Homesteading & Livestock Forum

What this board is for

Animals and the day-to-day of running a productive place: chickens, goats, sheep, pigs, bees, working dogs, fencing, shelter, feed, water in winter, and the veterinary questions that come with distance. It is the board for the practical mechanics rather than the philosophy.

Livestock changes an off-grid property more than almost anything else, because animals need water every day regardless of weather, feed regardless of season, and attention regardless of whether you are mid-build. That is worth understanding before the first animals arrive.

The questions that come up most

How much fencing, and what kind? Depends entirely on the animal and the predators. Fencing for chickens, for goats, and for keeping bears out are three different projects, and goats in particular test any fence built optimistically.

How do I keep water from freezing? The recurring winter problem, and the answers range from heated waterers that cost energy to twice-daily hauling that costs time. Solving it well is one of the biggest quality-of-life improvements on a cold-climate homestead.

What does it cost to feed them? More than most people plan for, particularly through winter when nothing is growing. Feed, bedding, and veterinary costs belong in the operating budget from the start.

What happens when I want to leave for a week? The question that decides how much livestock a household can realistically keep, and it is worth answering before acquiring animals rather than after.

What a useful post looks like here

Say the climate, the species and numbers, the housing and fencing you have, and what you are trying to achieve: eggs, meat, milk, fiber, or land management. Advice that suits a mild climate with a large barn does not transfer to a cold one with a small shed.

For health questions, say what you have observed and over what period, and remember that a remote location makes early intervention far more valuable than it is where a vet is twenty minutes away.

The mistakes that cost the most here

Acquiring animals before the infrastructure exists. Fencing, shelter, water, and feed storage all want to be finished before the first delivery, not improvised around it.

Underestimating winter water. It is the daily task that does not pause, and in a cold climate it can dominate the chore list.

Building fencing for the animal rather than for the predator. Losses off grid are usually to something that came in rather than something that got out.

Taking on more species at once than the household can learn. Each has its own diseases, feeds, and failure modes, and year one is already full.

And having no plan for absence. A homestead with livestock is a place somebody has to be, every day, unless arrangements exist.

Water, feed, and the winter routine

Winter is what tests a livestock setup. Water must be available and not frozen, which means either a heated system with the energy cost that implies, or a routine of hauling and thawing that has to work on the worst morning of the year.

Feed storage needs to be dry, rodent-proof, and large enough to cover a period when the road is closed. Bedding needs the same. Both are bulky, which makes storage a building question rather than a shopping one.

Shelter requirements vary more than people expect: most livestock tolerate cold far better than damp and wind, and a well-ventilated dry shelter usually beats a sealed warm one. Ventilation failures cause more respiratory problems than cold does.

Distance, vets, and doing more yourself

Veterinary access is the real constraint on remote livestock keeping. Large-animal vets are thin on the ground in many rural areas, callouts are expensive, and the response time may be measured in days rather than hours.

That pushes homesteaders toward more self-sufficiency in routine care: knowing normal temperatures and behavior, keeping a stocked kit, and having a relationship with a vet before there is an emergency. It also makes prevention disproportionately valuable, since the cheapest treatment is the one not needed.

For sizing and costing, the coop calculator and the fencing calculator work from your own numbers, and the homesteading section of the journal covers individual species and systems in more depth.

How much of this is regional

Climate decides shelter, water management, and feed storage; predators decide fencing; and local rules decide what may be kept at all. Some jurisdictions restrict livestock numbers, species, or slaughter on residential parcels, and covenants in a subdivision can prohibit animals entirely.

Veterinary availability is intensely local and worth checking before acquiring animals rather than after. In some areas a large-animal vet is an hour away and booked; in others there is no practical option at all.

So post the region alongside the species. Advice that works in a mild climate with a large-animal vet nearby does not transfer to a cold one without.

