Some Hard Truths For Beginning Farmers

Good stuff man. I am in my second year here and while I am making some profit on eggs, it’s going right back into infrastructure and learning. Right now I view it as an investment phase in what I am doing so I can learn. Year 1 I learned how to get a lot of chickens killed, but now in year 2 I know how to keep them alive. Year 2 I am also starting with pigs and I won’t make any profit on them, but I am learning how to care for them and what will/won’t work. Once I invest enough in myself and my learning I believe I’ll be able to get to the point that I understand what enterprises I want to take on and how to manage them.

I've been on the lookout for content like this! Subscribed, and I'm ready to believe in myself! - "Self-belief is your superpower."

You hit the nail on the head! Honestly older farmers, at least in my area are very much like a fence post (set in their ways). Many raising amazing animals but fail to market themselves or want to spend time working outside of the actual farm chores. When developing my business model to raise and sell freezer beef/ pork & eggs every old timer has told me not to waste my time it’s too much work etc etc. But something in my soul is telling me not to give up.

There’s no replacing experience. No matter how many books you read or videos you watch, until you get real world experience you don’t know what you’re doing. Even then, it’s takes multiple tries to get good at it. That applies to most everything in life, not just the agricultural industry. For 50 years I gardened with my father. This year is the first time I’ve gardened without him. I’ve had my success with it, but I’ve made mistakes, too. Saying “hey dad”, is something easily taken for granted. Once you can no longer do that, you have to rely on experience. And, some things you don’t get real experience with because it is so easy to say “hey dad.”

Thank you for your video and keeping it real.

Such wonderful wisdom and sage advice-thanks for sharing

Like Ronald Reagan said, farming is the biggest gamble in the world. I only have a small place but I will say if you have lazy tendance you will fail and the day you think you can kinda slow down a little something always happens. If you don't absolutely love it stay away from it because it's never ending work.

Not a discouragement at all, very informative video. Thank you.😊

Very informative.

Joel Salatin really does not know much about farming. He is a 1st Gen farmer that thinks that electric fencing is a new break threw in farming. Parker McCrory Mfg. Co. has been producing electric fencing for 103 years in the U.S. now, along with many other American manufactures. Heck I have some old chargers from my Family's farm, from back in the day. Salatin really knows very little about soil, But what he is doing is better than most farmers now days. Joel really knows very little about farming and he knows almost none of the Old Skool tricks that work, Other than what he has read in a book that was written buy Old Timers that knew what they were doing. (He never gives out the names of the authors or the name of the book. Funny that. ) What Joel Salatin is good at, is marketing and sales. I salute him for this. But much of his advice is NOT good for new farmers. Example Joel Salatin's chicken tractors are the last thing a new farmer on a budget should build. That investment should be used for more than just chicken and should be dual purpose. It should not only be used for half the year, The bills come in all year long. I grew up in WV and we had to be very wise about what we spent our money on and this was at a time when people did not know what good food and bad food was. (Back then most the food came from farms that still had good soil and not dirt with chemicals sprayed all over the food. ) We had to produce food the same way we had produced it for thousands of years. No chemicals, But the electric fence was worth every penny. So you learn soil and plants that can be use for healing and fighting bugs off. I always smile when Joel calls horse hay burners. But Joel knows nothing about horses or how to use them, So he does not know how powerful they are. He does not know they can out pull his tractors, pull loads up hills in the sloppy rain with no roads, log forest and leave no marks or roads behind, etc, etc. Really nothing more powerful than a team of Shire horses on a farm. He really thinks he knows more than the Amish that can, will, and have been out producing him for thousands of years and will long after he is gone. And they use horses, Funny that. It is interesting that the first gen farmer like Joel Salatin, that knows very little about farming is the one that everyone looks up to and goes to for info and learning. ( Like the billionaires that want to replace him and all of us, Joel is always being buddy buddy with and talking about.) This is because Joel Salatin is good at marketing and sales. This is what people should lean from him and they should buy their food from the Amish and other Old School farmers that know what they are doing, Just like they should learn farming from Old School farmers and Mennonites, Hutterites, ETC Anyhow just my two cents.