
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.
Continue reading “Start a Bed and Breakfast”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.
Continue reading “Start a Bed and Breakfast”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”Foraged rose hips are an incredibly useful source of vitamin C. Many herbalists hold them in high regard, and with good reason. Taken in a tea or mixed into a healing tonic, rose hips can help someone fight off any immune attacks.
Rose hips are not so easy to come by in all locales. They are also only seasonally available toward the end of summer. It takes time to scout out a spot to forage for rose hips and then go back at the right time to gather them. For these reasons, if you know of a ready source or–even better–have them growing on your property, you can sell them for a small extra income stream.
Continue reading “Sell Foraged Rose Hips”In researching a business opportunity we’re pursuing, I’ve discovered how much people are longing for good teachers. If you have survival skills, consider teaching survival classes to supplement your small farm income.
Continue reading “Teach Survival Classes”Rabbits are one of my favorite animals. Peaceful, kind and entertaining, I love to sit out in the rabbit colony and just watch them. It’s a great way to unwind and de-stress, but raising rabbits has an even more tangible benefit: good income potential.
Purebred breeding age rabbits of common breeds sell for $30-$60 each in my area. Considering the fact that rabbits breed like, well, rabbits, you can see some pretty tidy income numbers with a relatively short turnaround time.
One major benefit to raising rabbits over other livestock is their adaptability to small spaces. I don’t personally cage raise, but know many people who do and it ties everything up into a neat income producing package: rabbits as breeding stock and for meat, plus rabbit droppings as a surprisingly lucrative add-on income. Continue reading “Raising Rabbits for Income”
In another of those, “Do they really do that?” episodes, we have bagged chicken manure. And yes, they do. Take a look at these search results on eBay to see that not only are people listing chicken manure for sale, they’re also selling it at pretty high numbers. One seller is selling what fits in a flat rate box, 1.5-2 pounds according to their listing, for $5, plus $7.20 for shipping and they’ve sold 45 of them! Not bad for something you’d ordinarily not consider valuable. Another seller has gallon bags (4#) for $18.99, collected fresh.
If you have facilities to compost, there is a market for composted and bagged chicken manure as well, adding more value to a product you probably already have an abundance of if you raise chickens. Continue reading “Sell Bagged Chicken Manure on eBay”
Dairy goats are in high demand across the country, making now a great time to get into breeding goats. In addition to producing high quality milk and meat, goats are also one of the most personable small animals you can raise.
I’ve been breeding goats for over ten years now and have seen the market increase consistently year by year, with larger breeders seeing potential profits in the livable income range.
While some breeds are seeing higher market movement than others, the demand for goats is hand in hand with the increased interest in homesteading, sustainability and back to the land movements.
With careful management, emphasis on quality and a solid plan, there is definitely potential to see a good income from breeding goats.
Continue reading “Breeding Goats as a Business”
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”
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”
If you have a small farm, you likely have animals and understand how difficult it can be to get away overnight. One of the main reasons is the lack of reliable care for animals. If you have the space, especially with a kennel setup, consider offering pet boarding services to fill a very real need and bring in some extra cash. The main requirement? You’ve got to love animals to want to add other people’s to the mix.
Is there actually a need for pet boarding in your area? You can start by doing a Google search or asking in local Facebook groups. In our area, the vet offers boarding and there are a couple of private boarding kennels; a pretty decent supply for our little town. If your local vet is the only option, you may have a potential for your area because many people are reluctant to board healthy animals in a place for the sick. Continue reading “Offer Pet Boarding Services”