Want to start a homestead, but don’t have much land? I’m sharing all of our tips for homesteading on a small property below.
Photo cred: Red Maple Photography
Homesteading on a Small Property
Over the past year, I’ve received a handful of messages from people wanting to start a homestead, but they’re concerned about not having enough acreage. Trust me, I get it. Finding affordable acreage is nearly impossible these days! Although we would love to have a bit more land, people are typically surprised to hear that we’re homesteading on only 1.25 acres. Homesteading on a small property is absolutely manageable, but it takes a bit more planning and prep work to make it work. If you’re dreaming of starting your own little farm in your small backyard, then check out my tips below.
Research Zoning
When homesteading on a small property, zoning regulations can be challenging. For houses located within city limits, it’s unlikely that you will be able to have any hooved animals (i.e. goats), but you can probably still keep a few backyard chickens. If you live in an unincorporated part of town, then you’ll likely encounter fewer animal restrictions. If you’re property is zoned agriculture, then you’re GOLDEN and can probably raise any farm animal. Before purchasing any animals, be sure to do your own research. Once you’re familiar with what is/isn’t allowed on your property, you can start making plans for your homestead.
Plan Every Square Inch
If you’re planning to start homesteading on a small property, then you need to plan accordingly. You need to account for Every. Square. Inch. to ensure that your homestead runs efficiently. For us, that means that our goats, chickens, beehives, and garden all need to have their own designated space. We converted an old shed into our goat house and chicken coop, so it would be extremely difficult to move our animal housing to a different location on our property. If you’re planning to use a permanent structure for animal housing, then be sure to consider exactly where to place the structure. From our experience, I would recommend situating your goat house and/or chicken coop close enough to the house to make chores convenient, but far enough away to have a bit of privacy.
Photo cred: Red Maple Photography
Consider Dual Housing
One of the biggest challenges of homesteading on a small property is animal housing. Depending on how many animals you have, the goat house, chicken coop, or any other structure can take up a lot of space. In order to use space efficiently, consider dual housing. For example, our goat house, chicken coop, and shed provide us with three functions – 1)goat housing; 2)chicken housing; and 3)farm storage.
As a reference, we used the original shed and lean-to structure as a foundation. Ben built the chicken coop, chicken run, goat house, and goat deck from the original structure.
Although dual housing saves a significant amount of space (perfect for homesteading on a small property!), it also presents some challenges. Seeing as the chicken coop is located so close to the goat house, it’s extremely important to make sure that the goats are unable to sneak into the coop to eat chicken feed. (Yep, that’s happened. FYI – Chicken feed is potentially fatal for goats.) Which leads me to the next tip… fencing.
Photo cred: Lindsey Kay Photography
Electric Fencing is Your Friend
I’ve mentioned this point on the blog so many times, but if electric fencing is a homesteaders BFF. I’m honestly embarrassed by how much money we’ve spent on fencing over the past year, but it’s SO WORTH IT. Not only does electric fence protect against predators, but it’s also a cost effective movable fencing option. Electric fencing allows us to easily separate the goat pasture from the chicken pasture, which also prevents the naughty goats from sneaking into the chicken coop. Seeing as you can easily move electric fencing, it makes pasture rotation super easy. (Having a small property makes pasture rotation far more challenging, but still do-able.)
If you’re going to make one big splurge for homesteading on a small property, then make it electric fencing. Bonus points that you can easily unplug the electric fencing when little ones are outside, too!
Photo cred: Red Maple Photography
Keep Animals Separate But Together
Keeping animals separate but together might sound a bit strange, but let me explain. Goats obviously CANNOT eat chicken feed, so it’s important to keep your goats out of the chicken coop. However, there’s no harm in letting your chickens access the goat pasture. (Except you’ll probably have a few naughty hens insist on laying eggs in the goat house.) Chickens enjoy foraging around in the goat pasture. (It’s a bit gross, but chickens love to eat goat poop.) Allowing your chickens to access the goat pasture will kind of help with the cleanliness, but the goat poop is basically replaced with chicken poop … so it doesn’t really help much, ha.
So how do you keep animals separate but together while homesteading on a small property? FENCING. We do not clip our chickens’ wings, so they love to fly onto and over the goat gate. We recently rotated pasture for the chickens, so they haven’t had access to the goat pasture for the past few months. But let me tell you,they LOVE the goat pasture 😉
Plant Your Garden Opposite of Animals
Unless you want your goats and chickens to wreak havoc on your garden, it’s a good idea to plant your garden as far away from your animals as possible. Our garden is a bit closer to the goats and chickens than preferable, but the electric fencing still keeps the areas separate. We’ve never had our animals sneak into the garden (yet), so this method seems to work well when homesteading on a small property.
Do you have any tips/tricks for homesteading on a small property?
Cover photo cred: Red Maple Photography