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Spiritual-Train7430@reddit

Agree on Cornish cross meat birds. Tried raising them. Too much work for the protein we got. I'm only doing layers now in movable chicken tractors (I personally prefer Suskovich-style, but Salatin-style is popular too).

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workingMan9to5@reddit

A lot of them have no idea what to do when they can't get to the feed store or can't order the tractor part they need. Homesteading has turned into a huge commercial playground the last few years and a lot of people don't realize how much invisible consumption there is in their "self-sufficient" lifestyle.

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JRHLowdown3@reddit

X Rocks get big but are stupid as hell and will barely even move around. They are like the underclass of the hen house- sit on their arses, do nothing and get fat off free food. Seriously. As they get bigger they can barely walk and since they don't make electric riding carts for chickens, they won't leave the hen house.

Also, they get a drop of anything red on them and forget about it, the others will peck a hole in them till they die.

They have on use around the homestead- to feed 8-12 weeks and then go in the freezer. They are definitely NOT survival type birds like RI rocks or many of the dual purpose breeds.

Other things we have seen over the decades- "holding on" to something that wasn't producing well any more. Semi dwarf fruit trees for example. We had a great 10+ years with about 50 apple and plum trees. Then production sagged greatly. We trimmed, fertilized more, checked for other issues, etc. and kept hope that "next year will be better" harvest. Gone were the days of pulling 4 or more 5 gallon buckets from each tree. Yet we waited, worked on them more and kept "hope." We wasted time, should have started bulldozing them out in sections years before and replanting new. Still not back to where we were on those.

Had always seen/heard "10-15 years on semi dwarf" and figured OK maybe that's true. It was here, and the sample size of how many stopped producing within a few years of each other kinda confirmed this for me. Might have been a fluke, but it was a helluva fluke Times almost a hundred trees. Again, no pest kill/disease kills, trees kept keeping on, just not PRODUCING anything.

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NanditoPapa@reddit

One big mistake I see is over-reliance on grid-tied systems without backup while calling it “self-sufficiency.” If your water pump, freezer, or heat source dies with the power, you’re not prepped...you’re just rural. Resilience means redundancy not just rustic aesthetics.

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No-Dentist-7192@reddit

Not seed saving. Here in the UK there are some awesome suppliers(shout out real seeds!) who sell heirloom/non hybrid seeds and even guide you in how to save your own seeds.

Literally free food forever, and another move away from being shackled to ever more complex food systems.

No 2 for sure is foraging - I'm not suggesting you can live of wild food all year round but there is a lot of flavor & calories available at certain times of year for those with a bit of time& knowledge.

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booksandrats@reddit

My bf just gifted me 293 packets of various seeds 2 weeks ago. Yet I'm still working on my gardens end of season seeds! Feels redundant, but I like knowing where my food is coming from. It makes my garden feel richer to me.

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HappyLife1307@reddit

Try to learn getting the seeds from what you have in your garden now

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jolllyroger027@reddit

Yes I do love saving seeds, an understanding biennial crops like carrots. And Practice, for the love of Pete Practice, get your mistakes out of the way while the pantry is full

I legitimately had the thought of harvesting 1st year seeds of carrots to use as a decoy stash of seeds. If somebody breaks in a swipes my obvious stash of seeds they will all be Bumpkus seeds that won't sprout. Just for the lolz.

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gardensitter@reddit

For seed saving Suzanne Ashworth, Seed to Seed, the best book on seed saving available.

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FlyingSpaceBanana@reddit

Second this! This book is insanely detailed and expansive. Worth its weight in gold.

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samtresler@reddit

I will check ot out!

I like The Organic Seed Grower https://a.co/d/1nBJtEe

Breaks it down into the different taxinomies very well

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jolllyroger027@reddit

Thanks for the tip kind stranger. I ordered a copy it will be here Tuesday.👍🏻

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gardensitter@reddit

Enjoy, it is really detailed. I’ve learned a lot from it.

