2018 Goals for Increasing Homesteading Income
Like it or not, money makes the world go around. And, ironically, to live the quieter, simpler, cheaper lifestyle, a lot of money is often required to get there in the first place. I'm very fortunate to have 40 acres of inherited farmland. But there's no farmhouse and the land is overgrown so everything I'm doing at the moment is in an effort to build, develop and turn that plot into a small, working and profitable farm.
Currently both my husband and I work non-homestead related jobs. When we move to the farm, it'll mean giving up our work and starting fresh. SCARY STUFF. In an effort to reduce the scare factor, I've started the Brimwood Farm brand and already have a few projects underway. These are a few of my plans for boosting farm-related income in 2018.
Chickens
Despite only a 45sqm garden, I already keep a lot of chickens, and this year I've been developing some rare breed and pure breed lines. Selling meat birds isn't really feasible on this tiny sized plot - there's just enough room to stagger a few growing roosters for our own freezer - so the focus has to be on three things:
Eggs - Egg sales can only get you so far. Currently I'm covering the cost of feed by selling to neighbours, friends and clients (I'm a gardener), and making a little bit on top. BUT...I have some older girls that aren't laying. To be truly efficient, I probably need to work out which these are and 'remove' them from the flock.
Hatching Eggs - This year I did quite well sell hatching eggs from my Ixworth flock (a dual purpose rare breed) and I now have three hens instead of one. I hope to continue selling those next year, along with my d'Anver and Poland eggs.
Pullets/Chicks - I also raised a number of pullets this year and sold all of them. With the egg sales covering the cost of feed, any income from the birds is profit so I want to do a lot more of this next year. I'd also like to start getting a few customers for chicks too so there isn't the 4/5/6 month rearing period.
- Silkie Colour - Quite by accident, I've begun developing a new silkie colour that I'm calling the 'toasted marshmallow'. You can see what it looks like in this YouTube video. I'm currently line-breeding the colour into the hens and hope I can continue this in 2018 and possibly start selling a few of these silkies at a premium price.
Quail
I keep, breed and rear both Coturnix Quail and Chinese Painted Quail (Button Quail). So far, i'm yet to sell any actual quail, and it's mostly the eggs I sell at £2 per dozen. I have got a few interested parties for quail next year though, so I hope I can sell a few young birds.
Pheasants
One of the future farm plans is to have an ornamental pheasantry to breed and rear beautiful specimens like Golden Pheasants and Amhurst Pheasants. I haven't got much room here, but I'm contemplating moving the quail out of the aviary and housing a trio of Golden Pheasants in there to kick-start the business. This is a long-term goal; I'd probably get eggs and hatch them which would mean my breeding stock wouldn't actually be ready until 2019.
Vegetables
I had planned to begin my market gardening this year but it didn't really happen that way. It was only my second season growing in this small space and I had MANY failings. However, gardening is a learning process and so next year I plan to grow more varieties of vegetables with less plants. For example, I only grew two varieties of tomatoes this year but had loads of plants. In 2018, I'll have a larger range of varieties by having less plants of each.
I will need to tackle the selling side of things - something I'm not good at. I hate advertising. I hate trying to sell stuff. I shy away from promotion. BUT...no business is going to get anywhere with that attitude!
Cage and Aviary Birds
As you seen from my recent budgie baby post, I keep and breed a few cage and aviary birds. This was never something I expected or aimed of earning money from: it was a hobby. However, as an additional revenue stream, it can bring in a few pennies. In 2018 I want to pay more attention to the colour breeding of my zebra finches, get another pair of budgies, successfully breed my cockatiels and possibly look at introducing another couple of species - perhaps canaries and another type of fine or parakeet.
YouTube
A couple of years ago I set up the Brimwood Farm YouTube Channel with the aim of sharing my journey from back garden smallholding to rural small farm. I'm still in the back garden stage, but I'm approaching 1,500 subscribers and almost 250 videos.
YouTube itself doesn't make me a vast amount of money via ads, but I run a Patreon and include affiliate links too, and that is growing month-on-month to create more income to fund the farm projects and developments. My Patreons, for example, help pay for trees, fencing and conservation projects, whilst my affiliate funds go into the house-build savings pot.
