I need 10-20 tons. Please let me know if you know who I can contact. I’m based in California

Long story short. A year ago I sold my ranch in Texas to move closer to family in Michigan. We primarily breed hair sheep as well as horses and while most of my property will be fenced and grazed on, I have a few small chunks of land totaling about 12-15 acres that would be more practical to grow hay on rather than fence. Problem is, I have very little experience growing hay.

This land several years ago was used to grow hay but is currently heavy with weeds, primarily milkweed. With my primary bit of research, I've read that managing the weeds and Overseeding with a No-till drill might be my best possible option. However, the No-till drills I've seen listed are fairly expensive and thus impractical for someone only doing a small bit of land. So my question is...

1. Can I use an older conventional seed drill to overseed?

2. Would another method be more practical?

Thank you in advance.

Hello everyone! I have a question, its been a long time since I lived on a farm and I think I am ready to get some chickens or something to help cut down on the bug population in our yard. I have no intention of having more than four or five birds, especially if they are chickens as my children are allergic to eggs so I have very little use for eggs. I will be giving away the eggs I do get. With that being said my kids seem fine with Guinea eggs, however I cannot stand how loud they are and have never had any luck on dads farm with them surviving their own stupidity (IE getting eaten by other animals/wandering off and never coming back) I could possibly tolerate them if they actually decided to stick around and come back every day, but I wanted to get some advice on it from some other people before I decided! So what kind of bird should I get for my property??

Dear farmers, dear ranchers. A friend and I (both trainees in agriculture) are having a visit from USA. He is an old friend, used to breed Simmental cattle and Mama cows in Sandy Acres Nebraska, now he is retired.

He is visiting us in Europe and we would like to take him to see Simmental/Fleckvieh cattle in Germany and Austria. Some farmers understandably shy away from contact between strangers and their cattle for hygiene reasons. Of course touching is out of the question, we know. Clean shoes before every visit is also a must. Nevertheless, we would like to fulfill our old friend's wish and go in search of Simmentals. Do you have any creative tips, well-known farms and suggestions as to how we can make this possible? Thank you from Denmark! t

Hi all,

I want to preface this by saying that I am not incredibly familiar with the agriculture industry. I have helped out on farms from time to time but do not know the ins and outs. That being said, I have absolutely loved working on farms when given the chance, and would love to see if a career in agriculture is possible. I am 23 and graduated with a bachelors in Finance last year. I work in real estate now, but would love to move to agriculture if it made any sense at all. Do you think I could be valuable to a farm with the degree and experience that I have? I am also more than willing (excited even) to work the manual side of the job, eventually interested in management perhaps. What do yall think? Thanks!

A bit of a different kind of post but just want to share my excitement about working in the farming industry!

I was doing a boring office job so it's a very different kind of job.

If anybody has any tips and things to be aware of that'll be great, thanks!

I love how fxkn weird it is, but I still want to know WHY 😂

Background:
I enjoy growing things very much. My first plant was a tomato plant when I was 13. I have some pretty cool pictures with my sunflower, cucumber and watermelon gardens. I've succeeded in growing watermelon that was full sized on my second attempt. So not a lot of experience, but enough to know it's something I would always enjoy. I've been watching videos behind the microbiology and composition of the soil.. well it's been a while, I was fascinated, and I 100% will be getting back into that video, I just got busy with 'life'.

I do not enjoy killing things at all. I have and will kill for defense and food, but Idk if I would enjoy the killing aspect so I plan to just sell livestock to a butcher and let them handle it. I don't mind if it's done on my property, I just don't want to carry out the act. I know, I know... But anyway is this feasible? Would butchers take live animals? does it make sense economically?

I have a bad left shoulder, but my right is strong. I have no investment capita, I maybe have 1200 surplus each month I could invest. I plan to get a loan to buy a farm with a homestead on it. I am not afraid of bees. I am thinking of small animals, like chickens, maybe turkeys, pigs, but definitely not cows and horses. I would love to have chickens because of the free eggs and I can grow my own chickens and ask the butcher cut me up some meat here and there. I'm not afraid of blood, I am just empathetic and feel the pain of animals. It's a weakness I struggle with. I almost got hit by a car who was angry I parked in the middle of the road to try to protect a kitten while I rescued it... little f* bit me. still leaving it there would be on my heart.

I really enjoy growing things, and the science behind what makes it work, and I am highly into fish wild life.

I'm wondering if like raising fish, along side growing food and flowers would be a viable business I could do without any really expensive equipment like combines, or so. I could maybe get a tractor with a loan or something. Specifics like specific plants, animals, methods, tools, etc, etc would be highly appreciated.

If you guys are willing could you advise how you would do it if you had my same situation? I can do hard work, but only on my right side. the left side can do mild work. so no real heavy lifting (which is why I quit lifting weights and jogging with sandbags.

