# Required acreage for homesteading?



## 8thDayStranger (Jan 30, 2013)

I found this pic earlier and thought it was interesting.









I would like to hear from you guys if you think the info is pretty accurate. My personal goal is to be ALMOST totally self sufficient in around 10 years. I know it's dang near impossible to be 100% self sufficient these days but you can get very very close and retain some basic creature comforts.


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## helicopter5472 (Feb 25, 2013)

Guess I'm old, Is there a web site you got that from, sorta hard to read, Thanks


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## jeff47041 (Jan 5, 2013)

I have a book called The backyard Homestead. The lovely one gave it to me some years ago. This reminds me of that book. It had a lot of awesome ideas.
I'm gonna have to get it back out and review. I have forgotten all about it. 

I can't wait to hear opinions. Thanks for the post!


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## hiwall (Jun 15, 2012)

Gardens can feed a small family but you need more land to feed livestock(and alot of water).


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## GroovyMike (Feb 25, 2010)

My great grandfather believe dthat with "10 good acres" you could grow just about everything you would need.


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## goshengirl (Dec 18, 2010)

We're on 5 acres, and if we reconfigured things and used every available space, we might be able to do alright, including a woodlot area. But I'd much, much rather have more. Mind you, I'm no expert, just a rookie who's been slowly converting a place to a homestead for the past couple years.

A great deal depends on the acreage, obviously, and whether or not there's water, woods, arable land, what the topography is like. But the thing those charts never mention is the neighbors. You might be able to make a go of it on a lot less land than you'd think (using those charts) but you're going to want more land as a buffer from the neighbors (even good neighbors - I've got both kinds). And different parts of the country have different requirements with regard to how many animals can graze an acre, etc.

Ideally for me (in this area), I'd want a minimum of 20 acres, with the woodlot being the perimeter.


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## cowboyhermit (Nov 10, 2012)

I can't read the picture either, think I have seen it before though.
They are saying somewhere around 2 acres, I think that's doable. For a family I think about 10 acres would be more realistic but land is seldom divided in those increments. With 10 acres you could have a milk cow/goats, chickens could get most of their food from scraps, etc.

An acre or two is doable though things just might need to be more intensive.


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## 8thDayStranger (Jan 30, 2013)

I stole the pic from Facebook. Ill see if I can find the original


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## 8thDayStranger (Jan 30, 2013)

Here is apparently the whole picture. Here's the link I got it from if that helps

http://visual.ly/how-big-backyard-do-you-need-live-land

Edit: that one seems fuzzier than the first one. Try the link. Maybe it's clearer. I'm on a cell phone so it's hard for me to judge how it looks on a desktop or another phone.


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## ContinualHarvest (Feb 19, 2012)

jeff47041 said:


> I have a book called The backyard Homestead. The lovely one gave it to me some years ago. This reminds me of that book. It had a lot of awesome ideas.
> I'm gonna have to get it back out and review. I have forgotten all about it.
> 
> I can't wait to hear opinions. Thanks for the post!


I have this book too. Its great.


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## BillS (May 30, 2011)

Potatoes would be the best thing to grow. Commercial growers can get 22,000 pounds per acre. An acre is 43,560 square feet. So you could get about a half pound of potatoes per square foot. That sounds like a lot of food to me.

Corn is good too but it produces a lot of plant material which you don't need if you don't have cattle. It exhausts the soil a lot quicker too.

In a post collapse world it would make sense to make potatoes half of what you eat because you can grow so much and because it has a lot of nutrients.


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## PamsPride (Dec 21, 2010)

I think 2 acres is doable to produce a lot of food if someone really wanted to do it. I have 1.65 acres and my garden did very well last year. But if I had to feed my entire family on just what I could produce I would need to reconfigure some stuff on my property. I would make both my chicken and goat pens much smaller and get them down to a minimum amount of space. I would also keep less chicken, more like between 8 and 10 verse 16 or 20. I would have two goats and I would choose smaller goats and go for quantity produced over just quality. My goat pen is almost a half an acre, so that would be cut way back. My meat rabbits took up hardly any space at all. I would double my current amount of area that I use for that. 
I would take out all of the non food producing trees and replace them with productive fruit trees. I would probably turn my front yard into an orchard with a beehive on the side. 
I can grow green beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, and zucchini like crazy so I would put in the biggest plots of those that I could for trading for things that I know I can't grow. 
I know I could grow enough food for us to 'live' on but variety would be more of an issue. I know that I am just not very good at growing some veggies. We would also be changing our dietary habits as well to be eating more of what we can grow here. 

We could live with 3 fruit choices to eat or rotate eating on a regular basis, like apples, pears, and strawberries, and we could have them fixed multiple ways. 
We would probably get bored with our meat and veggie choices rather quickly. We are so used to the variety that I think changing our eating habits would take more doing than the actual growing of enough food to live on.


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## 8thDayStranger (Jan 30, 2013)

I have 16 acres to do pretty much what I want with. The land is shared between the misses, her momma, and her brother. We are the only ones living on it but her mom has an old house behind us about 100' that she uses for storage and whatnot. We all have pretty much claimed our spots. There's about 3 acres around the MILs house I can't really do anything on and there's a big 3 acre field in the back that I can't build on but I can use it for pasture because my BIL has claimed it. We have claimed about 2-3 acres in the front that they can't use. The rest we pretty much share and its fair game. Whoever gets something on it first can use it. They are all for me setting up a farm on it and its mostly fenced in already with 5 foot web wire.


