Saskatchewan, big whitetail country!!! | Thanks Barry.
Have you been doing this long, or just the once? I have lots of ideas. Trouble is we are very rural, so have less market potential, but if I had 10 cents every time I hear an old lady from town rave about the old ways of raising animals, be it chickens, beef, or pork, I would be filthy rich. There is a large market potential even in the sticks where I am for this kind of niche.
I know one old farmer, who has a barn, who thinks outside the box in a big way. He small square bales for horse people, selling his hay for double the actual market price, grows and sells sunflower seeds for bird enthusiasts, etc. Well we were talking one day, and he thinks if he were younger, the most money a guy could make, would be raising hogs in his barn, off of 30 or 40 sows. You must remember we are in a feed surplus area, it is easy and cheap to grow wheat for 3 or 4 bucks a bushel for example. The reason no one does it I believe is because no one wants to try their hand at "work"anymore.
My kids and I raise meat birds already, and sell eggs. The appetite outstrips our supply massively year after year. Neighbors think I am nuts. They say they have no time for these time wasting ventures. Well now, I or the kids spend maybe 5 minutes a day with my chickens. I make a couple or three bucks a minute net to me and my kids off our little flock. I guess they don't have 5 minutes a day. As I see it, how I would raise the pork would take maybe 15 minutes a day. While my neighbors sit in the coffee shop, curl the winter away, laughing at my backwards ways, I'll make our family some vacation/college/retirement money in my spare time. My kids will learn the value of time, energy, and finances. It has more to do with a mindset of life, than it does to do with money anyway.
But I see no reason to do three or four things that may each make a guy 4 or 5 grand a year. That is 12 to 20 grand extra income, with a very small labor and time commitment. They can keep curling, and taking their kids to hockey for all I care! I'll fill a niche in the meantime. |
Hog Farming...anyone getting in again?
