farmers? farms? tractors?

[stslawncare]

hey guys,
i was wondering how many of u are farmers, and when i say that i dont necasarly mean big time farmers with 150 hp tractors and 300 acres. how many of u live on a farm i guess i should say? what kinda tractors u have? how many acres? what animales? My grandparents have a 13 acre farm, 48 hp kubota (brand new model), york rake, ox blade, mower, all new landpride. 12 hp jd 15 years old. big old barn in pretty good condition. 2 mini donkeys, 4 sheep (1 is a lamb), 7 chickens, 20 baby guini hens, dog, cat and thats about it. as in farm trucks, well we dont have one, just a 2000 tundra ex cab short bed 4x4. NOT A TRUCK!!!!! they have only had it for about 1.75 years and have done tons! we rent out the fields and are slowly taking away from what we rent out and fencing in. well what does everyone else have? also was wondering if the two fields help each other out?

 

[jason2]

Sts,

I used to be a farmer. I was the fourth generation farmer in my family. And also the last. 98' was my last year. The farm economy is so horrible it just didn't make sense to do it anymore.

At the end our operation was at 3000 acres, down from 3600 a few years before. We were strictly a no-tillage operation. We raised a variety of crops including winter wheat, spring wheat, durum, barley, oats, mustard, canola, sunflowers, safflowers, rye, peas, lentils, millet(one year only), flax. Wheat and durum were the dominant crops in my area of North Dakota.

Actually 300 acres in my area was considered very small. At 3000 acres we were considered medium sized. Some farms in our area were over 10,000 acres. We ran 2 JD 7520 4x4 tractors, 1 JD 5020 2wd tractor, 1 Oliver 1750 2wd tractor, 1 IH 600 tractor, a old JD M with a sickle mower, We would lease a newer JD 8650 4x4 tractor to pull our 40' air seeder in the spring.

Harvest equipment included 2 JD 6600 combines used mainly for specialty crops like peas and lentils. We'd lease a JD 9600 every year. 2 Ford F700 grain trucks. Propane fired grain dryer, grain cleaner, numerous augers.

We had numerous Ford pickups, lot's of miscellaneous other equip. No livestock.

We were the first farm in our area to adopt a no-till program. Which took a lot of trial and error. No-till is direct seeding into existing stubble. Mechanical cultivation(summerfallow) is replaced by spraying. Benefits are enormous. Wind erosion is eliminated, water erosion is eliminated. You get a firmer seedbed to seed into. You get much more organic material in the soil. Earthworm counts go way up. Stubble catches snow in the winter resulting in more available moisture in the spring. Benefits go on and on. The last year I farmed we were awarded the districts soil conservation award. I miss farming immensely, but the green industry is kind of like mini-farming. Sorry for the novel-length post.

 

[Scag48]

My dad has a 7 acre orchard. We've got a 27 HP Kubota and a 38 HP John Deere. The John Deere is really big and is tough to drive but the Kubota is nice and short and has 4WD. Farming is terrible right now. I don't think there will be anymore orchards here in 10 years and we're in the apple capitol of the world! Have a Washington's best, and put it to the test. They ARE as good as you've heard.

 

[cantoo]

We used to farm when I was a kid, we had 500 acres and grew mixed crops. We had pigs, sheep,chickens, ducks,horses, dairy cattle and beef cattle. Then we sold it all but 10 acres and built a new house and barn then we built a 24 bed retirement home onto our house so retiring farmers in the area would have a place to live. Now we have some goats, ducks rabbits and a few cattle to entertain them. We are still in the middle of farm country so the old guys love it here. My father in law had a 35 acre apple orchard but we have reduced it to 5 acres because of the high(low) price of apples here. He still has 3 Kubotas that I rent for use in our business when I need some heavy equipment. Geting grass is as close to farming as I plan on getting anymore. We alsways buy a variety of animals and birds for the kids to play with each year.

 

[Sammy]

Farming has always been in my families blood. I would stay at my uncles farm when I was a kid. We milked 60 head a day. I have seen a lot of 1000+ bales of hay days. Not bad for 2 Farmall H's and 8-N Ford. My brother and I only work about 100+ acres. Hay, corn, soy beans and wheat. A few angus cattle. And a lot of dog gone wood chucks [that we target shoot at]. All tractors are International Harvester, He has 1066, 706, 350 and regular H. Me, 856, [2] Super MTA's, Super H, Super C, 1200, 125 and [3] 122's.

 

[stslawncare]

Something is spooky here, today i was talking about the farm in spanish class, i post a farmers message here, tonight i get a email saying that one of the sheep died! scarey! two weekends ago we had him netured and this weekend the wound got infected with tetnus and he died lastnight. took him out to be burried in the loader. he was our first animale ever on the farm. :-(( its weird the farm is like a murder scene, in the past year, 18 chickens got killed, two sheep, one lamb, and many injuries!!! crazy!

 

[Bobby]

Hey cantoo
Do the old timers retire at your place cause they want to, or is there no family members willing to carry on the tradition?
I've seen a lot of stuff on tv about how hard farming is. It's strange how our society will pay an office boy one or even two hundred thousand dollars a year to play with numbers, while farmers are going bankrupt.
If we had a real slow down and things got real tight, I bet the man with the food would be appreciated.
Been a city boy all my life, but around Christmas, we're moving to central Florida to an eighty acre piece my dad owns out in the stix. Gotta sell my house and business first. We still plan on working regular jobs, but it's gonna be cool having cows and chickens and an atv and a tractor.

 

[cantoo]

Most of them have little choices they have been farming for years and never made much so had to sell the home farm. Most farms here are bought by factory farmers now. 3000 and up pigs per barn 4 in a row. Big dairy farms and chicken barns too. We have 600 acres beside us that is for sale but because of our nursing home they can't get a build permit there so it will probally never sell. With any luck they will burn us out and I can start over elsewhere with the insurance money. Reminds me, I gotta change the batteries in the smoke detectors.