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## 101airborne (Jan 29, 2010)

Several years ago I lived on 125 acres in western Ky. Most of it was woods and un-useable for "productive" purposes. We had just over 2 acres that we used for our garden area, orchard, animal area and such. We grew 70% or so of our needed vegetables and traded with neighbors for stuff we didn't raise. We had several varieties of fruit trees and grape vines, along with blackberries, blueberries, and strawberries. They produce all the fruit we needed and enough extra to can for winter/ off season and even share some with neighbors/ friends/ family. Our chicken area kept us with plenty of eggs and meat there, with rabbits and a pig and calf every 16 months or so we rasied we had about 75% of meat needs. There was a small (couple acre) pond on the place where we would fish as well, had friends who quite often would bring their catch from other places and release them into the pond to help keep it stocked.Outside of stuff like sugar, salt, flour and such we were in pretty good shape.


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## hiwall (Jun 15, 2012)

That picture (graph?) shows a goat requires 100 sq. ft.(10x10). That is fine for a pen but where is the food for the goat coming from?


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## Wellrounded (Sep 25, 2011)

It all depends on what you mean by self sufficient. Raising two or three grower pigs on a small area is easy, they'll eat what you eat and do well. But to be self sufficient you need to have a sow and a boar.... Same with all the other animals. You need extra area for seed growing in your vege garden and extra area to allow for failed crops. 
My first homestead was 1/2 acre, I grew 100% of our vegies, 90% of our fruit and all our nuts. We had two milking goats, chickens, ducks and geese. The goats and poultry got a basic grain supplement and a few additives but a lot of their feed came from the 1/2 acre. We cooked a mash for the poultry out of all our household waste and they had yoghurt made from goats milk. It worked well for a few years, then we moved to more acreage.

There are so many great stories out there about doing well on small acreages. Ten acres enough (Edmund Morris) http://archive.org/details/tenacresenoughpr00morriala
and Hovel in the Hills (Elizabeth West) are two I love.


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## webeable (Aug 29, 2012)

was always told 1 acre per person.


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## 8thDayStranger (Jan 30, 2013)

Wellrounded said:


> It all depends on what you mean by self sufficient. Raising two or three grower pigs on a small area is easy, they'll eat what you eat and do well. But to be self sufficient you need to have a sow and a boar.... Same with all the other animals. You need extra area for seed growing in your vege garden and extra area to allow for failed crops.
> My first homestead was 1/2 acre, I grew 100% of our vegies, 90% of our fruit and all our nuts. We had two milking goats, chickens, ducks and geese. The goats and poultry got a basic grain supplement and a few additives but a lot of their feed came from the 1/2 acre. We cooked a mash for the poultry out of all our household waste and they had yoghurt made from goats milk. It worked well for a few years, then we moved to more acreage.
> 
> There are so many great stories out there about doing well on small acreages. Ten acres enough (Edmund Morris) http://archive.org/details/tenacresenoughpr00morriala
> and Hovel in the Hills (Elizabeth West) are two I love.


Great great info. Especially leaving margin for failed crops and seed. And by self sufficient I mean basically growing or raising all my own food, producing my own power, and providing my own water. If I could cut out the grocery for everything besides cleaning supplies, hygiene, sugar, salt etc... as well as cut off the power and water bill I'd be happy.


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## Meerkat (May 31, 2011)

BillS said:


> Potatoes would be the best thing to grow. Commercial growers can get 22,000 pounds per acre. An acre is 43,560 square feet. So you could get about a half pound of potatoes per square foot. That sounds like a lot of food to me.
> 
> Corn is good too but it produces a lot of plant material which you don't need if you don't have cattle. It exhausts the soil a lot quicker too.
> 
> In a post collapse world it would make sense to make potatoes half of what you eat because you can grow so much and because it has a lot of nutrients.


 I was thinking the same thing.Potatoes and about 6 chickens would be mainstay.Then whatever else you could plant to save seed. A storm shelter would be nice too. Maybe another heavy producing crop in case of potato desease or infestation.


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## Wellrounded (Sep 25, 2011)

BillS said:


> Potatoes would be the best thing to grow. Commercial growers can get 22,000 pounds per acre. An acre is 43,560 square feet. So you could get about a half pound of potatoes per square foot. That sounds like a lot of food to me.
> 
> Corn is good too but it produces a lot of plant material which you don't need if you don't have cattle. It exhausts the soil a lot quicker too.
> 
> In a post collapse world it would make sense to make potatoes half of what you eat because you can grow so much and because it has a lot of nutrients.


BillS we feed corn plants to our pigs, they love it.


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

Wellrounded said:


> BillS we feed corn plants to our pigs, they love it.


What parts of the corn plant do you feed to the pigs?


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## cnsper (Sep 20, 2012)

We would feed them the whole thing. We also chopped the stalks up and put them in low areas in the field. After about 5 years the low area was level with the rest of the field. Cows will eat the stalks too.

How much acreage that you need depends on where you are. Louisiana would need less than say Arizona or Montana. All those pictures are just guidelines but not the end all. And that is probably from farmville where you can not die if you screw up.


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

What's the cob good for? Fiber in the pig's diet? Do pigs eat the cob? How about the stalk?


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## Wellrounded (Sep 25, 2011)

*My second homestead.*

This is a VERY rough plan of my second homestead. The green area is about 2 acres. All 'unused' areas were grazed by tethered goats. We only shopped twice a year and bought a few basics like rolled oats, flour, sugar and spices. We had very little pasture for the first few years so bought all our pig and cow feed, 20 ton of grain (we sold enough pigs to pay for this) and hay for the cows and goats. The poultry got a bit of grain but a lot of their feed was cooked mash made from, dairy, vege scraps and fallen fruit.

