Month: March 2024

2023 annual farm finances

Steve HardinLeave a comment

We have a hobby farm. It is a labor of love to have a small hobby farm. We do not expect to make money and every year we are closer and closer to breaking even. I have to total all of the receipts up annually so we can do our taxes. Recently, I have been slacking and waiting until the last minute. Annmarie does the taxes and this is frustrating for her. This year I will be totaling up the months as we go so as to not have to spend two days sorting, organizing and totaling a years worth of receipts.

INCOME: $11,254

Sheep sold 59 lambs (a couple of cull ewes) for $5570

Eggs sold $-344

Cows sold cows (2/3 of profit) $5121

Alpaca $0

Hay sold $807

Losses: We lost 22 sheep last year to predators. 15 lambs and 7 ewes for a market value of $3275. This is painful. We had a bunch of different hunters out and the only ones who had any luck were hunting at night with thermal scopes. They still did not kill enough coyotes to slow down the depredation. We penciled out a guard dog (need 2) and as much as they eat with the price of food it is nearly $2200/yr just for dog food. It seems like a no brainer but this was hands down the worst year we have ever had. Normally we lose 3-5 sheep to predators annually. It was just a banner year. It is fairly obvious that we cannot sustain this loss long term. We are currently looking at donkeys. So if you know of two donkeys that we can handle well enough to get their hooves trimmed and allow us to brush them occasionally we are interested.

EXPENSES: $24,725

Truck = $238 for repairs

Chemicals = $581 for herbicide

Conservation = $231

Custom Hire = $0

Depreciation = $0

Feed = $10984= only $6125 of this was for the cows. The rest was for the rest of the animals with most of it going to the sheep. I carried every bag by hand! A rough total of 209 bags of feed.

  • Cats 320#
  • Dogs 340#
  • Chickens 2000#
  • Lambs 2350#
  • Ewes 5150#

Fertilizer = $0

Freight/trucking = $0

Gasoline/Oil/Fuel = $470. I think this should be more but I could not find the receipt for the second fill. I think doing this monthly will solve some of my tracking issues as I will be able to remember what should be on the list.

Interest on Loan Equip = $0

Insurance = I missed this charge and did not track the expense. It continues to go up every year.

Rent/Lease vehicles machinery/equip = $0

Repairs & Maintenance = $1523

Seeds/plants = $381 we bought some orchard grass seed and planted it this last fall. 

Supplies = $7853

Taxes = $1212

Utilities = $558

Vet/Breeding/Medicine = $646

Purchased Animals = $48

Total for 2023 was a loss of $13,471.

On the plus side we had some major improvements. We got all of field #1 fenced so it can be used as a pasture in late summer when the rest of the farm grass has turned brown. We got the bridge concrete footings poured and the bridge in place. The ramps on both ends of the bridge still need to be finished. It is a lot of shoveling dirt! We got the bee equipment storage room installed in the old wood shed. Upstairs bathroom is 100% completed as I installed the last countertop. We leveled, insulated and walled the freezer room and got the freezers moved into it. Got the tractor mower rebuilt. Installed 12V light system in the barn. Horse trailer 100% rewired, new brakes, grease and hitch. Finished Annmarie’s office at the beginning of the year. Honestly, that is a lot of stuff!

Chicken tracker 2023

Steve HardinLeave a comment

We averaged 19.8 laying hens for the year and currently have 31 hens. We collected on average 4.4 eggs/day for a lousy production rate of 24.3%! Definitely my worst production rate ever. Our monthly feed weight was 168#/month at a cost of $62.54/month. The crazy part is our feed cost was 47 cents/egg or $6.95/dozen. Our total cost for the year was $7.28/dozen eggs. We sold them for $5/dozen. We ended up losing $344 on the chickens last year. Now mind you, every time the weather goes crazy or a raccoon showed up the chickens refused to lay eggs.

