Month: February 2021

2019 Annual Farm Summary

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One of the things I told myself I would do when I started the blog was to be honest about the things that happen on a small farm and why both my wife and I have full time jobs. This year we decided to take the plunge and purchase haying equipment. The real problem with this decision is we have a small tractor and needed micro hay equipment. This is not manufactured in our country, we ended up purchasing equipment made in Italy. I wanted something new thinking that this would cut down my maintenance needs and expenses, time will tell on this decision. I will be sticking with the IRS categories for a farm as that is how my lovely bride uses the categories when she does the taxes.

INCOME total: $7600 from the sale of sheep and cows

EXPENSE total: $64,159

Animals cost $0

Truck & Expenses cost $0

Chemicals cost $0. We did not spray any weeds in 2019.

Custom Hire cost $0

Depreciation cost $0

Fertilizer cost $0

Freight and trucking cost $1916

Equipment cost $33,963

Conservation Expense cost $260

Insurance cost $1655

Vet/Breeding/Medicine cost $332

Purchased Animals cost $0. We did not buy any sheep.

Taxes cost $799

Utilities cost $0

Seeds/Plants cost $702

Gasoline/Fuel/Oil cost $400

Supplies cost $13,367

Feed cost $7306

Rent/Lease cost $924

Repairs/Maintenance cost $2535

Total Income was a loss of $56,559 for 2019. We knew we were going to have to bear a financial burden for the equipment but are hopeful that in four years we will have the equipment paid off and our expenses will drop dramatically for feed.

2020 Chicken financial summary

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Finally, I am back in the black! I have made a profit on the chickens for the second or third time since we have had chickens. It has not been easy and our chickens have been especially productive in 2020. We only lost 6 chickens this year which is not very many. I usually lose around a dozen to the predators.

We fed on average 186# feed/month at a cost of $51/month. The real winner here is that the chickens converted only 0.56# food into a single egg at the cost of $0.15/egg. We used 2240# of food to feed 32 chickens that dropped to 26 by the end of the year. We collected 3983 eggs for the year at a cost of $1.83/doz approximately 332 dozen eggs. This resulted in a profit of $425 for 2020.

The 2020 supply expenses were $608, income for eggs sold was $1034 for a profit of $425! The chickens really liked 2020. The real reason for this profit was a friend of mine who gave me a bunch of free unsexed chicks and by the end of the year they started really laying a lot of eggs. I had to thin out the roosters but the mongrel chickens are the best egg producers I have ever had, thanks Scott.

Chicken Financials 2019, finally

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Yes, I do realize that this report is a little late. I had plans to post these last year and then just did not do it. I lost money in 2018 on the chickens and was hopeful that I would at least break even. This was not going to happen, we spent $100 on new chicks and they were purchased late so they were not productive this year. If you subtracted the cost of the chicks then we would only have lost $46.85, for a grand total of $146.85 loss for 2019.

We started the year with 20 hens laying and ended up with only 9 laying eggs at the end of the year for a loss of 11 hens. Our productivity was horrible, 32% for the year. We averaged feeding 137#/month of chicken pellets. For a total of 1810 eggs collected for the year, about 150 dozen. My feed costs were $436.85 for the year. This is always raising and feed is the single driving force for cost of chickens. When you add in total costs the average cost of a dozen eggs is $3.58. I sell them for $4/doz so you would think we would make a profit. Unfortunately, we eat a lot of eggs! I still don’t give us financial credit for eggs sold unless they actually leave the farm and are sold. The difference is our consumption. Again, farm fresh eggs are the BEST!

Our chickens converted 0.91# feed/egg laid. The average cost of an egg is $0.24/egg. My hope is that when the babies grow up and start laying next year there will be a profit made! If I can avoid having to purchase chicks that will also help.

Our total expenses for 2019 were $536, with an egg sale profit of $390, for the loss of $146. That pretty much sums it up, another year in the red, but we ate a lot of incredible eggs.