We had 75 fruit trees, 30 currants, 5 grapes, 4 female kiwi fruit, 12 brambles, 20 english gooseberries and a 4 foot by 12 foot strawberry patch. 
2 sows and 1 boar and all we raised all their piglets to porker size.
3 dairy cows
2 dairy goats
200 assorted poultry including chickens, geese, ducks, pheasants, quail, guinea fowl, turkeys and peafowl.
Main vege garden had four 4' x 12', four 8' x 12', four 4' x 4', one 20' x 20' bed and one 8' x 20' beds, as well as four 4' x 12' beds planted with perennials like asparagus and artichokes. 
We bought the occasional cull sheep off a neighbour but no other meat. 
The climate was temperate, coldest it got was just below freezing.
We started picking English gooseberries in mid October and finished picking kiwi fruit in early August and had fresh fruit everyday between. 
We could have done much, much more with this small area.


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## Wellrounded (Sep 25, 2011)

Bobbb said:


> What's the cob good for? Fiber in the pig's diet? Do pigs eat the cob? How about the stalk?


Ours is sweetcorn, we pick the cobs for the house then feed the stalks. The stalks are very high in sugars as well as fibre. If there are a few cobs left on the plants the pigs will seek them out first. Sweet corn stalks feed our pigs for about 25 days at the end of summer. We are limited to how much we can grow as we have no summer rainfall.


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

After you eat the kernels off of the cob, is the raw cob good for the pigs?


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## jeff47041 (Jan 5, 2013)

Bobbb said:


> After you eat the kernels off of the cob, is the raw cob good for the pigs?


We feed our pigs the cob after we eat the sweet corn along with feeding them the stalks.

We were never allowed to feed cows any green stalks from sweet corn, not even husks. That would make them want more and go through fences to get to the corn fields. That's what we were told, so that's what we did.

Field corn cobs. We grind some of the cob into the cow feed as a filler. The rest, we leave in the field. But we also put an electric fence around a couple of corn fields in the fall after harvest and let the cows eat stalks and missed corn.


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## dirtgrrl (Jun 5, 2011)

Using the principles of permaculture you can fit a lot more production than you think. On my 5 grassland acres I'll probably leave about 2 acres as pasture, convert about 1 acre each to row crop and orchard, and use the remaining acre in infrastructure (house, barn, yard, greenhouse, access roads, etc.) Everything does double or triple (or more) duty. Fences including perimeter serve as bramble or grape trellis, brambles serve as barrier, trees like mulberry and oak serve as shade, fast growing trees serve as woodlot and windbreak, etc.


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## goshengirl (Dec 18, 2010)

I'm not seeing any woodlots. What's everyone heating with? We're thankful for our woods for firewood - I don't know what we'd do otherwise.

And does anyone consider an aggie pond a necessity? I can see it not be absolutely necessary, but for true self-sufficiency, I'd want to be sure of water (we don't have an area good for drilling wells).

Also for true self-sufficiency, we need to do more with grains, for ourselves, but mostly for feed. With small acreages, what's everyone doing for feed? Are you able to grow enough, and for what kinds of animals?


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## jeff47041 (Jan 5, 2013)

Goshengirl, The book, The Backyard Homestead, has a section on grains (I think for feed and for human use) But it's been a few years since I read it so I don't remember what it has about it. I really want to get it out and re-read it now.

The book also has sections about livestock.

We are lucky with water at my house. We have the old 20' deep x 5' wide well that our hand pump is on. We have a 15 year old 60' deep well that our electric pump is in for our house and outbuildings. We have a small pond for fish, watering gardens, and watering livestock. And we also have a big creek (not on our property, but close enough) that runs year round.


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## goshengirl (Dec 18, 2010)

jeff47041 said:


> Goshengirl, The book, The Backyard Homestead, has a section on grains (I think for feed and for human use) But it's been a few years since I read it so I don't remember what it has about it. I really want to get it out and re-read it now.


We have that book, too, and love it (it's my DH's favorite reading material to bring when we go to visit my folks, lol). Another good one is Seymour's _The Self-Sufficient Life_. I guess I've got to get those out and look at them again. Because I'm thinking about some of these places that aren't even 2 acres and being able to grow everything needed (garden, orchard, grains, plus feed). We've got about 2.5 acres that aren't woods... maybe we could fit it all in (animals, too) if we reconfigured things. I'd want more room for pasture rotation, but that's a want, not a need. Okay, I can see it. But I still need the woodlot.


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

What do you the more experienced hands here think of mini-combines for small homesteads?






How about this walk-behind hay baler?






Another version:


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## Wellrounded (Sep 25, 2011)

goshengirl said:


> I'm not seeing any woodlots. What's everyone heating with? We're thankful for our woods for firewood - I don't know what we'd do otherwise.
> 
> And does anyone consider an aggie pond a necessity? I can see it not be absolutely necessary, but for true self-sufficiency, I'd want to be sure of water (we don't have an area good for drilling wells).
> 
> Also for true self-sufficiency, we need to do more with grains, for ourselves, but mostly for feed. With small acreages, what's everyone doing for feed? Are you able to grow enough, and for what kinds of animals?


My first little 1/2 acre was in an irrigation area (near the Murray River in South Australia) and our neighbour would let us water our garden using his water license (he used to own the house and the water license included that lot number). Firewood we would collect from road sides and the rubbish tip. The reason we moved was to have more acres, plenty of firewood and independent water.
The second homestead was 40 acres, the section I drew was the bulk of the cleared area, the rest was forest. We had 3 large ponds and a good well.
The homestead I now live on has about 45 acres or cleared or partly cleared land and about 130 acres of forest. We have a good well and large pond as well as a small pond.
We are aiming to grow most of our stock feed here on the farm. It won't be grain as we just don't have the arable land for it. Realistically we could grow enough grain to supply the house, not enough for the animals as well.