Next year I want to continue growing this community and focus on YouTube more as a business prospect than just a fun hobby.
Steemit
I LOVE Steemit. I came here for the money, I stayed for the community <- that's something I say ALL the time because it's very true. BUT, I have made a little money on Steemit (around £500 that I've cashed out in SBD and put into Bitcoin). I'm a cryptcurrency novice and am still working out how I can cash out my Bitcoin into real money as I'm in the UK and it's not that easy without losing a tonne of cash to fees.
In 2018 I want to continue placing an important emphasis on Steemit to help build the community here and, as a result, share around SBD from the blockchain so it can benefit everyone.
Plants
As I mentioned above, my 'normal' job is as a self-employed gardener. I love plants, and I've been taking cuttings and propagating plants this year like a mad man as I'd like to have a small nursery set up too. I sold half a dozen plants in 2017 at a poultry stand I booked in September, but I'd like to significantly build on this. I also want to sell some cut flowers too, and I outlined a few ways I'll be doing this in this post.
So, there's a few of my homesteading income ideas for 2018. I'd also like to look into potential ways of earning some money, both short-term and long-term, off the currently vacant farm land. Could I rent a field to a solar power company? Would planting quick growing trees or willow bring in some cash? I'm always open to ideas.
Thanks for reading, and if you've got any tips or ideas, please let me know!
Geoff
You can find me on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Patreon
Love the dream. You have a bunch of great ideas! Question why with 40 acres are you using such a small area to grow gardens? Suggestion, sell your Bitcoin within 4 days, an adjustment is coming and it is deemed to crash big time, and stay that way for months. Read the blog Angel of Crypto search it on Steemit. That is the name of the post I believe it is from Samstonehill the username. Would hate to see all your hard work lost! Helping a fellow homesteader our!
I'm not actually on the farm yet. It's too expensive for us to move there, so currently we're in a terraced house with a tiny garden. And it's a two hour drive away, so we can't reasonably do any growing/livestock there yet either. It's frustrating!
Thanks for that info on Bitcoin - I'll check it out. I honestly don't know HOW to get my money out at the moment. I'm on Coinbase and they don't allow UK withdrawal - I think I have to convert to Euro and withdraw that way but then that means I lose a tonne in exchange rates. :\ I'll have to do some research this weekend. Thanks for the heads up.
Well thought out ideas! You might also consider down throw pillows from whatever birds you butcher. Also with market gardening consider varieties not available locally or foods that don't ship well so they aren't sold at grocery stores. We are hoping to get into a lot of this as well next year. Hope it goes well for the both of us!
That's a good idea. I hate wastage so using the feathers would be great. I need to look up the best ways to wash them as I wet pluck so would need to be able to bulk wash and dry before using in pillows.
Regarding the veggie varieties you're totally on point. Provide customers with something they can't get normally is the way to go.
Good luck to us both!
I also plan to try to sell the large feathers to crafters for dream catchers or jewelry
Great idea. I collect all my dropped budgie feathers with the thought of doing that as they're small and colourful.
Yes! Those would be great for that
I looked at setting up a little store online but I'm not sure which would suit best. Thanks for the inspiration to research again :D
I'm thinking of using etsy but they charge for every listing not every sale so that's a bit frustrating
Oh thats mega annoying, especially if you're stocking a store but aren't expecting many sales.
thank you for your post. It is very inspiring to me. I have been a "backyard homesteader" for years. I really cannot wait to get some land. I never thought of ways to make money from everything that I have done. Especially all my organic seeds and plants, flower cuttings etc. Our daughters have just started breeding Holland Lop rabbits. We will see how this works out for them. We also do crochet and knitting and are learning to sew. We have many things we want to do. Raise goats, sell the goat milk and chesse, fruit plants/trees, honeybee hives, make candles and eventually be off grid self sustaining. That is our dream. I think you have inspired me to write about it. I am also an aspiring authoress and just love and adore STEEMIT. My S/O is a machinist and cryptocurrency addict!