In an effort to try and keep hens from feeding the predators we added a second solar chicken door to the chicken yard. During the summer there are usually a couple of slow pokes who don’t make it to the coop before the door shuts. They sit outside the door all night and end up feeding the raccoons. Now I know there are two raccoons around the farm as I just shot at them this month. We purchased enough chicken wire to to put a lid on the chicken yard. This way the slow pokes will be protected from dying and will only be terrorized by the raccoons trying to get at them. We got the overhead supports in but the wire has not been laid out yet and stapled in place.

Bottom line, with the increase in feed prices I am going to have to raise the price. On the plus side, I am getting eggs more often and that is helping. Plus, if we can keep the chickens alive they will lay eggs. It seems like a simple concept but quite hard to execute. So the price will be going to $6/dozen. I am hopeful that with the second chicken door and the overhead wire it will make all the difference and volume will offset the feed price. We were very good this last year about keeping all of the feed receipts which is helping forecast a factual based cost not one arbitrarily chosen.

Spring is coming

Steve HardinLeave a comment

The bees know when spring is here. If they can find pollen then spring must be here even if we cannot figure out where they are getting the pollen. Annmarie went out to check on our two bee hives and only one made it through the winter. The other one died fairly early in the winter as the feeder we had placed on top was still full of sugar water. This sucks but we knew that there is a high kill rate on bee hives before we got into this. Luckily, the new hive is bigger and healthier than the one that died off. I went out to the deceased hive and scavenged off as much honey comb as I could. We put it into a metal strainer and then crush it up and let it drain out for a week next to our propane stove. We managed to salvage five half pints of honey. The only thing we did was run it through cheesecloth to get out any chunks of wax and bees. It’s pretty dang good!

Annmarie went out and gave the single hive an extra honey box and put in a queen excluder so she could not use it as a brood box. We have been letting the scavenge the honey from the comb of the dead hive. They have just about cleaned up all of the honey left over.

When Mr Rainman came back with the burnt out switch the first time I was working on getting the dirt pad elevated some more. I put up string so I could find the correct level height the pile needed more dirt and to be flattened out some more. I am holding out hope that the Gingerman can get the 57 truck “little dumper” up and going so I can get gravel instead of having it delivered. I had Mr Rainman work on moving dirt while I fixed the wiring for the second time. My hope is we won’t have to pay for gravel to be delivered, I will be able to just go out and pick it up and pay for it by the ton. Once the wet weather is over we will break out the compactor and start beating some gravel into the pad and getting it level. I just did not want to make the entire pad out of gravel. I think once we get the pad level. I will dig four equally spaced holes and put deep concrete pylons in place. All thread installed and I can fabricate anchors so we can bolt the structure down so it cannot blow over.

The Gingerman came out yesterday to work on the 57 truck for a few hours. All of the hoses except the heater hoses are replaced and the single belt is replaced. He had this cool tool that allowed you to pop the distributor and insert it and then use a drill to pump oil throughout the engine! This is pretty slick. We tried to start the engine for real after he messed with the distributor cap and got all of the wires in place. It tried to turn over a couple of times but would not just go. We are going to get some fresh fuel and some starting fluid and give it a whack next weekend. I am still trying to get tires for it. The shop did come out this week and verified that the four rear rims are indeed Widowmaker rims and I will need to replace the tires and rims. So they are now getting me a quote for six tires and four rims. We are going to go up in size on the tires to match the front tires. I have spent some more money on the truck this week. I purchased a window/door gasket set that includes all of the needed items to fix both doors and the front and back window seal replacements for the low low price of $350. I found some cheap cotton bench seat covers and some floor mats I will need to cut to size. So the truck total so far is at $1079.78 and it is not running yet. It will be a race to see if they can get the tires on it before the Gingerman gets it running. The seat covers need to be installed as the seat is in sad shape. As I was trying to start the engine I noticed that I will also have to adjust the doors so they sit correctly in the openings before I can install the seals. I did check for shocks and that is not an issue as the truck does not have any! It has this huge double sided leaf spring arrangement. I bet its gonna be a smooth riding machine when it’s empty! If we can get it running then the next big thing are the brakes, the hydraulic cylinder for the dump bed and the wiring for lights. Currently, the brake pedal is on the floor. I have no idea why and honestly it is low on the priority list as brakes will not be needed until we can get the thing started.