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## PreparedRifleman73 (Nov 2, 2012)

Bobbb said:


> What do you the more experienced hands here think of mini-combines for small homesteads?


I'm not "more experienced" but I have been intrigued by this kind of thing too!


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## cowboyhermit (Nov 10, 2012)

Those are neat videos Bobbb, prompted me to start another thread on the subjecthttp://www.preparedsociety.com/forum/f35/small-machinery-small-homesteads-19801/#post262776

My thoughts on the particular harvester in that video was that it had no real screening or separation. IF it caught everything, impossible to tell how efficiently it gathered from the video, then I guess it wouldn't be a problem, just would need a lot of screening and maybe some re-threshing after the fact.


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## Jerry D Young (Jan 28, 2009)

Depending on what level of self-sufficiency you want, the type of ground you are considering, and the amount of rainfall during a bad year, and the availability of irrigation, I think you need considerably more land that most are indicating.

For 5 people, raising a garden; pig; milk cow; beef steer; chickens and eggs; sugar beets for sugar; oil seed crops for cooking oil and bio-diesel; animal feed, hay, and pasture; woodlot; pond; fruit and nut orchard; space for fence rows and driveways; buildings; and rotating fallow ground, I believe 56 acres of good land, with good rainfall, and good irrigation is needed. More if there are limiting factors as listed above.

There was a reason the land rushes for homesteads were mostly 80-acre and 160-acre parcels. They were expected to provide most of what was needed on the homestead, and generate enough income to buy what they couldn't produce on their own. 80-acres is still a good size for a true homestead, if the ground is good, rainfall is adequate, and there is some irrigation.

I attached a .pdf of the spreadsheet I use to calculate how much land is needed for how ever many people, with the quantities they want of various things. The _a sheet is the spread sheet with a few recommendation numbers on the left, and the _b sheet has a lot of the calculation, notes, and specifics of why I used certain numbers.

Just my contrary opinion.


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## mosquitomountainman (Jan 25, 2010)

A person needs to define what they want to do. The general rule was that (without power equipment), a person can grow enough food to feed themselves. If they had draft animals they could grow enough to feed themselves and sell to others. Mechanized equipment increases yields but you have to have fuel for it. Draft animals need fuel too. We've looked into getting horses (and have owned horses several times). Once you get livestock though and want to grow the food for them too you add a lot more work to your life.

I have a fair sized section in my book _Creating the Low-Budget Homestead_, directly addressing the question of livestock ownership. With modern gardening methods a person can get by with a lot less garden space than in times past.

Be creative. Use bees for honey/sugar/wax production. The hives take up little space and keep a lot of people out better than a guard dog. The bees feed themselves and you and pollinate your crops. I'd advise staying away form animals because they're often more trouble than they're worth. We plan on getting meat by hunting and fishing but then we live in a sparsely populated area (Montana has less then a million people in the entire state). The only states with more land are Alaska. California and Texas.

I firmly believe that a person can feed a family on one acre under good conditions if they don't own livestock. You'll need good soil, a long growing season, and water for irrigation and you'll need to know what you're doing (good gardening and food preservation skills). The big items will be heat, fuel, etc. but build your home for low energy usage and you should be okay (this means earth sheltered in most places). Take advantage of solar and wind power too.

It would take some planning but would be worth it in the long run.


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## mosquitomountainman (Jan 25, 2010)

Double post! Sorry


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## mosquitomountainman (Jan 25, 2010)

My grandfather farmed many years with horses. His opinion based on his experience was that 160 acres was about all a person could handle when farming with horses.

He also pointed out that crop yields were considerably smaller when using horses. Row crops (like corn and soybeans) were spaced 40 or more inches apart so that the horses could walk between the rows to cultivate, etc. With tractors the distance was sometimes as close as 24 inches. There were a lot of other things done differently as well.

They had never heard of intensive gardening back then. We can do a lot better now than they could then but we could learn a lot from them as well.


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## LongRider (May 8, 2012)

helicopter5472 said:


> Guess I'm old, Is there a web site you got that from, sorta hard to read, Thanks


Try this I got it from One Block Off The Grid 








you should be able to click to it to enlarge it. If not try this link http://1bog.org/files/2011/01/backyard_farm.jpg for the original pic. Hope that helps


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## mosquitomountainman (Jan 25, 2010)

It would be interesting to know if the post above is talking of only one crop per year, using a greenhouse, the climate, intensive gardening and/or a few other things. When planting corn I've often planted pole beans and squash among the corn. You get three crops off of the same plot of land that way and all three "like" each other and assist the others in producing better.

Turnips make a good a cover crop in the fall. They grow fast and both the tops and bottoms are edible. They can be used for people and animals and they store well with minimal effort in a root cellar. Broadcast them and you'll have a thick canopy that will keep the weeds down and conserve soil moisture.

There are lots of ways to get more food out of less space.

Anyway, you can't really put an acreage requirement to the equation without understanding all of the variables involved. I've seen massive amounts of produce from miniscule plots of land. If I have lots of land I go to less labor intensive gardening practices. If very little I change tactics. The keys will be climate/growing season, soil fertility, and knowledge.

Animals add more requirements in both land and labor. Be sure that they are worth it! 

Bees are awesome homestead producers. They take nothing from the land yet increase productivity of many crops and give you honey and wax ... both are good for personal use and barter material.


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## mosquitomountainman (Jan 25, 2010)

Bobbb: The equipment is a great idea but not necessary IMO unless you're harvesting, baling, etc. an acre or more or unless you're a part time homesteader. There are other ways to accomplish the same thing for less money but it takes longer and is much more labor intensive. But if you have the money go for it. It'll save a lot of time and labor. 

