What implements do I need?

DLMKA

Member
I bought a small hobby farm this past summer. I'm pretty ambitious, don't have a lot of spare cash, mechanically inclined, and like old farm equipment. Our place is just shy of 12 acres, 4 acres is fenced into 5 pasture paddocks with a 12' gate on each paddock. Almost 7 acres are tillable but currently in grass/alfalfa that is getting pretty thin on alfalfa with lots of weeds and needs to be plowed down. The remainder of the property is buildings and yard around the house. The property is on a busy stretch of road with thousands of cars passing every day.

Here is what I would like to do. We want to start raising chickens for both meat and eggs to sell. We bought a pair of breeding gilts last summer which we plan to AI and farrow in April. Hoping to finish 20-30 pigs per year once we get into a routine. Pigs and poultry will be partners on in an intensive grazing on 4 acres of pasture. My nature, I'm going to have to at minimum overseed pastures with legume/brassica mix on a regular basis. We also want to convert part of the area to an orchard with ~20 assorted fruit trees and a place for berry patches to sell at roadside stand.

My first year experience with a flock of 100 broilers and 4 berkshire pigs is telling me that I need to be able to grow my own feed in order to be profitable. Since pigs and chickens are both monogastric this means a good portion of their diet is grain. We also want to convert part of the area to an orchard with ~20 assorted fruit trees and a place for berry patches

Dad just picked up and Oliver 77 that we're bring up here. It's probably not quite enough tractor, I'd like something with 3-point hitch and maybe a loader (more of a nice to have item). I bought an OMC 95 mixer-mill at a farm sale down the road shortly after we moved in for $200 to handle mixing feed. It's a well kept unit and I went back after the sale and got the manual from the son. I'm going to pick up an Allis Chalmers All Crop 72 combine this weekend that i bought for a very reasonable price but will cost a little bit in fuel to go get it.

Here's what I think I need beyond what I have, please critique my choices.

1) 8-10' disc
2) grain drill
3) field cultivator
4) cultipacker or drag harrow
5) gravity box(es) for storing grain

We're probably just going to buy grain at the elevator to grint into feed for the next year until we can get all the other equipment located, bought, and in good working order. I'm interested in keeping my costs low so I'll be scouring auction sale bills and consignment sales looking to pick up old equipment ideal for small scale farming for basically scrap prices or a little more if I have to keep it out of a scrappers hands in order to save it.
 
The disk and the field cultivator are both secondary tillage,
disk for sandier soils, field cultivator for clay soils. Doesn't hurt
to have both, but you only really need one if on a tight budget.

How do you plan to bust up the alfalfa? I don't see a plow.

You could build or possibly buy a smaller granary to store grain
in, only need one wagon that way.

What grains do you plan to grow? Corn is often a problem with
high moisture, too wet to store.

Renovating the pastures, remember adult alfalfa is toxic to
new alfalfa seedings for 3 months or longer, you need to rotate
to something else for a year.

This won't be cheaper for you, but might be more fun. You
won't be able to raise corn for $3 a bu, or other gran
equivalent.....

Paul
 
Your size of equipment is about the right size. With
that said, your problem is you do not have enough
acreage to finish out that number of pigs and feed
the chickens.You need to be just a little bigger on
tillable acres.
 
If you go ear corn all you need is a corn crib,corn
picker, elevator and a corn sheller. Done right and
moisture would not be a problem.
 
You dont have enough ground to grow your feed.You
will still need to buy some.That said,buy it
'bulk' from a farmer.Avoid the elevators if you
can.I frequently sell grain to folks.Anywhere from
a barrel to a few truck loads.A small grain truck
will be helpful.That Oliver 88 is PLENTY of
tractor.You can add an aftermarket three point
that will work well for you.I've farmed LOTS more
ground with a SuperM for many years when I was
'younger'.And you will want/need a seperate
tractor for a loader.Haveing a loader on your
'farming' tractor 'sucks'.Real unhandy.Really
hinders the tractor's performance to carry that
heavy loader around in the soft fields.
 
I'm on a small scale too. I plant mostly food plots. I bought an old drill for $35.00 a couple of years ago. Before then, I planted wheat/oats with a spreader and then disced them in. For leveling fields you can chain tires in a pyramid shape and pull behind a tractor. I'd add a plow and a mounted spreader for fertilizer/seed to your list. You'll need a planter for corn or beans. How are you going to harvest your grains? A culti-packer is nice--I want one too--but you can get buy without for a while. A herbicide sprayer could take the place of a cultivator and cost less. Prioritize your list and plan accordingly. Now if something good comes up, get it. I kick myself for not bidding on a couple of pieces of equipment when I had the chance.