Sounds like you have similar dreams to me! Good luck and let us know about it all via Steemit :D
I’ve been doing mostly 100% SP posts, but have mixed in some 50/50 ones lately. I’ve only done a bit of gifting with SBD so far, really need to do more. Just became aware of @schoolforsdg4 and would like to help out there. I’ve got no interest in powering down SP any time soon (for what it’s worth, I think that it and silver are amazing steals right now), so need to start generating some more SBD.
Thank you for the resteems of my A Dollar A Day posts @preparedwombat - much appreciated.
@schoolforsdg4 is a very good project that I am happy to be supporting.
I certainly read this with interest, as I would love to explore viable options of extra income from my small patch. I've tossed around the idea of growing heirloom vegetables, and selling seedlings. I've also considered breeding small animals and selling the offspring (although I do worry at the sort of homes they'd end up in, which can make letting-go difficult, lol).
Doing the research, finding a niche and quickly filling any gaps is a broad plan, but a sensible one (I hope). Feathers for crafters, etc is a good idea if the demand is high enough. Maybe check out places like Pinterest to see what people use (hence need supplies of)?
You've not mentioned small animals such as rabbits and guinea pigs - are these type of pets not something you want to get into? I ask because we do have the GPs and have had rabbits, although not for breeding to sell. If you had the time to shave them, Angora rabbits might be an option if there is still a market for their fur (knitters still use it, I'm sure).
When I was a horse-owner, there was always a shortage of good grazing, so this might be something you'd like to consider. You can (at least here) charge more for horse grazing than if you, say, rented the land to beef or sheep grazers; and in smaller lots.
I do intend on keeping rabbits, but mostly for their meat, though any excess babies could go as pets too. I haven't got a vast amount of space and I prefer birds so that's what I'm learning towards more.
The problem I have with the horse grazing is I'm not on site and there's no fencing. When I live on the farm we'll have the sheep, cows etc and I won't want to be offering grazing for other people's animals. And at the moment when I'm not there I simply don't have the funds to put up enough satisfactory fencing. Also, the pasture that's there at the moment isn't very good.
Basically, it's all small revenue streams I can operate from my current and tiny plot - that's NOT the 40 acres but just 45sqm! :D
Hi Geoff, put me down for some of the Ixworth hatching eggs when you have them ready.
For your 40 acres do you have any wet areas where you could grow willow?
They would grow in a year or two, both for selling whips for planting maybe and canes for basketmaking (if you can get the right varieties).
Maybe even start a bit of a tree nursery on some of the land - watering might be the only issue if there is a dry summer.
I'll definitely have some in the New Year I can send across to you.
We have a very damp area where most of the farm drains into during the wet season (now) so willow could be ideal there. Good idea on the two selling options; I'll have to look into varieties. The tree nursery is a great idea too actually - I could grow native trees that are sourced and sown from that actual farm - oak, ash, hazel, rowan etc. That's a really good idea!! I'm already growing quite a few trees now that I'm going to extend the woodland onto the land with, but I could continue that in larger numbers. If they don't sell, doesn't matter - you can never have enough trees!
@brimwoodfarm, your post was Resteemed by @OCD!
Congratulations!
Thanks!
Great ideas! I have no idea how long willow plants for weaving take to establish, but around here you pay pretty pennies for weaving rods and as far as I know, they are easy to propagate once you have a few plants.
When we get land that's one of the plants I want there.
One more thing, is there a nearby farmer with good practices you could rent some acres to next year? It could be a win-win providing you with money as well as improving the soil for when you get there.
I think willow are pretty quick to establish - like only a couple of years - so that's something I'm definitely going to look into.
At the moment the land is 'rented' to a local farmer - he basically uses it for free and in return he mows the pasture, maintains driveways etc. He was a huge support to my granddad when he became ill and so, for now, I'm happy to leave things the way they are...esp as he's a struggling farmer and in a couple of years I'll be taking all the land back.
I struggle with the selling side of things too. It sounds like you're doing better them me though! Most of my eggs I give away, because I hate to ask for money! I probably need to look at advertising some fertile eggs as I can ask a bit more for them.
I was so nervous when I first put a sign out selling eggs....and then the customers started arriving. I was thrilled!
I do hate the selling aspect; I'm not good at it!