Just remember that when baling hay you'll also need twine or wire for tying the bales. If you put it up loose it costs you less. The biggest work in putting up small amounts of hay (five tons or less) is in cutting it. There are lots of good sickle type mowers to be found and they'd be worth more to me than a baler (you'll still need to cut and rake the hay before baling it!).

Try to find someone to each you the finer points of haying. I've seen people nearly burn down their barns by putting it up before it's fully cured.

If you're harvesting wheat and other grains by hand you need different tactics such as cutting it earlier. If you harvest it like you would with mechanical equipment the wheat will be too dry and will shed the seed on the ground. I've cut many acres of corn using a corn knife which is basically a machete with no curve to the end of the blade. I've used a scythe to cut hay and wheat. It is a lot of work and not friendly to my allergies (I'm allergic to about everything that's green!). Corn pollen makes me itch, wheat and grass pollen gives me typical hay fever symptoms.


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

mosquitomountainman said:


> Bobbb: The equipment is a great idea but not necessary IMO unless you're harvesting, baling, etc. an acre or more or unless you're a part time homesteader. There are other ways to accomplish the same thing for less money but it takes longer and is much more labor intensive. But if you have the money go for it. It'll save a lot of time and labor.
> 
> Just remember that when baling hay you'll also need twine or wire for tying the bales. If you put it up loose it costs you less. The biggest work in putting up small amounts of hay (five tons or less) is in cutting it. There are lots of good sickle type mowers to be found and they'd be worth more to me than a baler (you'll still need to cut and rake the hay before baling it!).
> 
> ...


The idea I'm working with is to have the land and capacity to grow the grains and hay if circumstances force that on me. It would be much easier to pick up the phone and order some hay delivered than to try to harvest it from a small field for only a few animals to feed one family. Same with wheat - easier to buy 500 lbs somewhere and store it. However, if society breaks down then the ease of buying 500 lbs also breaks down.

What I don't want to face is a situation where I need that 500 lbs of wheat and I don't have the land or ability to grow it. I'd rather plan for the capacity and leave it unused than simply not have it at all.


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## cowboyhermit (Nov 10, 2012)

I really like what you are saying mosquitomountainman. I would have to disagree on the point of animals being labour intensive though, they certainly CAN be but that need not always be the case.

For instance in our area (several hundred miles north of Montana) we have a lot of experience with cattle. On a quarter of land (mostly treed and never broke) one can very easily run a dozen cows all year and still have room for a few acres of garden and crop. Aside from fencing, which would only amount to a few full days per year, the only real labour is in putting up feed. With the most minimal machinery (like my great grandfather used 100 years ago) it would only take a week or two of actual labour to put up enough feed for our winters. Slightly more modern equipment would reduce it to a few days of labour and doing it by hand would probably make it a month. 
What would be gained for that labour is at least 6000lbs of calves, up to maybe 15000 depending on how things are done. That will give at the absolute minimum, 3000lbs of meat plus the fat, bones etc.
You would also have as much milk as you wanted to get (especially with a dual purpose breed), hides too.

Now a lot of people will say, "I know this guy who has cows", or "We had cows when I was a kid", or "I worked on a cattle farm" and it was endless work. I don't want to argue with anyone's experiences, period. However just because one way of doing things is labour intensive doesn't mean there aren't other ways that are not. 

We have been doing this for over 100 years here, at one point during the great depression we had way more cows than we do today

Just one example of labour saving is that we calve in June now, calving earlier in the spring was Hell (very slight exaggeration, but if you saw calves with frozen ears you understand)

There are ways of keeping other animals with very little labour as well (horses live quite well on their own up here, in the wild as well) but our experience with cattle is more in depth and they have proven without a doubt that they can be very economical in terms of labour, at least in our area.

To "farm" a quarter of land or produce as much food with crops or garden definitely takes more labour. We still do it and probably never would stop but gardening or planting cereals to harvest is incredibly labour intensive, especially without modern machinery.


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## valannb22 (Jan 6, 2012)

I'm interested in growing feed for livestock. I only have small animals right now( rabbits and chickens) but I would like to add a couple of dwarf Nigerian goats. What kind of space am I looking at? I've got about 12 acres but a lot of it is wooded


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## mosquitomountainman (Jan 25, 2010)

1/4 of land is how many acres?

The labor intensive part will depend upon the amount and quality of land that you have as you've pointed out. My experience with animals is different. Our land is poor and we couldn't support one cow on it. It always seemed to me that there was always a tree blown down across the fence or one got injured or escaped or ... The worst was it was always while I was at work or away from home. For example, I had to leave work early one time because our horse jumped the fence. This was a 5 foot tall fence and the horse was a 1500 lb. (plus) Belgian mare. We'd had a mountain lion in the area and it got too close. The horse panicked and after jumping the fence stomped around the yard a bit. The wife and kids were afraid to come out of the house because the horse was so agitated. At that point I pitied any mountain lion that came within reach of her.

In any case I lost about 5 hours of work and drove the 45 miles back home then had to hunt the horse down and bring her back home. 

With animals you'll need to add acreage, equipment to grow and harvest their food and a place to store it where the deer can't eat it all before the cattle, horses, etc. get it. There'll be veterinary bills and injuries resulting from being around (especially) the larger critters. Fencing is expensive. You'll also need shelter for the animals and whatever tack is required for the working livestock. On top of all that you can walk out of your house one morning to find them dead in the pasture. I've seen 5 heifers dead as a doornail under a tree where they took shelter from a lighting storm. There were two more along the barbed-wire fence. That was seven cows my uncle lost in one storm. Being in agriculture as a business it wouldn't seem much to you but to the uninitiated all of this adds up to some big bucks. I'd imagine that you take many things in stride because you're used to it and really don't see anything unusual about it. 