Larry
 
The neighbor has a 2 bottom plow I can borrow. I used it before with their compact utility tractor to turn over my garden shortly after moving in. Our soil is silt loam and pretty heavy but seemingly productive. I've had soil tests done in alfalfa and as expected P and K are depleted with low pH. Previous owners cut alfalfa for 7-8 years without ever fertilizing or lime. It's going to take a little work to get things back in shape.

Neighbor across the road has two small bins (2000 bu?) with ventilation and dryer. I don't think they use anymore, I was thinking about asking if I could rent one.

We've toyed with the idea of growing emmer and spelt which a portion can be direct marketed for human consumption as farro or ground to flour for artisan breads. A portion saved for replanting and the remainder mixed into rations. We've thought about growing buckwheat since we keep bees as well and 6-7 acres of buckwheat would not only yield a pseudograin but also a nice crop of dark honey. Photosensitivity issues with pigs and buckwheat fed in too high percentages has me doing more reading. Oats and barley are other grains I'd like to try growing as well. I wish I could find a quality protein source that can be fed to pigs and chickens without the need for roasting like soybeans. Have looked into sweet lupin and field peas but neither are well adapted to Illinois growing conditions.
 
I'm fine with buying some, especially stuff like corn where it's grown as far as the eye can see from my front porch. Those guys with hundreds and thousands of acres can grow corn far more efficiently than I can and unless prices skyrocket I can just buy corn from one of them for much cheaper. It's things like oats that I have to get in 40lb bags that drives up complete feed cost and where there isn't anyone around that grows it. Corn and beans are king here, I don't ever recall seeing oats or barley grown around here. There are a few people with soft winter wheat but they're growing it for the straw which brings up another piece of equipment, a baler for straw if I grow a little wheat, oats, or barley. I might be able to have someone bale that for me though for a portion of the bales.
 
You're going to need a (2 bottom)moldboard plow.A planter and cultivator are needed for corn.Probably a sprayer as well. A cornpicker/wagon would be handy Some of the equipment is only going to be used once a year(one day or less).But ya gotta have it to grow/produce a crop.Dont expect to "borrow".Good way to p!$$ of your neighbors real fast!Since you mention a combine,that means baleing the straw.For bedding or to sell.Clean straw has value.You need a baler for that.With a narrow combine,you may need a rake to combine windrows.
 
Don't think you have half the crop area
you will need and if you are looking at
economics we have our equipment from 1948
and the economics are not there. We purchase
bulk feed at 210 a ton from local feed mill
and focus on the rotational pasturing, suplemental
crops and husbandry to use the least amount
of feed nesasary.
 
Sounds like you are doing good research.

Oats is easy, the key is plant it early. It wants cool weather to grow, better oats if it gets a light snow rather than planted when the ground is fit and warm for other crops.....

Paul
 
Oats are best with fall tillage to seed them into and they do not like wet feet. But you cannot do them year after year on same spot. Years ago a company was going to start up for buckwheat in my area (never did get going) but they said to follow wheat with it but remove all the straw as the straw is toxic to the buckwheat. I do not know if it would work following oats or not as oats might come off to late. You might try the tillable on 3 year rotation and that would only give you 2 acres for straw and that much you could put uo with just a pitchfork and a flat bed to haul it on as you will not have any to sell as you will need it all for your animals along with more.
 
He has pigs. They come equipped with a "plow" at the end of their face and the natural instinct to do so. Id turn them into that field 1/4 acre at a time until it looked like a war zone, then disk it up and plant winter wheat or barley in the fall.
 
I agree with others who have said that you lack
the acreage necessary for growing any significant
portion of your own grain for feed, at least at
for that many animals. I think it would be more
profitable to concentrate on raising less
animals, and buying less feed, and finding a way
to market those animals in a niche or specialty
way so that you receive a premium for them.
Pastured pork when sold at a premium in the right
market, can gross as much as $900-$1000 each,
maybe more.
As far as equipment goes, I think you're
basically set. My only question is, why do you
think you can raise feed cheaper than you can buy
it? On a scale as small as you are working with,
especially with grain prices dropping a bit, it
just doesn't pencil out.
 