My view one morning this week on the way to work.

Cows sorted

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Well I seem to be a couple of weeks behind recently on the blog. After a solid weekend working I am having trouble taking the time on Sunday night to crank out a couple of blog posts. Now that we are onto daylight savings times we are doing more little stuff outside after work therefore cutting into my blog time. I will attempt to keep up, just like I say every time!

Last weekend was the great swap! We needed to move all the animals around to get ready for spring. All of the cows needed to come into the corral so we can sort off last years yearlings and calves. Our cow should be having babies in April. We calve when the weather is warmer as the Dexters do better when you are not calving in the cold. Plus, we needed to count the cows as I can never remember how many we have. The cows of course were split and we ended up having to walk all the way to the end of field one to push them down toward the corral. We blocked off field #2 and field #4A so that no cows could get into either one. We will hay field #2 but #4A is so that the weanling calves cannot reach the momma cows. They will nurse the calves through the fence unless you put some distance between them. The mommas need all of their energy and milk for the calves that are coming next month. So Mr Rainman and I walked all over the farm moving cows.

When we were moving cows through field #3 we noticed something new. There is a spring head that comes out of the ground and has been for years. It just seeped out of the dirt in a ten foot area and had several faucet sized streams. That has changed! There is now a 12” diameter hole in the ground spouting water. The water volume is about double what it used to be and the water is moving fast enough that it is starting to dig down into the ditch. It lowered the ditch water level another 18 inches since last fall. We have a pretty soft muddy area up there that is around 50’ wide already. We may have to slow the water down and let it make a bigger softer area to keep the water from running away as fast. At a bare minimum we need to get a fence around the spring outlet so nothing falls in it. We could not see the bottom.

Sorting the cows was fairly anticlimactic. Once we pushed them down behind the barn we just starting sorting them 1-2 at a time as they ran through the gate. I only got hit once in the face with the gate when trying to push a calf into the chute. Both of them got out and we had to try again. Nothing got broken and I did not even get a bruise so all was good. Once we sorted off the 13 (or 14) heifers (all but 2 pregnant maybe) we pushed them up into field #4B so they were contained then pushed all of now weaned and last years calves up to field #3. There was a lot of bellowing and hollering by all parties due to the split. We isolated the alleyway to let it grow also. I was able to use Chance to move the cows back out to the field. By the end of it she was able to work the cows without the lead. She listens fairly well but does lay down when I ask. The dogs just don’t like the words “right” “left”. It takes me longer to train them with hand signals which is usually what they respond to. I must need to come up with two new words, I just thought of them “port” & “starboard”. I may have to give it a try.

Once that was done we moved both rams into the sheep herd. We need those two to do their job! Within minutes of them entering the herd they were sniffing pee and trying to mount the ewes. Annmarie and I have decided that they get two months in with the ewes and then we are removing them. Any ewe that doesn’t get pregnant gets an ear knocked and we will work on culling the herd until we only have a bunch of calm good mother hussies. We are not going to lamb for four months any more.

Mr Rainman went out to spread solid fertilizer onto fields #1, 2, triangle and down by the schoolhouse. I worked on rewiring the entire sprayer on the Kubota tractor. The wires and switch had been getting very hot to the touch and burned the switch up. We are not sure why as the sprayer worked fine all last year. I wired the pump up with the old wire from a previous inline switch from the manufacturer. This was the quickest fix. The switch welded closed the next day and Mr Rainman had to manually pull the wires apart at a connection to turn off the pump. I have since rewired the assembly with 10g wire and installed a new switch and made a PVC switch holder from PVC pipe fittings. This lasted about 4 hours before this switch welded shut. I have since replaced the switch and ordered two 30A waterproof switches. I am hoping this 3rd fix works and the extra switches are just insurance. I have learned to have parts on hand to just be able to do the fix real time without going to the store.

