Josiah Young

Our goats and chickens share 1/2 the barn. The other half is goat free, we keep the hay and the chicken feed on the goat free side. We used a cattle panel to divide it, and then put a ramp of roosts on the chicken side. leading over the panel. The chickens quickly figured out how to get over to the goat side, and hunger/returning to roost let them figure out how to fly over the 50 inch cattle panel back to "their" side...  The goats can't make it over to the chicken side.

Travis Johnson wrote:
I pay cash for just about everything, and seldom buy new things for that reason, but tractors are an exception because the return on investment is so great. I have never sold a tractor yet where I did not make money on the sale, or broke even on the sale. But if that sounds silly, it should not because in the time that I have had the machine I have used it for so much work, that it ends up being free work. My most expensive purchases to date have been tractors, all the while I put my family in used vehicles, all because I know vehicles cost me money, and with tractors I save, or make money.

Pretty much the same thought process here. The purchase price on all the vehicles I've ever owned still doesn't add up to what I paid for my Kubota in 2017. But (aside from perhaps the farm truck) I won't have any of those vehicles in five years. I don't really see a reason for why I won't be leaving that Kubota to whichever one of my kids inherits the place in 40+ (Lord willing) years. Looking at it that way, the tractor is stupid cheap, and in just the 2ish years I've owned it, there's been tons of projects that I literally could not have done without it, not to mention the jobs that would have taken me 2-3 times as long if I didn't have it.

MDC's wildlife code has a good section on owner protection of property "3 CSR 10-4.130" But basically varmints can all be shot or trapped to prevent livestock loss/property damage, no need to notify the MDC. Exceptions are listed, but they're pretty common sense, if it's a "game animal"(deer, elk, turkeys) you need permission to kill. If it's a bear or mountain lion you need permission to kill unless they're actively attacking or killing your pets/livestock/humans.

As to your basic question, we kinda divvied up our lifestyle and determined how hard(financially, time-wise, practically, and emotionally) it would be to get different facets of each section "self-reliant". Putting meat on the table, that's pretty easy/straightforward for us. I fish and hunt for almost all of our meat needs, we're also building a goat herd to make the supply/timing a little more reliable. Dairy is also on the goats. Both of those are easy wins for us.

On the other side of the equation, take electricity. Given our lifestyle and financial cost, going off grid is a ways down the road. Doable? Sure, but it's not worth the costs at the moment. That being said, I keep track of electricity use so I know about what we would need to keep our current lifestyle if/when we end up going off-grid.

Looking at our life in this way is a lot more encouraging than taking it as a lump sum. We've achieved 100% in some categories, sure there's some areas that are at 0%, but we are making progress towards the bigger goal. Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither is self sufficiency(unless you have gobs of money, you could probably do it if you won the lottery).