The cost, the tie, and the honest arithmetic

Feed, bedding, fencing, shelter, and veterinary care are the recurring costs, and winter is when they concentrate. Most homesteaders find that small livestock roughly break even on cost and pay well in quality and self-reliance, while larger animals need a real plan to be worth it.

The bigger cost is the tie. Animals need daily attention regardless of weather, illness, or whatever else is happening, and arranging absence is a genuine constraint on the household. That is worth deciding before acquiring rather than after.

Start smaller than planned and add once a season has been survived. Almost nobody regrets starting with fewer animals; a good many people regret the opposite.

Tools for this topic

Most questions on this board come down to a number somebody has not worked out yet. These do the arithmetic and show their working, so an answer here can be checked rather than taken on faith.

• Tools/chicken coop calculator: size a coop and run properly
• Tools/fencing calculator: cost fencing by the run

How this board works

Posting needs an account, which exists so that answers have a name attached and so that the same person can be asked a follow-up six months later. It costs nothing and it is not used for anything else.

The conventions here are the ones that make a small forum useful. Say where you are, at least to the state or region, because almost every answer on this site depends on climate or on local rules. Say what you have already, and what you have already tried. Give numbers where you have them, and say when you are guessing. And when something works or fails, come back and say which, because the thread is read by far more people than post in it.

Answers here should be able to say where they came from. Experience is welcome and so is a rule of thumb, as long as it is labeled as one. Where a claim is about safety, code, or law, it wants a source, because the reader on the other end may be about to spend money or wire something themselves.

Boards next door

Off-grid questions rarely stay inside one department. A water question is often a power question underneath, and a land question is usually several at once. These boards field the neighboring subjects:

• Food & Growing: Gardens, preservation, and food storage: growing and keeping your own food year round.
• Water: Collection, storage, filtration, and pumps: getting clean, reliable water when there is no tap to turn on.
• Pets: Dogs, cats, and working animals off-grid: veterinary access in the middle of nowhere, feeding and safety, and the compan...
• Security & Self-Defense: Keeping a remote place and the people on it safe: situational awareness, deterrence, home and property security, and sta...

Asking a question that gets a good answer

The difference between a thread that gets three useful replies and one that gets none is almost always in the first post. Four things do most of the work: where you are, what you already have, what you have already tried, and what you are actually trying to achieve.

Location matters because nearly every answer on this site depends on climate or on local rules, and the same question has different right answers in Vermont and Arizona. What you have matters because advice that assumes different equipment wastes everyone's time. What you have tried stops people repeating it. And the goal matters because the best answer is frequently that the problem should be solved somewhere else entirely: a load reduced rather than a battery added, a parcel checked rather than a design revised.

Numbers beat adjectives. Give the figure where you have one and say plainly when you are guessing, because a guess labeled as a guess is useful and a guess presented as a measurement sends people down the wrong path.

Answering well, and the standard here

Experience is the most valuable thing on a board like this, and it is most valuable when it comes with its conditions attached: what you have, where, for how long, and what went wrong along the way. A rule of thumb is welcome when it is labeled as one.

Where a claim is about safety, code, or law, it wants a source, because the person reading may be about to wire something themselves or spend a large amount of money. Direct-current faults, combustion appliances, and structural decisions are not places for confident approximations, and saying you are not sure is a genuine contribution rather than a failure.

It is also worth saying when something has changed. Equipment, prices, and regulations all move, and an answer that was right three years ago can be wrong now.

Coming back with what happened

The most underused post on any forum is the follow-up. Threads are read by far more people than post in them, and a question with no resolution is a question the next reader has to ask again.

So come back and say which suggestion worked, what it cost, and what you would do differently. Say it even when the answer is that none of the advice helped and you solved it another way, because that is the most useful outcome of all to record.

If what you learned contradicts something published on this site, please say so. Corrections are logged publicly on the corrections page with the date rather than quietly edited away, and readers who have called the county or walked the ground are the best source of correction this site has.

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