Bed and breakfast business growth is exploding across the country. With the average Airbnb host making nearly $1,000 a month, this is a small farm income idea worth looking into.
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Tag: 1-6 months turnaround
Supply Meat to Raw Feeders
As pet food recall after recall is announced in the news, more concerned pet owners are turning to raw food to feed their animals. This is bad news for the pet food industry, but good news for meat producers.
Continue reading “Supply Meat to Raw Feeders”Sell Kefir Grains
Years ago, when I was first learning about milk kefir, I found a lady online who freely shared information on brewing and caring for kefir. She was known as the person who would sell kefir grains for cheap because she wanted everyone to know the joy of kefir.
Continue reading “Sell Kefir Grains”Start a Fence Company
There’s no doubt about it, building fence is an acquired skill. If you live out in the country, you’ve more than likely seen examples of fences that were not built by professionals. Ask anyone who has tried to hire a fence company though and they’ll tell you that it’s almost impossible to find affordable, quality companies to build their fences. Continue reading “Start a Fence Company”
Sell Bagged Salad Mixes
When we sold at farmer’s markets, the folks with bagged salad mixes always sold out. Every time. There is a reason grocery stores have such a huge inventory of salad mixes – people love the convenience of premade mixes and are willing to pay for it.
If you have the space, salad greens are a consistent seller and a great addition, especially if you have an existing market to sell to. When you hear about farmers projecting a $1,000 per week income selling bagged salad mixes, it definitely looks like a prospect to dig deeper into. Continue reading “Sell Bagged Salad Mixes”
Start Your Own Mealworm Farm
A mealworm farm can be a nice little side business, but it can also play an important role in your food production. If you raise chickens, ducks or reptiles, you can breed mealworms to provide them with a steady, low cost supply of high protein feed. That’s how we got started in mealworms years ago, both as a way to save on feed costs and also as a a means of being self sufficient so we could provide food for our chickens even in a disaster scenario.
As it turns out, a mealworm farm is a pretty fun project, especially if you have children. They can do the regular maintenance and enjoy watching and learning about the life cycles of mealworms as they transform into beetles. Continue reading “Start Your Own Mealworm Farm”
Small Farm Chicken Hatchery
If you don’t have a lot of space to raise out chicks but have a plentiful fertile egg supply, consider starting a chicken hatchery. The time and space involved are minimal if you can turn chicks around within a couple of days of hatching. This works particularly well if you breed harder to find and rare chicken breeds. Chickens that produce colored eggs have been and will continue to be popular as a niche market.
Chicken Hatchery Initial Investment
Your startup cost will vary depending on the scale. Do you want to start by selling eggs your own hens hatch or do you plan to hatch large quantities? There’s a space somewhere in between too. One of the pros to this income idea is how scalable it is. You can choose to start small, growing naturally as your flock increases, or you can put extra cash into buying an incubator and brooding setup to get a bigger start as a full-fledged (get it?) chicken hatchery. A starter incubator will cost about $150-$250 with accessories; expect to pay in the thousands for a commercial setup. Continue reading “Small Farm Chicken Hatchery”
Turn Waste into Gold by Selling Compost
Selling compost is one of those unexpected benefits of raising livestock. It helps to imagine I’m walking through liquid gold when the muck of winter starts to melt. If you happen to have any to spare–we never do–it’s a great way to add an extra cash flow from something you might otherwise spend a lot of time trying to manage and move out of the way.
There’s a high demand for all kinds of compost: leaves, grass clippings, animal manure, etc. If you can combine these into a finished compost, you can command a higher price. Continue reading “Turn Waste into Gold by Selling Compost”