How Much Land is Necessary to Be Self Reliant

Capt Quirk · Jan 31, 2018

South central-ish, east of Macon.

As far as plowing without a mule, when we started working on building, we made a yoke, and my step son and I hauled logs ourselves. When it was time to till, pick axes and hoes... rent-a-tiller when we could. One less mouth to have to feed, not to mention that farm critters also need care and housing. Less is sometimes better.

brownhounds · Jan 31, 2018

Capt Quirk said:
South central-ish, east of Macon.

As far as plowing without a mule, when we started working on building, we made a yoke, and my step son and I hauled logs ourselves. When it was time to till, pick axes and hoes... rent-a-tiller when we could. One less mouth to have to feed, not to mention that farm critters also need care and housing. Less is sometimes better.

I would never build housing for a horse, mule, or a cow. All they need is a big water oak. 2 acres would be a lot of land to plow with a hoe. It sounds like you got enough land, though.

Capt Quirk · Jan 31, 2018

We didn't plow that much. Only needed 5-6 beds, about 65' each. Those beds are on the tip of another acre though, so we could expand the crops. But, it still got cleared by hand. I am getting too old to do it anymore.

Milkman · Jan 31, 2018

I used to collect horse drawn equipment. If someone is really going to go back to using that stuff I can hook you up. ?

Dustin · Jan 31, 2018

Milkman said:
You ever try to milk a ? pig?

barter with pork... you'll come out to the better, several acres set aside for just a milk cow is waste of space.

ryanh487 said:
Help with all that work is what the wife and kids are for. Why else spoil the peace and quiet of 80 acres of hunting land on a trout stream?

In the situation he's referring to of the "stuff hitting the fan", after 3 months there won't be a wild animal bigger than a coon left in this state. You'll be up day and night trying to keep people from killing you to get to what livestock and garden you have.

brownhounds said:
To the ones that said they can get by with 2-3 acres of fertile ground...how will you plow? Will you drink milk or just water? How will you heat? How will you grow food for chickens?

You don't have to plow.

water or milk either one will keep you alive.

burn what you can for heat, it doesn't have to be big split wood, 1-2" saplings provide lots of firewood.

Chickens aren't needed.

There seems to be some confusion about how things would work after something like that or how they worked a couple hundred years ago... you don't get what you want, you get what you need to survive... your amazing meal days are over, you may be living 6 months or more on beans, peas, turnips or sauerkraut and chewing on jerky and salt pork as a delicacy in between.

It's not fun, it's miserable but it'll keep you alive.

brownhounds · Jan 31, 2018

Dustin said:
barter with pork... you'll come out to the better, several acres set aside for just a milk cow is waste of space.

In the situation he's referring to of the "stuff hitting the fan", after 3 months there won't be a wild animal bigger than a coon left in this state. You'll be up day and night trying to keep people from killing you to get to what livestock and garden you have.

If it gets that bad, I am not bartering with anybody except the good lord. I really just wanted to address how many acres a man needed to be SELF SUFFICIENT in the case of another Great Depression or something like a substantial power outage, etc.

I do think you will need to raise chickens for various reasons.....fertilizer, eggs, pest control, and meat. I know we cant eat like kings during a crisis, but I do think the firewood is overlooked. We could burn saplings, but how much acres of woodland is needed to provide heat and cooking year round? Also, the garden needs to be able to save seeds as well. I know my family can easily eat a 2 acre garden no problem. But, we cook a lot.

Dustin · Jan 31, 2018

brownhounds said:
If it gets that bad, I am not bartering with anybody except the good lord. I really just wanted to address how many acres a man needed to be SELF SUFFICIENT in the case of another Great Depression or something like a substantial power outage, etc.

I do think you will need to raise chickens for various reasons.....fertilizer, eggs, pest control, and meat. I know we cant eat like kings during a crisis, but I do think the firewood is overlooked. We could burn saplings, but how much acres of woodland is needed to provide heat and cooking year round? Also, the garden needs to be able to save seeds as well. I know my family can easily eat a 2 acre garden no problem. But, we cook a lot.

In the case of just living off the land for a short time type thing you could go from 3 acres to 1000... depends on how fancy you want to get.

3 acres of turnips, cabbage and beans will feed a family easily for yr. if you do spring planting, fall planting, etc.

If you want the variety of beef, pork, vegetables, fruits, etc. 20 acres should be enough... but you'll find people who'll always want more than they really need, for some people 10,000 acres wouldn't be enough lol

Milkman · Jan 31, 2018

Some sects of the Amish live that way now

Ruger#3 · Jan 31, 2018

A good read on the topic. Lots of old school methods to make the most of small acreage.

https://www.amazon.com/Five-Acres-I...coding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=MBH8SJY1ZZDMVFEEVW81

Nicodemus · Jan 31, 2018

Milkman said:
You ever try to milk a ? pig?

