on it…. so it’s safe to say even the pickiest of feeders loves the mix.

Improving Soil Structure

In Georgia, we have the famous Georgia red clay. It will stain everything for days. Sometimes, it won’t come out of clothes. Parents around here know the struggle of kids playing in the mud. Those clothes are ruined now.

But like most clay, it’s very clumpy when wet, and hard to break up when it’s dry. This means that growing root veggies can be very hard. However, clay soils are great for holding moisture. Most gardeners in Georgia try to add as much organic matter into their soils as possible to help build structure in their soils.

animal bedding as compost

Because we use pine shavings in our bedding, this gives great structure to the beds and reduces the chance of the soil being compacted. I filled all of the beds with compost and soil in April it is now mid August, and I am able to stick my hand into the soil with absolutely no issues. In my big garden, that we tilled and only added mulch to? You have to get a tool to help break the soil up.

What Animal Bedding To Use

I’ve touched on this a little bit above, but here is where the type of animal and bedding is very important. The “wrong” methods will damage your plants. Below we are going to talk about hot vs cold manure and best types of bedding to use.

Use The Manure You Have

If you want an in depth review of manures, check out this post. But I’m going to give you an overview and my own experiences. It doesn’t matter if you only have hot or cold manure, but it does matter how you use it. Hot manure is going to come from chickens and pigs. Cold manure is going to come from goats, rabbits, cows, etc.

But before you start jumping up and down and sling that pile of cow sh… manure in your garden, you need to let it mature first. This process goes by many different names; composting, maturing, seasoning, etc. But we don’t care about the name. We want to make sure that the manure is safe to use for your garden BEFORE we put it on your garden. This should actually be your go to response for ANYTHING that is going into your gardens. It is better to age it or test it prior to using it.

To make sure your manure is safe, you should compost it first. And when you are adding chicken manure to your garden, you should ALWAYS let it compost first. Notice I said should. Sometimes, you can’t, don’t want to, Jimmy Boy said he puts chicken poop straight on his maters…. The reality is that unless you are willing to risk your plants, it’s better to err on the side of caution. So I’m going to tell YOU to compost your manure before putting it on the garden.

But what I do is a little different. Yes, this is do what I say not do, because I know what my goats eat and know where their bedding comes from.

I take my goat’s bedding and side dress rows or plants.

Save on Seeds

Or I fill beds with goat bedding and top with soil.

I will also make a tea with chicken poop and water the ground about 6-10in from the plants.

You have to understand that no matter what manure you use, or where you source it from, you could have issues. There are tons of gardeners out there that are trying to figure out why their plants are dying, their seeds won’t sprout, etc. A lot of the time it’s the soil.

What Types Of Bedding To Use As Compost?

What types of bedding can you use? I have heard of people using pine shavings, pellets, or wood chips.

I use OMRI rated pine shavings, if I can find it. Otherwise, I use these pine shavings.

I have also used spent hay. It will sprout grass but it’s easily pulled or mulched over.

There is a pelleted version of pine bedding. But the entire purpose of it is to clump like cat litter for spot cleaning. So it’s probably not going to be a great option when it comes to bulking up soil. That’s not to say it won’t. But I’m not sure I would use it for that purpose. This is a bedding that I would absolutely compost first before putting into my garden.

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If you have access to wood chips, this is actually pretty good bedding. Wood chips should be composted for a year or so before putting them into your garden anyways. So using them as bedding to soak up poop and pee and then letting them compost for a year? You’ve basically made aged manure mulch. And if you have access to free wood chips, you’ve just been given free bedding and mulch. Don’t quote me on this one because I can’t attest to the absorbency of the wood chips.

Absolutely Use Goat Bedding As Compost

In closing, you should absolutely use goat or other animal bedding as compost. I have had amazing success with it. But there are a few things to keep in mind: type of bedding and type of manure. If it’s hot, let it compost in a separate pile before using. If it’s cold, test it first.

animal bedding as compost

The best way to make sure that you don’t have any issues is to always let your animals bedding compost for a year or so before using. That way you can play it safe and not risk your plants.

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