My response to Byron's question as a thread, as I suspect there are many people that would like to consider this alternative: https://twitter.com/ByronFackenthal/status/1299721307542749187

The right property is absolutely critical. Do NOT buy for the house. Buy for the property, and how it's set up.

Houses can be added onto, remodeled, etc., and all of those improvements increase value. You will get ZERO appreciation for improvements you make elsewhere on the property. So...

If you plan to have any sort of livestock (mammals, not birds), the #1 consideration is fencing. It is WAY more expensive than anything else you will do, and it has to be maintained. You want the newest, best, most complete fencing you can get.

Fencing is REALLY expensive, and you will get ZERO benefit at all from repairing or replacing old fencing, or putting in your own. Nada. Nothing. Zilch. Zero. Think about it from a NPV perspective. Let somebody else pay for the fencing in yesterday's dollars.

#2 and #3 might be debatable depending on your locale. But I'll share my perspective.

#2 priority is outbuildings. What kind of equipment do you need? Do you want chickens? Ducks? Equines? Sheep? Goats? Cows? Buy a property that already has outbuildings. In most places, new outbuildings do very little to increase overall property value. NPV.

Existing outbuildings can be easily modified and repurposed for much less than building new. For example, we converted a corn crib into Chicken Palace. All it cost was a load of tongue and groove siding, some nails, some paint, and two weekends of labor.

#3 priority is water...maybe swap with #2 depending on locale. If you plan to have animals, I strongly recommend a property that already has a pond or permanent stream / river. You can dig wells and ponds, but same NPV principle applies. Infrastructure doesn't increase value.

So with respect to property, your primary focus should be on the investments you'll need to make to achieve your dream. All properties will need improvements. Try to find one where the improvements you'll need to make will increase value.

Don't expect to get any value from infrastructure improvements: driveways, gravel, outbuildings, water, electricity, solar, etc. None of that will increase property value. i.e., buy a shitty house with great land, fences, outbuildings, and water feature.

As for animals: make sure you know the local laws regarding processing. For example, where I live, I cannot sell any meat I process myself. I can sell live animals, but any meat MUST be processed by and FDA licensed processor. Not sure if that's universal in the US.

If you have zero experience with animals. Start SMALL and with FEW animals. Start with 5-10 chickens your first year. Maybe 2-3 sheep. Chickens and sheep are about as low maintenance as you can get. Great for getting started.

I don't recommend goats because they are destructive and will require constant maintenance. I don't give a damn how cute they are.

For sheep, goats, cows, and equines, you need to think about pasture management. Ideally, you want THREE pastures PLUS a sacrifice lot. Why three?

One pasture to graze
One pasture to spread manure
One pasture to rest
You can get by with two pastures, but three is better.
Make a place to compost bedding and manure. Let it sit for a year. Then spread it on the grazed down pasture.

Overseed the rested pasture and wait til the new grasses are 6" before grazing. Keep the flock/herd on one pasture until it's completely grazed down. If you move them too quick, they'll get picky and won't graze down the stuff they don't like as much as sweet grass and clover.

Did I mention how important good fencing is?

Oh...back on that topic for a sec...if you have to repair, replace, or install fencing, make sure every fenced enclosure has at least a 12' gate, preferably 16'. You'll need to get equipment thru. I made the mistake of putting 10' gates in a couple of enclosures, and it's a PITA.

If you're willing to process your own birds, chickens can be totally self sustaining. Allow some of your hens to go broody. They'll raise their own chicks. As soon as you can tell which are the roosters, cull them, ideally at ~6 months old. Process and freeze the meat.

You want a ratio of no more than 1 rooster per 10 hens. You NEED at least 1 rooster, more if you intend to have a larger flock. Roosters are essential for alerting and protecting the hens.

Pro Tip: you can have free range chickens. You can have free range dogs. You can NOT have free range chickens AND free range dogs.

Plan for attrition. You will lose 10-20% of your flock to predators, dogs, disease, and general stupidity. Chickens are dumb.

Ducks are wonderful. Their eggs are fantastic. We have one customer that is allergic to chicken eggs. She buys every duck egg we can turn out. They are large, rich, and fantastic for baking.

You don't need a drake if you'll be keeping ducks close to the house. But if the ducks will be some ways away, same rule applies to drakes as roosters. Duck breeding is brutal. You may need to periodically separate the drake(s) to keep them from injuring the females.

Ducks MUST have open water year round to survive. They can't eat without water, and they have to bath at least once every couple of days. This is a critical consideration if you live in a cold climate like me.

Despite a 1 acre pond, we had to build a duck pond that we keep heated with floating stock tank heaters for the ducks to overwinter. If they can't bathe, they won't produce the oil necessary to insulate their feathers, and will freeze to death.

Donkeys are FANTASTIC animals. They can make great pasture pals for essentially any other livestock. They are incredibly smart, curious, inquisitive, and as loving as any dog you've ever known. I have one who even likes Bourbon.

Donkeys can sometimes be decent livestock guardians, althought it hasn't worked out here, but I think mostly because our donkeys are all rescues.

Unless you plan to breed and sell, horses are a net negative. Bigtime. High maintenance. Skittish. Add no value. No saleable products. But they are great to have around if money is no object.

I don't know anything about cows or pigs.

If you plan to do anything sustainable with livestock, i.e., breeding, you need to plan for detailed record-keeping. Here, aside from the equines, all of the other livestock animals (cows, pigs, goats, sheep, etc.) have to be tagged and tracked by the state.

If you're going to breed, you have to be set up to keep bloodline records, and also keep certain males and females apart during breeding season to prevent in-breeding. This is a maintenance burden, and also requires ... surprise surprise ... good fencing.

That's a good start. I may come back and add further thoughts later.