The person without an agricultural background will have a lot to learn and the lessons can be very harsh. My wife had a horse take off that she was riding. She had to bail and in doing so broke her wrist and generally looked like she'd been hit by a train. My stepmother had all the bones in her hand crushed when a horse reared back on a rope, catching her hand between the rope and the tie post. She was an experienced handler but slipped up this one time and got caught. 

Those new to livestock should stick to chickens and rabbits for awhile then maybe graduate to sheep and goats. Be sure it's worth the time and money and risks though. 

We currently have a few chickens for the eggs. I let the deer and elk and occasional bear care for themselves then I shoot them in the fall. No food to plant, harvest and store. No fences or outbuildings to build or mend. No long days/nights during calving or lambing times. No financial investment. Just good lean meat at the expense of a bullet and a few hours in the woods doing what I love best. I can trade with a neighbor down the road for all the milk we can use.


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

mosquitomountainman said:


> I let the deer and elk and occasional bear care for themselves then I shoot them in the fall. No food to plant, harvest and store. No fences or outbuildings to build or mend. No long days/nights during calving or lambing times. No financial investment. Just good lean meat at the expense of a bullet and a few hours in the woods doing what I love best. I can trade with a neighbor down the road for all the milk we can use.


This plan only works if everyone doesn't do it. This is, in a nutshell, the hunter-gatherer lifestyle and the carrying capacity of the land isn't that high, which is why civilization took off with agriculture. If the SHTF and the agricultural economy breaks down such that the big farms lose workers, lose inputs, lose buyers, reduce or stop production, then this will ripple out to the general public and hungry people will turn to scavenging and hunting. All of a sudden that wildlife population that you're counting on is going to be targeted by a whole lot more people than is the case at present.


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## mosquitomountainman (Jan 25, 2010)

cowboyhermit said:


> ...We have been doing this for over 100 years here, at one point during the great depression we had way more cows than we do today
> 
> Just one example of labour saving is that we calve in June now, calving earlier in the spring was Hell (very slight exaggeration, but if you saw calves with frozen ears you understand) ...


I believe the key point here is "We have been doing this for over 100 years here."

The person with that kind of experience can make things a lot easier on himself because of his knowledge and experience. I love the idea of the late calving season. Shows good sense.

You'd also know which breeds have the easiest time calving, which are multi-purpose and the other traits that are desirable.

You also already have the equipment and know-how to maintain and use it.

For you it's easy. We've had new people come here and try to learn to live like we do. The things my wife and I take for granted are incredibly difficult for newcomers to grasp. Even something as simple as cutting firewood seems insurmountable to the neophyte. They spend more time trying to get their saws unbound/unstuck than cutting wood then the sheer labor involved takes it's toll on them. And that's assuming they don't cut off any essential parts of themselves.

Very few people are used to physical labor. I remember a guide saying once that the most fit hunters that they guided tended to be farmers/ranchers. Most farmers and ranchers I know would scoff at that but it's true. Even with modern machinery, farming is still labor intensive. Plus the farmer has to be self-motivated or he goes bankrupt. They're also used to putting in lots of hours "when the sun shines" because a lot of things have to be done in the right weather or the loss is huge. Few people today understand those things.

If TSHTF there are going to be a lot of people who think they'll make the grade but won't. The time to learn is now. "After" will be too late.


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## mosquitomountainman (Jan 25, 2010)

Bobbb said:


> This plan only works if everyone doesn't do it. This is, in a nutshell, the hunter-gatherer lifestyle and the carrying capacity of the land isn't that high, which is why civilization took off with agriculture. If the SHTF and the agricultural economy breaks down such that the big farms lose workers, lose inputs, lose buyers, reduce or stop production, then this will ripple out to the general public and hungry people will turn to scavenging and hunting. All of a sudden that wildlife population that you're counting on is going to be targeted by a whole lot more people than is the case at present.


That's one of the reasons we live where we do. Not many people! Plus there are hundreds of lakes with fish in them and I'm also a trapper which is a far more efficient way to acquire meat than hunting.

Hunting is not an easy skill to learn. The deer you see standing by the roadside is a completely different critter when you try to track it down. And they wise up pretty fast when hunted hard. That's why the most productive times in gun season is the first week.

I do believe that game will probably become scarce but by then we'll have acquired some more critters (we have some skills and goods that would be highly marketable in a SHTF situation) and we live in an area where there are lots of livestock of all kinds and we're active barterers as well so we already have the "network" in place.

Plus, meat is highly overrated by people in our culture. An eight ounce steak often feeds the entire family in many cultures because they use it more for flavoring than as a main serving.

Grains, too, are highly overrated by North Americans. We've been living this lifestyle for enough yeas now that we know what works and what doesn't.


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## cowboyhermit (Nov 10, 2012)

mosquitomountainman, like I said everyone has different experiences, I know a lot of people raising cattle for a long time, including many that had never handled them before. I try to help out but most of the time things have worked out well for people new to cattle, have certainly heard some bad stories though.

A quarter is 160 acres. Farming that amount of land in grain without modern equipment would take a huge amount of labour, most likely more than a typical family could handle (vegetables would certainly be impossible). I have done both and we probably always will but I know exactly how much work is involved per acre in gardening and it would most likely work out to more labour on an acre of veggies than on 160 acres of cattle. I am not suggesting that amount of land is needed, it just happens to be how land was measured and the amount of land that came as an original "homestead" here. The nice thing with cows as well is that ours spend most of their time in the bush, or if not they are on native grasses. In order to farm grain or veggies it would have to be cleared first and THAT is work.