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Academic_1989@reddit

I am always joking about my $40 apple and my $50 tomatoes this year. The expense of gardening where I live is literally much higher than grocery stores, because we have loss due to weather, soil amendments, raised bed costs, etc. I put in a small orchard in my front yard. I estimate the cost to be around $500, $650 if you count the berries. I also grew some veggies in raised beds. This year, I harvested one apple, 4 cherry tomatoes, two regular tomatoes, about 3 heirloom squash, and left about 20 peaches for the house sitter to harvest. Now I have a promising fall crop of beets and turnips, and just planted radishes, kale, and cabbage, and they are sprouting and looking good. But overall, no "free" food yet. I do it for the stress relief, exercise, and my love of a challenge.

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gardensitter@reddit

For seed saving Suzanne Ashworth, Seed to Seed, the best book on seed saving available.

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you-brought-your-dog@reddit (OP)

Love real seeds! Had some great stuff from there. And yes to foraging, it's been a great year for berries and cobnuts so far.

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ruat_caelum@reddit

What's something you see other homesteaders do that feels detrimental to you.

The mentality of self sufficient people tends to border on dangerously arrogant at certain times, etc. Because they have successfully done things others might not, say putting in their own fencing or dry walling or [insert thing that others would hire out for or not do] They think they can/should do [ALL THE THINGS.]

Personally the most dangerous in my life were people with this mentality that do their own electrical but think regulations and codes are "big government" or whatever. (things that they don't have to follow because they've done stuff like not put hurricane clips when building their home because it's "bullshit that they will ever get 100mph winds where the house is etc)

The three fires I personally know about (no people hurt, 1 dog died) was people wiring their homes or battery systems up out of code, and then getting fires because of that decision. In all 3 of these cases, the mentality of the people involved was the same mentality of "I could be a doctor, its 48% telling someone put put ice on it and 48% putting heat on it." Now I'm not saying they went into wiring project with the explicit mentality of "Codes are bullshit I know I should do [X] but I'm going to do [Y]" but they did go into the projects knowing those projects should be handled by a licensed electrician but choosing to do the work on their own.

Now I'm not saying those fires were because they were arrogant as fuck and thought they were smarter than other people or "building and electric codes" Etc, but I'm saying that type mentality, that you a lay person, a "jack of all trades type" is somehow smarter than the specialists. That's the mistake. Just because you can do 95% of what a pilot does without issue (flying at cruising height) doesn't mean you can do all of it. (take off, landing, any sort of emergency situation, etc) They just see the 95% is easy and figure they can get through it.

You see it all the time. Instead of work some OT at my job where I make good money and have safety equipment and knowledge so I don't hurt myself I'm going to do this thing I've never done myself for cheaper than the people with the knowledge, training, tools, and experience... No you aren't. Even with the "profit" they make from you in a huge percentage of cases it's cheaper to hire a professional. Not Bob your neighbor with a concrete broom, but getting bids from concrete pouring crews/companies. Now sure, pouring a 3 foot, by 6 foot pad to put a BBQ on or something is a tiny job, no professional is able to mobilize and do that job cheaper than you. But pouring your home's foundation... Not only will they get it right and cheaper, but god forbid it's wrong you have legal means to recoup costs AND get the bad product removed. You do that solo, no only did you fuck up, you have to remove the fuck up on your own dime and time.
This mentality extends from there to other things:
My father died of colon cancer, so did 2 of his brothers, his father, 3 of his uncles, his grandfather and great grandfather. But I've read on facebook if I eat [thing the poster is selling] it might reduce that risk!!! What's that? Colonoscopy? The thing where they put a camera in your butt? Naw that's gay, I'll just risk it! Because these doctors are all [thing they believes that let's them look down at a highly educated and vetted (though license) group of individuals trying to save people's lives by recommending things like daily exercise, drinking less alcohol, getting colon checked.]
I remember being able to pick up logs twice this big!!! Renting a tool to do this work smarter would make me a pussy who wastes money. I can just muscle through it. [Damages back and knees! Can't walk. Can't work. Pain all the time to save a few bucks because of distorted memory of when he was fit and twenty years younger.]
Honey quick you know the kids' college money, we need to buy iraqi dinar, [or any other facebook type thing they heard that is going to make them rich that everyone else doesn't know, but somehow they, a person not even remotely in the realm of insider trader, has knowledge of.]
OP touched on livestock. But how many people do you personally know who went the duck / chicken route and then figured out for the chicken feed and losses involved they couldn't afford to sell eggs for a profit? (I'm not talking you got 20 birds eating bugs in your field, I'm saying the people who think they could do egg production better than a chicken farm with 10,000 birds.) I know at least ~~6~~ 8 people who honestly thought they were going to make all this profit off eggs. half of those don't have chickens anymore at all, the other half (minus 1) has fewer and don't sell, the last one still sells but at a farm stand near the road, and from the conversations they "lose money" on the chickens (but love them and love eggs for themselves)