Edit: Also I should add that I plan to continue learning software for game development in my down time as these 2 are like dreams for me. That and flying.

From my plots in central Michigan. And why dicamba and clopyralid are used instead.

Enlist corn on either sides of this.

Short version:

TLDR: husband and wife both work a 9-5. Husband took on side hustle with his father, costing him a lot of hours but he refuses to take a salary, putting all profits back into company. Husband takes second side hustle farming with his father. Again, refuses to take salary, puts all profit back to business. What is the point?

Long version:

So my husband and in laws have decided to bring us (my husband) into the crop farming business beginning about 4 years ago when they inherited land. Long story but: My husband is a typical workaholic. Feels value in being a provider vs helping around the house or quality time etc. he has a full time job at a machine shop and also owns a side business with his dad with 5 employees that they are equal partners in name only but the business is only in my husbands name bc of how it was set up- it’s for making a specific part that other machine shops buy. Thats pretty established so it adds only about 10 hours a week to his plate but for the first 15 years of our marriage it was literally another full time job for him. He is a very hard worker and went years with hardly any sleep. Business is great and profitable. Lots of $ in the business bank account. However, husband doesn’t and has never taken a salary from his side business. All profits go into the company. No debt anymore. Separate bank accounts and we don’t touch that $. When times were very hard and we were scraping by, and I was raising our kids and barely seeing him bc he was hard at work and keeping our house and also working full time myself I just reminded myself that this will pay off and we will reap the benefits together. Sacrifice for the big picture. We got through those tough times with no salary from the business and now we don’t “need” it. We just rely on our own full time jobs. So now after 3 years of farming I’m hearing “best year ever” so when I asked my husband why we see none of the farm $ or when would we get $ from that I’m told that goes back into the farm. After buying seed and equipment has been paid off for a year it now goes into the bank to buy more land when it comes up. So we get no salary from the machining enterprise and now also no $ from the farming. I asked if we will ever and he said that when he retires he will most likely put the profits from the machine stuff into the farm/land. I know they will never sell the land because they talk about people who sell the family farms etc. So what is the point I ask him? He just says there’s only so much land they don’t make more land the value always goes up. So it’s valuable on paper but we will never see the $? We will never see the profits bc it goes into the land which he will never sell? I don’t want to make waves and when I have tried to bring it up 2x he got upset saying it’s not all about $. And it’s not. But it’s a lot of his time-away from family-going into the machines business which will then go into the farm business so how does this sacrifice ever pay off for our family? The only thing he has ever said is it will pass down to our kids. But then how does that help if they never sell it? I don’t understand why this is a good investment of time or resources. He says that both our jobs provide so I need to stop bringing it up so I did. But I don’t understand. There is no salary. There are countless hours spent away from family, especially the machines job when our kids were little. He was a great dad but most times I was alone. He did very little but go into their rooms after they were sleeping to kiss them goodnight as he was gone before they woke and they were sleeping when he got home. Housework and yard work except weekly mowing in summer were and still are mine and that was ok with me bc I knew his time was going into the business. Don’t get me wrong. I love him and he is hardworking and if that’s his biggest fault I am lucky. But 2 businesses are basically just to build wealth for the future generation and not to benefit us? My daughter is a junior in college and I was also dismayed to learn that the business being in my husbands name disqualified her for any student financial aid bc on paper it looks like we make X amount of dollars when really the only $ we use is what both of us make at our jobs. It also meant we could not do a 529 savings plan bc on paper “we” make too much $. Even though we don’t use that $. So since we will only ever have the benefit of our 2 jobs and the salary from those- modest but comfortable-I feel slightly resentful that I didn’t have the same quality time or help as the other people that were married to someone with just a 9-5 job. Since that’s the only profit we will ever see. Like we are rich on paper but it’s not $. I’m trying to see this another way because I feel like a greedy bitch but it’s not the $ it’s the fact that all that time lost will not be to our benefit. I can’t talk to my husband about this bc when I tried he got defensive and said it’s between his dad and him and I have never put work into the farm or the machines so it’s not my concern. But what about all the time and sacrifice of being married to someone who had no time for us or to help us because he was building that? What am I missing and is this how farming is? I will not being this up again to him I just want some reasoning on what I’m missing. Oh also when his grandpa died and left land to them his sibling not involved with the farm got 400k and we got…. more land. We do have what we need but we budget for things our old house needs and are saving for siding. I would never say anything but would have been nice to get a check to help instead of more dirt. I also feel guilty bc his mom doesn’t seem to have any of these feelings so I just feel like a jerk. Please don’t just say I’m a bad wife and not cut out to be a farmers wife.