Horses are another matter entirely, they can eat more than 1.5 or 2 cows, are many times more likely to get injured etc. I only mention them as an example of the contrast between what most people spend on animals in terms of money and labour versus what they actually need. People often spend $1000 to keep a horse for a year in these parts, pasture, feed, vet, farrier, etc and yet even in our climate there are wild/feral horses doing just fine without ANY help from people, in fact they often get trouble from humans. 

In all our years of raising cattle we can't attribute losing any to lightning, sure it happens just like people get hit. Like a tornado wiping out a person's whole homestead however, it is extremely rare. We do ground our fences usually though, just in case. Sorry to hear about the loss your uncle had, that would be much worse than anything that has happened on our place not the kind of thing I would take in stride at all.

Of all the cattle we have raised on our farm I don't believe I have never seen more than one die at once (out of hundreds) and the worst case I would ever expect is a 10%loss. Losing calves is to be expected but cows don't die very often at all.

All we provide for cattle is a place to get out of the wind in the winter, slabs or trees. They do not require any other shelter.

There are many ways to avoid calving difficulties and other than that, even for those with little experience, there is not much reason to call a vet. If an animal gets injured badly it is usually best to either let it heal on it's own if possible or butcher it before it suffers. 

As for people getting hurt by cattle, this pretty much only happens when things are being done wrong. Of all the people I know of to work with cattle I only can think of one that was seriously injured (something didn't go away) while I can think of Many who got seriously injured on bicycles, horses, lawnmowers, ladders, axes and chainsaws, etc. 
Let alone vehicles

Fencing for cattle is pretty much the cheapest fencing available, especially if one uses and electric fencer, then only one wire is needed, but even barbwire is much cheaper and than the type of fence required for other animals or to keep deer out of a garden:surrender:

Chickens are great for everyone
However rabbits, sheep, and goats in my opinion require a lot more care than cattle, and still they die every time a person isn't looking

How much we should rely on meat and dairy depends on opinion more than anything. Many cultures around the world were extremely healthy eating a diet almost exclusively of meat and dairy:dunno:
I am not saying what is right for everyone, just that there are alternatives that can and do work.


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## mosquitomountainman (Jan 25, 2010)

But you have 160 acres. The gist of the OP was how little land a person needs for self-sufficiency. My point is that you need less if you don't have animals to support.

Steve


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## Tirediron (Jul 12, 2010)

I see a large flaw in the original question. land size has a lot to do with specific location and the actual result that a person expects, do you just want to provide food, food and heat, food & heat & building materials, 
Realisticly to be self sufficient you would need to grow your own food and heat, also be able to produce enough to trade for your other needs.


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## mosquitomountainman (Jan 25, 2010)

Bobbb said:


> This plan only works if everyone doesn't do it. This is, in a nutshell, the hunter-gatherer lifestyle and the carrying capacity of the land isn't that high, which is why civilization took off with agriculture. ...


It isn't a hunter-gatherer lifestyle when you plan on using meat to _supplement_ your menu while growing your own non-meat foods. We would also go back to raising rabbits for food and pick up some sheep for wool and meat (and _maybe_ even a goat for milk and meat). We've had hogs and fattening one up for consumption takes a lot of feed.

Remember too that the best animals will not compete with you for food. Get animals that eat the things that you can't eat (like grass, brush, weeds, etc.). It will be a difficult decision when the time comes to fatten up that hog when you barely have enough corn and grains to feed yourself. Think about the family dog. What will it eat? Animals are dependents. Survival homesteaders need to seriously consider the cost of keeping them.

We also have wild foods on our 20 acres that we use. These include serviceberries, strawberries, mushrooms and wild grapes (and other less utilized ones). We use them all. The wild grapes make delicious jelly, grape juice and syrup.

Another thing to remember is that modern agriculture depends heavily upon artificial fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, irrigation (usually pumped from deep underground) and massive amounts of fuel. All of these may be gone in a SHTF situation. The alternative fuel idea might be good if done right but for most people it won't be a viable alternative.

If conditions are that bad even the small landowner will be fighting off the hordes looking for food. In a serious SHTF situation there will be massive die-offs of the population one way or another. The agriculture we'll see will be modeled after those practices used in the 18th and 19th centuries. Yields per acre were much smaller back then and local famines were not uncommon.

People need to take care that they don't romanticize a SHTF situation by comparing it to laid back living in a pastoral setting of cows, horses, sheep, etc. grazing peacefully in open meadows. Life was harsh for the frontiersmen and their families in the 1800's. It was good in many ways but they did without a lot of things we take for granted.


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## mosquitomountainman (Jan 25, 2010)

Tirediron said:


> I see a large flaw in the original question. land size has a lot to do with specific location and the actual result that a person expects, do you just want to provide food, food and heat, food & heat & building materials,
> Realisticly to be self sufficient you would need to grow your own food and heat, also be able to produce enough to trade for your other needs.


Exactly!

Don't forget building materials, security, health needs, dental care, etc., etc. etc.

Most people would be better off thinking of "self-sufficient" as being what's available locally. Even in a SHTF situation there'll still be local trading. I may not have a cow but my neighbor might and will probably trade milk for ??? One of the biggest problems in a SHTF situation will be the collapse of our transportation system.

So, when you think self-sufficiency you need to also work on barterable skills and products that will be in demand. Think of things people will need that aren't offered by everyone. Holistic medicine might be a good thing to know along with dentistry and other health related knowledge (can you set a broken bone?), blacksmithing, well drilling, manufacturing water pumps, piano tuning and repair, teaching others how to play musical instruments, etc. If you have power of any kind available think of things like a machine shop, metal casting, sawmill, flour mill, etc.


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

8thDayStranger said:


> Here is apparently the whole picture. Here's the link I got it from if that helps
> http://visual.ly/how-big-backyard-do-you-need-live-land


9 square feet per pig? 3 feet by 3 feet? Not acceptable.