An Oliver 77 not enough tractor for 12 acres? ROFLMAO!
Many a 66 farmed 80 acre farms. Around here you needed 120 acres to step up to a 77. If you farmed 240 you might have had an 88. I'll never quit laughing at people who think they need a 5 plow tractor to farm 40 acres.
 
I go along with the buy your feed route with that little acreage. Besides, you can write it off 100% if you buy it. Try writing off your labor and cost of old machinery or even a bad yield year. My advice is KEEP IT SIMPLE and by doing so it also lets you be more adaptable if you decide to change operations with profit trends. Heck the smart hog farmers around here just provide housing and labor to feed , everything else provided by corporation. They deliver and pick up hogs and feed. Low risk and low labor cost.If you just want to play and/or be a little self suffecient go for it. When it doesn't work out on paper,though, it will get old real quick. My Dad did it with 80 acres but had full time job AND 4 boys from 10-16 yrs old to keep out of trouble.
 
I know I can't raise corn cheaper that the big guys around me. I'd like to get conventional corn instead of GMO (niche market for chicken and pork). I'm looking more into growing field peas, cow peas, or another high protein feed that can be fed without roasting. Oats are not available around here unless buying bagged from TSC or the like.

Part of it is just the personal satisfaction of being able to produce all or most of what it takes to get a piglet to the locker. I've got no problem reducing need of animals, my 3 year plan was to finish 15/yr and sell the rest as 35lb feeders.
 
The thing is the oats he wants for a good grow ration is just not that rediable avaible without being trucked in perhaps a thousand miles from Canada to where he is. The actuall cost of the oats could be cheaper than raising them but you add in that kind of trucking fees that the riding horse people don't think anything about when you are trying to feed animals out then it is not so reasonable to buy it. And the eggs will have a deeper color yolk if fed with oats than without it. Pork will also be leaner oat fed. I agree corn could be bought cheaper than to raise it and he is not wanting to raise that. The other ingreadiants he wants in the good feeding ration tho just are about impossible to buy.
 
JUst get the tractor and a bush hog for right now.
Then, go out to a few sales and buy what you want
when you have figgered out what you really want to
do.....
 
The big difference is that when guys farmed 80 acres with a 35 hp tractor that is ALL they did. When a guy is hobby farming on the weekends and a few weekday evenings here and there they need much larger equipment per acre than a full-timer. The windows of opportunity to get critical tasks done are just as short for the person who has a full-time "town job" as they are for the guy who has all day to devote to farming.
 
That's BS,with all due respect. A lot of these guys around here farming 80 acres with a 2 plow tractor worked in a factory 40 hours a week and milked a dozen cows twice a day too. They just knew how to work without distractions.
 
You're right. I guess where I was going was maybe not bigger tractor but something with factory 3-point. The 77 should have enough PTO power for a my mixer/mill. It's got the feeder for flakes of hay if I ever wanted to grind alfalfa into feed rations. 2 bottom plow is plenty, not sure I'd go over that on a 77 through sod though.
 
Two years ago I planted peas and oats together in the same field with the intention of cutting and round baling for forage. They got too mature but I was eventually able to direct-cut combine them. A 5 acre field yielded 11,000 lbs. of grain mix, about 1/3 peas 2/3 oats. There were a lot of splits in the peas, but it was going for steer feed anyway.
 
Yep, and that's all they did too was WORK. I'll bet the return on all that labor was pretty meager. It's been the detriment of many a farmer to just work for the sake of work. I'd also bet that many these guys were the ones who took voluntary layoffs to get farm work done, worked night shift, etc. Also, to that end, what BrandKS said is not BS, it's true, dang true. If a guy wants to get crops in and harvested in a timely manner while working full time, he'll need a bit of "overkill" to get it done. That is, if he doesn't want to run himself into the ground just to be a part-time farmer.
 
Look around the area you are in and see if there is another niche farmer. That's what I do to fit in between the big guys. I grow stuff like ear corn, barley, oats, and clover hay that has a profitable market locally but the demand isn't on a large enough scale for the big guys to bother. I do a lot of business with hobby livestock people, other small farmers, etc. who don't want to pay TSC prices for what they need.
 
(quoted from post at 15:53:19 10/31/14) Look around the area you are in and see if there is another niche farmer. That's what I do to fit in between the big guys. I grow stuff like ear corn, barley, oats, and clover hay that has a profitable market locally but the demand isn't on a large enough scale for the big guys to bother. I do a lot of business with hobby livestock people, other small farmers, etc. who don't want to pay TSC prices for what they need.

Great minds think alike.
 

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