A boar and couple of brood sows will serve a family a lot better than a milking cow will. Especially if times get real bad.

livinoutdoors · Jan 31, 2018

A milk cow is the worst idea for a small homestead. You dont need milk to survive. A small breed of hogs, like guinea hogs or kune kune hogs can live in a small yard. If it takes a 2 acre garden to feed your family you are doin something wrong. Also this is georgia, you need a really really small amount of firewood to get buy.

Havana Dude · Jan 31, 2018

Ya best not have more than you can keep an eye on. If, like you say, the stuff hit the fan, those who have their act together will be a target. Just a thought.

brownhounds · Feb 1, 2018

livinoutdoors said:
A milk cow is the worst idea for a small homestead. You dont need milk to survive. A small breed of hogs, like guinea hogs or kune kune hogs can live in a small yard. If it takes a 2 acre garden to feed your family you are doin something wrong. Also this is georgia, you need a really really small amount of firewood to get buy.

As far as a 2 acre garden......we plant an acre of corn.....the rest is beans, tomatoes, potatoes, squash, okra, etc. We can a lot and eat a lot fresh. We plant a little extra for chickens and hogs, but they don't get much of it.

We go through 2-3 cords of wood just heating the house. I would imagine we would go through at least one more cord if we had to cook and smoke cure with it.

I raise tamworth hogs, but wouldn't mind trying out the kune kune hogs.

As far as a milk cow, I would never own one. If I had to have milk, I would milk a goat......mainly for cheese, butter, and biscuits.

When my great great grandpa died, he left a handwritten will to his survivors. He left them 8 head of beef cattle, breeding pair of hogs, pen full of chickens, 40 acres, and enough sugar to last a year. Every time I have had an old timer in my family pass away, they said make sure you have plenty of grass where ever you live. I truly think some of us are in for a rude awakening if we think we can make it on 2 acres.

livinoutdoors · Feb 1, 2018

Brownhounds i was just lookin at it from the smallest you could get by with. I think the main thing would be realizing that you cant have the same standard as most people do now. I have a very small house( cabin). To heat it i use about a cord of wood . If you had to cook with wood i would use more for sure. I do fine on 9 acres, but just like anything else i could do more if i had more!

livinoutdoors · Feb 1, 2018

I also agree most everyone is in for a rude awakening no matter what size their land holdings if they had to live off the land like we did 2-3 generations ago. Most people cant even be bothered to cook dinner anymore let alone grow/raise/hunt their food.

Milkman · Feb 1, 2018

livinoutdoors said:
I also agree most everyone is in for a rude awakening no matter what size their land holdings if they had to live off the land like we did 2-3 generations ago. Most people cant even be bothered to cook dinner anymore let alone grow/raise/hunt their food.

Agree. For some of us who are older and are on meds and/or other health support apparatus it would likely lead to more than a rude awakening.

doomtrpr_z71 · Feb 1, 2018

This whole little scenario shows why organic ag doesn't work. Regardless, modern agriculture takes .5 acres to feed one person globally, the US uses .14 acres a person. With solar power you can get by with 2 acres per person if it's irrigated, otherwise it'll be 5. If you truly want to abandon modern ag practices and live like it's the 1800's, the average farm size in 1880 was 134 acres, in 1850 it was 203. 100 bushels of wheat will take 5 acres and 100 bushels of corn will take 2.5 acres. That's if you have horses, a gang plow, seeder, harrow, binder, thresher, wagons and the additional equipment for corn. You also still need commercial fertilizer.

If you want to live like it's the 1600's you'll need about 15 acres per person if you leave some land fallow, if you don't then you'll need at least 30.

Capt Quirk · Feb 1, 2018

Rabbits are fast to grow... in theory. We must be the only people on Earth, that can't get bunnies to do what they are best known for. Must be related to the vegetable family...

I saw one guy, who had trays of food growing for the rabbits, some fast growing alfafla plant. Used the pellets from the rabbits to produce methane for heating and cooking... and a flame thrower

mossyhorn · Feb 5, 2018

Bigfoot is gonna take away a lot of the bigger predators on the smaller tracts!

3chunter · Jul 8, 2018

Would be best to combine with a few neighbors b/c you would need help protecting everything and more than likely pulling the trigger on another human trying to steal your supply would happen eventually unfortunately. I would think a family would need around 40-50 acres each.

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