BillS said:


> Potatoes would be the best thing to grow. Commercial growers can get 22,000 pounds per acre. An acre is 43,560 square feet. So you could get about a half pound of potatoes per square foot. That sounds like a lot of food to me.


You'll need a lot more than 22,000 lbs of water to make 22K of potatoes. They also need sandy soil. If you have clay, you ain't growin' spuds.


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## dirtgrrl (Jun 5, 2011)

MMM makes very good points. I'm pretty sure I can feed a family of 5 on my 5 acres, laid out as I described in a previous post. Am I going to run cattle? No, but certainly chickens, maybe a milk goat and a pig. I'll produce plenty of fruits, vegetables, and eggs for trade. I'm very close to public land for foraging and hunting and supplementing the wood pile. Although I'll grow some grain, it's mostly for humans and not for the animals. Chickens and pigs can be pastured like goats which reduces their grain needs considerably. For an idea of how that works, look up any number of Joel Salatin's books, or visit his website. He's one of my heroes. (And he's not a liberal  )

As others have mentioned, our protein needs can be filled without a big steak for dinner every night. Two eggs a day will do it, maybe three for pregnant or lactating women. Combining grains will do it. Quinoa is an excellent food (actually not a grain) that is high in available protein, and is ideal for a homestead.

Also, keeping an eye on 160 acres is gonna be tough after SHTF. Even 5 is iffy with a small family, but feasible with one or two dogs. BTW, eggs are also excellent food for dogs, shells and all.


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## Tirediron (Jul 12, 2010)

I will have to disagree with 2 eggs a day being enough being enough protein for a working adult, maybe for an 150# office worker, but no where near enough for a 220# working man. the old testament even showed that God favored the animal rancher


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## cowboyhermit (Nov 10, 2012)

Like I said 160 was just an example :brickwall:  that I used because that is how land was originally divided in many areas. Under the homestead act you got 160 acres.

My only point with the cattle is that it is often stated that they are labour intensive when the truth is actually the opposite. 
There is some truth to the fact that they require a substantial amount of land, though this depends on the size of the cow as much as anything. Miniature or small breed cows require "very little" land.

However, in regards to raising cattle being labour intensive there is really no truth to the idea that this need be the case. History will in fact show us the opposite.

I am glad the energy aspect was brought up, in our area 10 acres of woodlot was just considered adequate for a family to provide heating and materials.

Scaled back to one milk cow, a smaller dual purpose breed will easily provide 1 gallon of milk/day, that is more than 2500 calories per day (most likely more depending on fat %) or about 1 million calories per year. PLUS she will at the same time raise a calf every year, if that calf is allowed to grow it will give you another million or so calories in meat and fat.

Plus a milk cow makes a great source of energy, no harness is even required, just a simple yoke and you have a pulling machine that will pull the average lawn mower/garden tractor in circles (don't tie a cow to a garden tractor) And do the tractive work of many men without effort, see how many guys it takes pulling on a yoke to stop even a little milk cow

So if a person were to have one milk cow they would not even need any fencing although for most people it would be easier to put some. I also don't like owning any land without some form of fence anyways. They would not have to work up any land, plant anything etc for that cow, she could graze grass areas around the homestead including wooded area etc, eating things that grow naturally that people cannot.

In return the owner would get back enough food for 2-3 people from the cow alone, however they would ALSO have a source of transportation or a means of working land that is much better than human powered


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## Cabowabo (Nov 6, 2012)

I've been looking at purchasing land within the next 2-3 years. With an extremely large down payment. How do you figure out the Energy needs and how to best meet those needs.


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## cowboyhermit (Nov 10, 2012)

Cabowabo, assuming you are talking about heating and cooking here, trees are probably your best bet. Wood can also be gasified to run motors or be used for cooking. 
The amount of woods you would need would depend on so many factors though, we are way up in the Canada so we need a lot of wood to heat over the winter, luckily there is more than we can ever use. Maybe if we knew which areas you were considering it would be easier to help.

If you are talking about alternative energy such as solar as well then once again there are tons of factors.

Heating/cooling is usually the biggest energy consumer, especially if you include hot water and cooking in that (or a clothes dryer).

Refrigeration is next and a very important factor, if you intend to have a fridge and a deep freeze it should not be hard to find the power consumption for the sizes you want.

Lighting, a laptop, communications, etc take very little power in comparison so focus on the big stuff first.


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

Cabowabo said:


> I've been looking at purchasing land within the next 2-3 years. With an extremely large down payment. How do you figure out the Energy needs and how to best meet those needs.


You have 2-3 years to prepare. Buy a Kill-A-Watt and monitor the energy usage of everything you have plugged in.

Then divide the list into essentials and luxuries.

With the issue of home heating, the calculation becomes more complex in that you have to account for your climate, how well insulated your home is, your comfort level in terms of heating and cooling, and the methods of heating/cooling that you're implementing. I'm sure that if you ask specific questions you will get specific answers. Your question above was general in nature and I suspect that you're going to get other general-type answers.


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

If you're aiming from the start to rely on wood heating, I'd highly recommend that you design a masonry heater into your home (they're kind of hard to do as a retrofit.)


















The point here is that these units are only fired once or twice during the day, they burn super-hot and super-efficient, meaning low smoke and soot for your chimney, the heat is absorbed by all of the mass and then slowly released over the course of the day. With traditional wood stoves made of steel, the heat of the fire goes into the steel, the steel gets blisteringly hot, the heat is released quickly, your room absorbs the heat quickly and then cooling begins immediately, so you get a spiking effect.


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

If you are building a structure "More Modest" than what those houses look like, look into the rocket mass heaters. Also, if you find a place with a gas well on the property and tapping rights, that is like gold.


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