The daughter says I don’t take enough pictures of myself so I decided to take a farmer selfie, enjoy!

Farm update, spring is coming

Steve HardinLeave a comment

The progeny badgered me this week to get back in the groove and update the blog. It has been crazy around here and during Lent, Annmarie is super busy so I pick up farm work. We have both gotten sick. Luckily, we are super careful to keep quarantine protocols in place so if one of us starts getting sick we make sure to not be sick at the same time. I did get a bunch of little things knocked out. I had purchased a carved wooden chest several years ago and I took five hours to scrub at it with Murphy wood soap, blue non scratch pad, two different stiff small brushes, sponge and lots of towels. I just drenched sections of the carving in soapy water and started scrubbing away at it to get the dirt and grime off. I probably need another five hours to really get it clean but the time I spent got all of the obvious stuff and brought out a lot of details. I also soaked it in lemon oil. I had so much oil on it that I had to go back in an hour and dry it off again. It is fairly painstaking work but it did turn out nice.

Annmarie has the alpaca literally eating out of her hand now. She keeps treats in her trunk and feeds the alpaca randomly when she comes home. They all know not to bug her when she goes out to her car as they never get fed then. Since it’s random she is able to call them and they come running for treats! She has the three young siblings tamed down the most. The little brown one just lets her pet it all over. I can pet it’s neck and cheeks only. The plan is to shear the alpaca sooner than later. Which reminds me, I need to send off the blades to be sharpened! I will do that this week.

I started looking at Craigslist again. I had a friend who used to watch it all the time for me and let me know when something popped up that I may want. He is no more and I have not done much with it since. It’s a good way to see what people are asking for their livestock and to see if there are any deals that I may be interested in. I happened to spot someone selling Tamarack 50” wooden fence stays and was able to go out the next day and pick up 300. Between the great used fence and these stays I managed to pick up this winter I am almost set for fence building. I have seen an add for used metal T posts but I cannot use my tractor to drive in the used posts. They bend about 50% of the time so I have to waste too much to make it worth it. I simply do not want to drive 500 T posts into the ground by hand. I am too old for that. Plus, I don’t want to spend a week driving posts in the ground, as if my body would tolerate that!

I had purchased these plastic stackable bins for Annmarie’s office to hold her laser wooden sheets but they turned out to be too narrow to hold very much wood. Annmarie had talked to me about building something or else using a bunch of table tops and short legs from IKEA to make it. I didn’t do either one but after time I realized she was right. I also realized that I was stacking up extra plywood as the mud room build continued. So Mr Rainman and I spent a few hours and made her a shelf that was specific to her needs and could store boards flat. It is fairly heavy as it is made out of plywood and real wood. I don’t think it would have been fun to move if we had added another 4-5 shelves. Luckily, she needs a spot for the printer and laminator.

The sheep are making us crazy. We have three more ewes that need to give birth. We have one set of twins in a jug now that are only three days old. The damn chickens are laying eggs in the barn in random spots. I have two raccoons that are making rounds through the barn at night. I had a late Wednesday and didn’t go out to the barn until after 2000. I spotted two huge raccoons and instantly turned around to get a pistol, by the time I got back there was only one and it was fast! They are sneaking in and eating the cat food. The weather should be warming up soon and I can cut back on feeding all of the animals as the grass will start growing. It rained 3/100 today and 1/100 yesterday. My hope is we can get warmer temperatures and some constant rainfall in low doses. I don’t like it when we get more than 1/4” at a time. It doesn’t all get absorbed into the ground. The puppy is finally out of the cone of shame. We had to go through three cones and 3/4 roll of duct tape to keep them on her. Her foot finally healed once she quit licking it all of the time.

We will be sorting cows and sheep next week and fertilizing fields. Spring is soon to be here.