Refining the farm: Year 8

When I first started my farm I had the rough idea that I'd grow a little of everything; certainly enough for personal consumption and gradually increase the production of things that would sell.   This is a nice ideal, but didn't really work out in practice.

Let me give you an example:  the sheep

Twin lambs from 2012 

First, sheep, in this area, are a nearly perfect crop.  They eat grass.  they are impervious to rain.  They are fairly popular with most americans -- lamb chops anyone?  -- and with a bit of luck your flock can grow quickly.

I chose a breed of sheep that naturally shed its own wool, which spared me from having to shear the sheep every year (and incidentally from wool-guilt:  If I were shearing the sheep, I'd feel duty bound to find a market for the wool, and honestly, there isn't much of one here) and were relatively low maintenance.  I chose sheep from a fellow who's is about 10 miles from me, so the sheep are acclimated to this weather and seasons and honestly, the sheep did better than I deserved.

Better than I deserved.  Regularly had a 2.0 or 2.1 birth rate (more than a twin birth per ewe).  I lost a few to the electronet fence and a few to dogs and coyotes, but generally speaking the sheep did what they were supposed to do:  Eat grass and gain weight.

In fact, if I were to talk to someone now, I'd probably say to look carefully at sheep.  Not much input and pretty good value.  Pretty easy to raise them organically.

With all that good, what was the problem?  

I just couldn't work up an interest in sheep.  I didn't really care for them as an animal.  Most of the time I dealt with sheep was pretty aggravating -- for the sheep and for me, too.  They are not the sharpest tools in the shed, and no matter what dumb thing one of them does, all of the rest of them do it too.  I learned a lot about fencing and a lot about chasing, and in the end, it just wasn't much fun.

So I ended up taking the sheep to the auction; and I got a good price for them, but it still felt a little like failure; some part of me wanted to be good at sheep, too.

But what i've been doing is specializing my farming.  I understand pigs pretty well, and they understand me.  I like them as an animal and as a product, both.  While pigs are interested in getting out of their area, they tend to come back, and I can't think of a time I saw something that a pig did that I didn't understand at some level.  Where the sheep were a complete mystery most of the time.

Chickens, pigs, cows.   that's my current list of main products, and I'm considering getting out of the chicken business.  I'll keep a few laying hens for the kitchen, but I just don't enjoy them as much as I do the cows & pigs.    

Specializing in a smaller number of products allows you to equip and manage those products better than if you're generalizing.  Every new animal or crop has a learning curve, and in order to get a good grasp of it you really need to think about it as a multi-year learning process.  And sometimes what you learn is that you don't really want to do that.