Alpaca self thinned

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I had to go out again this morning and run the tractor over the driveway. The snow just keeps coming down, there is over 18” on the ground. I even went down to the pregnant cows and drug a path through the snow to the water and flattened a spot under a tree. They had already knocked down the snow all around the feeder. I went up to check on the upper feeder cows and had to drag a path out to them. They had about 1/3 of a bale so I went out and broke up a bale and scooped it up a few large flakes at a time. I then drove those out to them and tossed them over the fence. When I was cutting open the large bale I discovered that one of the white alpaca had died last night. It was not even frozen or stiff yet, it was curled up sheltered between two large bales. The alpaca are old and we are going to have to look for a few more this summer. So if you know of someone within 120 miles that wants to get rid of their male alpaca we are willing to pick them up and give them a forever home. Unfortunately, we can only take males as we do not want any cria, no baby alpaca! The snow is so deep I was unable to move the body up to the boneyard. I could not even get it out of the field, the snow was just too deep. So I blocked the gate with the body so I will be able to find it when the snow goes away.

I spent the rest of the day trying to get the bathroom wired with our final choices. I installed all of the push button switches and started in on the outlets. I got the lights in but initially had the sconces turned upward. Annmarie came up and looked at it and stated that we had talked about it before and wanted the scones turned downward. So I went back and fixed them and turned them all downwards. They look better turned downwards! I still have three outlets to wire up before I am done in the bathroom. I do need to install a closet light still.

We have had three more lambs born this week. I will have to update the data soon. We tagged the twins, both girls, and turned them loose into the main herd tonight. Annmarie had told me on Friday that I needed to bring the gloves and come to the barn. The Gloves are shoulder length OB vinyl gloves used to be able to reach up inside the sheep and pull out babies. This is never a good sign. Luckily the mother was not in distress so I did not have to intervene. I dread having to use my nursing skills on the sheep.

Montana snow kit arrived

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It is here! Our Montana snow kit has arrived and it is almost the end of Winter. We have had nonstop snow for the last two days and have over 18” of snow on the ground now. Our friend from Montana, Doom, promised to over deliver and under promise when it came to his custom Montana snow kits and he managed to out do himself this year. We are shoveling snow twice a day for the walkway and today I had to break out the tractor and spend two hours clearing the driveway. The snow is getting too deep for Annmarie’s all wheel drive Subaru so I needed to clear a path so we could at least get to the road. They finally plowed our county road today. It is supposed to snow for another 3-5 days then rain for another 3-5 days. It’s going to be a mess and we will probably get flooded again, ugh. Luckily, I expect the new fences I put in to break away instead of bend over like they did last year. I was unable to get the backhoe up to the upper field and redo the ditches that are up there and got washed out last year. This is going to have to happen this year after everything dries out.

When I was out with the tractor I managed to accidentally ran off of the road, tractor slid sideways down a five foot hill. I managed to not roll the tractor and got it to slide down the hill sideways the rest of the way. While I was trying to not roll the tractor I spotted another water leak! I knew there was one as our water pressure had dropped slightly. I am honestly unsure how to solve some of the water leak problems. The last plumbing repair put in a rubber joint to hopefully absorb some of the stress of the pump cycling on and off at the pump outlet. So when the weather warms up I will need to dig the ditch out again and call the plumber. It’s not worth paying the plumber to dig the ditch.

The alpaca just do not care about the weather, Snoop dog has been hanging with the cows and looked miserable with his entire face covered in ice. Annmarie called him over to the gate and I let him through. He rambled up to the machine shed and hid under the overhang to get out of the weather. Within 15 minutes she decided to let the brown alpaca through the gate also so he could get to some food. Before she could get the brown one out of the orchard, Snoop dog ran into the orchard! So he was right back to where he started just back through another gate. The others just wanted to make sure they were near food, the snow and ice just does not bother them.

I got the overhead railing for the bathroom closet door installed and our grate cover for the oven vent outlet hole came. I got them both installed. The snow shoveling has been taking a lot out of me and I have been taking naps, which slows down the process on finishing the bathroom. I did manage to get the final lights brought in from the old house and killed the power to the room so I can get it all wired tomorrow hopefully.

Luckily, we had finished feeding all the cows yesterday before the snow got super deep. My hope is the snow will melt off before I need to feed again.