Dunno what's come over me lately. I'm a landowner with a 60 hp tractor I refurbished, and I just want to try running a small square baler for the experience of it. I've been reading up on balers, how they work, what models are good, etc. The long and short of what I found is this:

-The ones that seem like decent buys to me are a Deere 14T that looks nice, and is fresh from use, asking 650, and a couple NH 273 Hayliners, 1k asking a piece with throwers, I'd sell the thrower and probably go down to $500. Been told Deeres make a cleaner and tighter bale, and the only advantage I can think of to a NH is parts balers are everywhere. Seems like they're built kinda funny though. Dealers for both are close by. I currently have a guy who gets my 12 acres of hay free, he doesn't have a huge operation so I'm not going to ask him stop as it feels like taking food off his table. Thinking of trying custom for that reason, focusing on emergency baling (eg if somebody else's equipment goes down) because in this economy money don't go far. I'd be aiming to bale windrowed hay and I'd offer to stack and store it in the owner's facilities for an hourly charge. My goal is just having some fun and getting seat time on the tractor. If I can pay the baler off and make some money for playing with my toys etc, perfect. Would just be putting word of mouth out that I'd be willing to bale for folks, my concerns are mainly these:

-I have no experience. Books can obviously only go so far, odds are I'm gonna screw up a bale or three in the field. Come from a farming family, but they've all been out of it for 30 years, mainly due to kids leaving home. I can turn a wrench and work on most any equipment

-I don't know how liability would work- is it suggested to have an insurance policy for custom hay work?

-Does anybody even hire custom balers anymore, or is it needed to cut and tedd also? I'm reluctant to take up hay preparation because that's a lot of risk in terms of moisture, etc. More over, do people even hire custom guys still?

-Seems balers are either really reliable, or absolute crap shoots that become money pits. Seems one can become the other if ya look at em wrong. Also know how John Deere prices their parts in an *ahem* intimate fashion, if you catch my drift.

-Granted, I got the baling bug bad, but it seems like a bit of a jumping-in-headfirst to see how deep the water is. How bad of an idea is this really?

I am a hickory nut grower and I need a drying solution for about 1000 gal (107 bushels) of nuts. I'd like to keep it fairly low cost.

Previously I have dried nuts on racks one layer deep or in sacks hung from the ceiling with a fan in the room. The nuts will spoil if they don't get at least a little air flow.

My idea is to use a bulk bin to store the nuts and push air through with a fan from a tube-type grain aerator. But I'm not sure the air would flow evenly though the nuts given the cone shape of the bottom of the bulk bin. With a regular grain bin, you have a flat drying floor and the depth of grain is the same everywhere, so air flows through evenly.

What are people's thoughts on this? Has anyone tried drying corn in a bulk bin?

What’s the going rate to pay someone to load and unload square bales in your area and how much square goes for. Please just include a general area, state is good enough. Just trying to get an idea of what I should be charging to do the work. SB sold for $10 here in my part of Tx.

We currently use quickbooks for bills, accounting, and such. I’m curious if there is a system/software that is more conducive for farming. Has anyone heard of one or use one??

I'm 28f and left the city to farm with my dad when I was 22. It's going extremely well but I cannot relate to anyone my age/gender anymore. My responsibilities and day to day workload make it nearly impossible to have a social life. Most of my friends are either single and spending all their time chasing men, or married and raising babies. I am often surrounded by men 50-75 years old in the farming community and am really missing female friendship. I'd love to meet other full time female farmers my age. Anyone out there?

I have a loving husband, who works in the city to provide for us financially. I operate the farm by myself, with direction from my father who also works full time - so I spend my days 100% alone from 7am-7pm looking after all farm operations. I do most of the planning and crop production on my own, with assistance in the areas where my physical strength limits me. Everything is going great, and i love my job/life but I get pretty lonely during the summer when I'm on the clock every day! I find it really hard being a woman, as I don't always fit in with other farm guys. Nor do I relate to their wives who are raising children. I'm my fathers "oldest son" in spirit, and I've been raised with an unparalleled work ethic that my female friends cannot understand. They often make me feel like I'm missing out on many social experiences... but yet I'm gaining valuble experience very few women have. It's a double edged sword.

I am happy with my own company, but i am a friendly and social individual who loves people. I often decline girls night out because I am up at 5:30am feeding the animals and getting started on chores before it gets too hot. I work until 2am some nights to get my hay baled ahead of rain. I have to cancel plans to rush a sick animal to the vet. These are all things I'm passionate about and wouldn't trade for the world, but I am growing increasingly distant from society (not a bad thing) and losing connections along the way.

I do realize this is the nature of farming and I'm not looking to change my lifestyle at all. I love it. But would love to meet other women I can relate to ❤️ please comment if you can relate, and would like to connect virtually!!

Southern Michigan. About 11” in the last week.