@MorlockP can probably add WAY more valuable advice than me. Didn't think of that until just now.

Oh...here's another topic. Bugs.

If you have animals, you will have flys. Lot's of them. And not just housef flies. IL doesn't seem to have a huge problem with horse flies or deer flies like I've seen elsewhere. But the bot flies and stables flies are relentless, and they will bite humans.

Fly management requires a multi-facted approach.

1. KEEP THE LIVESTOCK AWAY FROM THE HOUSE.
Men, your women are going to want to have the cute little chickens run around the front yard. But guess what. Chickens shit EVERYWHERE. So do ducks. And guess what shit attracts? Flies.

1. KEEP THE LIVESTOCK AWAY FROM THE HOUSE. Did I mention how important good fencing is?

2. Use liquid fly traps. Very effective, but the poison is deadly to chickens. Did I mention chickens were dumb? Such traps must be handled with care, and hung where other livestock (like mischievous donkeys) can't knock them down. The chickens WILL eat the dead bugs and die.

3. Speaking of dead bugs, buy a FlowTron bug zapper.
https://www.zoro.com/flowtron-insect-killer-120-watt-fc8800c/i/G0808893/?recommended=true

Pro Tip: take the bottom off and just let the bugs fall to the ground. The chickens and ducks LOVE crispy critters like we love french fries.

4. Fans. Don't buy cheap ones. They'll burn out in less than a season. Buy high quality heavy duty industrial farm grade fans. They are essential in animal enclosures, not only to cool the air, but to give the livestock a place to get away from the biting flies.

5. Manure management. Clean stalls at least once every 36-48 hours, otherwise, you create a fly factory. I have two 12' W x 12' D x 5' H composting bunkers built out of treated 2x12. Once the fresh litter and manure is on the compost, the composting action kills flies and larvae.

@JohnMay03231265 raises some good points worth adding to the thread: https://twitter.com/JohnMay03231265/status/1299759240895033344?s=20

Zoning is REALLY important. Don't assume that just because there's acreage, existing buildings, or even existing livestock, that the property is zoned to allow animals.

I experienced this directly about a year ago. I was exploring getting out of #FuckinIllinois and returning to MI. Found a place nearly identical feature-wise to current farmstead. It even had horses, pastures, etc.

However, when I looked at the zoning, they were actually in violation. No livestock allowed. So even though they might have gotten away with it, trying to move an existing operation there would have been a no go. Nixed that deal.

As for taxing livestock, this is almost certainly a local issue. My livestock have not been taxed...and if any of you rat me out to IL, we can't be frens anymore...but seriously, I don't think for our hobby farm scenario, it's an issue.

Taxation of livestock may only be an issue if you're running a business operation off of the livestock. I know in my county, hobby farms and petting zoos are allowable "conditional uses" for AG1 properties, so I don't think it's an issue here.

But this leads to another really important point. AG1 properties enjoy the lowest property tax rate in the state of IL. My property is grandfathered from when it used to be a 90 acre estate.

Some properties nearby were rezoned split Estate / AG, and have to pay MUCH higher property tax on the resident than the rest of the land. I established livestock in year 1 to prevent them even trying.

Make sure you understand the local zoning and taxation laws before you purchase. In some jurisdictions, they may actually try to trigger a zoning review upon sale of property, so do your homework.

@BS2KZ also sent me a DM that raised another interesting point. Do not underestimate the change required to live this lifestyle.

When you have many more mouths to feed and lives to protect, you will have to adjust lifestyle accordingly. That means up at sunrise. That means daily watering and feeding routines. Even when it's cold, dark, stormy, hot, humid, whatever.

Running a farmstead will FORCE you to live on the cycle of the sun, something we as a society have lost ... to our great detriment ... by living in urban and suburban settings. It is a rare day that I don't see the sun both rise and set. For me, that is a very good thing.

To elaborate on @coinaday1's comment, and to illustrate my earlier points, here are the major infrastructure improvements since acquiring this property. https://twitter.com/coinaday1/status/1299803144742940679?s=20

Fenced in dog yard
Converted 3-season lean-to on back of dairy barn into insulated, heated workshop (2100 sq ft)
Brought in new 200A electrical service for barns
Replaced sheep pasture fencing
Purchased a pre-fab sheep shelter
Replaced inner paddock fencing for equine dry lot

Re-sided corn crib, converted to chicken coop
Replaced well pressure tank
Installed 500 feet of underground water line
Installed 2 water hydrants for livestock
Built horse stalls in barn basement
Replaced barn basement support columns

Hired stone mason to repair barn basement foundation
All new fencing in the two 1-acre horse pastures
Replaced and expanded all electrical in the dairy barn
Installed 100+ panel solar arrays (~35KwH system)
Replaced barn gutters
Erected new horse barn

Brought in ~200 tons of gravel for grading driveways
Brought in additional ~100 tons of gravel for horse barn
Install 3500 gallon 4-season duck pond
200 feet of gasline to detached 5-car garage
Now converting said garage to farm hand quarters

I am afraid to add up the numbers.

If I had to guess, it would come out to ~120% of the original purchase price of the property.

None of those improvements include essentially gutting and completely remodeling the 1885 farmhouse. I have one room left to do, the upstairs guest bath. That price tag was easily 40% of the purchase price of the property.

Just had property appraised to secure solar loan on second half of solar system. Appraisal came in at 20% over original purchase price.

So we've put ~150% or more into improvements, and only got 20% appreciation.

Point being, there is NO return on investment.

Even if I could sell for what I have in it, the sale would be a challenge because appraisal is 100% based on house alone, and comps in the area. No credit at all for improvements.

So go in with your eyes open. This lifestyle is NOT a good financial investment.

BUT.

It will pay dividends that can't be bought.