Life Brought My Family to a Sheep Farm
This is a repost blog.
Original posts by u/medium2slow in r/farming on reddit.
7 May 2020: Life brought my family to a sheep farm for the summer. Tempted to sell our home and buy it.
The owner Airbnb’s his farm house and because of a house fire of our own, we are here for the foreseeable future while we rebuild. Turns out his farms for sale. It is 86 acres and he’s selling because He wants to retire. My wife has been out helping with a couple lamb, bottle feed etc. With a farmhand who boards her cute little lambs here. The owner is only doing feed lot stuff right now. I have a high paying job in the city but my wife doesn’t work. She loves it here. We both have ZERO experience in farming. The owner has been very forward with numbers and the work involved and said he’d be happy to help for a year or so if we bought it. Just the feed lot alone would make sense. It’s not much income but it’s more than my wife makes… $0. The cost of running the farm is about $7000 less than our house a year. (Property taxes, the house is on propane farm on natural gas) it needs a new septic, the foundation leaks a bit. So the house is a fixer upper.
I’m nervous to pull the trigger and we wouldn’t be able to do anything until the rebuild. Convince me not to do this.
EDIT: also convince me to do it. And sheep related advice would be appreciated.
24 May 2020: Not necessarily “HOME” improvement… starting to plan a replacement for these barn doors.
These barn doors are old and failing. Huge sag and a fight to close. The opening is about 10’ by about 16’ or 18’
I am thinking I should reduce the door size a little by framing the opening with 6x6 attach it too the concrete floor on either side with a bracket. The door would be built with a Z style door 4 hinges, lag bolted.
What do you all think?
https://imgur.com/gallery/jKE53MF
5 Jun 2020: Farm Dog Friday: ruffles tuckered out from protecting the flock today!
(Click through for picture of Good Boy)
14 Jun 2020: Update on wanting to buy a sheep farm
Well we’ve pulled the trigger and got the ball rolling. 93 Ewe and 4 Ram. Suffolk. Here’s my new family!
https://imgur.com/gallery/f97dBm6