What things do you guys feel homesteaders get wrong?

I think a lot of them don't evaluate things meaningfully or plan projects well. They start off a project with like $500 in lumber estimate, one weekend of free labor (themselves) and by the end they spent $800 in lumber, made 32 trips to town (burning gas etc), bought $200 in tools, and gave up 30-50 overtime hours they could have worked at work to instead work on the project, when if they worked OT they would have made the money needed to just buy the thing they spent all the time trying to build. (And the thing they built has mistakes.)

I think a lot take past success or at least no major problems with past projects as some sort of indication that they SHOULD do everything themselves and that any work anyone else does is a rip off. I'm not paying a welder to do XYZ, I could get a machine, look at some videos, and do that! I'm not paying an electrician to do XYZ, or a Doctor, or an animal Vet, or a concrete guy, etc...

What do they get right!!!

Not being afraid to do projects that other people wouldn't do. I have an aunt who (thankfully) has the money to call a plumber out for something that's (1) turn water main off, (2) drain line (3) unscrew and wrap with pipe tape and screw back in. etc.

Being able to do all the little things though I think pushes people to this self-centered mentality that they SHOULD BE ABLE to do everything. And I'm not saying they can't. Everyone (assuming you are able bodied) can do almost every single thing if they put the time and study into it. You could, even without schooling, being a better horse vet than the person you call for help. You CAN'T do that without the hours and education though.

So I think being a Jack of all Trades is great. It expands what you can do, gives you confidence and pride, but the downside is this arrogance that YOU should be the one doing everything and a lack of reliance on community / specialists.

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mystery-pirate@reddit

I agree that doing something yourself is often false economy. If you make $50/hr it makes little economic sense to spend 8 hours on a project you could have hired a pro to do for $300. Assuming the 8 hours would have been spent earning and not laying on the couch eating potato chips.

However, in shtf you won't be making $50/hr and you won't be able to hire a pro. If something breaks, you will need to be able to fix it yourself or it won't get fixed. Better to learn that now while you have the luxury of making 32 trips to the store.

I agree about the arrogance especially the part where they know better than the experts and skip regulations, codes and industry best practices.

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you-brought-your-dog@reddit (OP)

It's funny, because last week I called both an electrician and a guy to put up some new fencing for some quotes 😆 This is definitely a problem where people go In all or nothing. I'm very experienced in large animal vet nursing, but I'll still consult with a vet when needed. We don't touch electrics, it's so easy to get wrong. I love a good herbal remedy, but I'll take antibiotics, they've saved my life several times. It's the lone wolf homesteading mentality that falls short, you need a community with other important skills. I'm for sure happy to feed a doctor or joiner.

And yes, no one saves money having chickens, especially if they buy In all their feed, I look at the homestead as a whole though. The animals provide more than their produce, they provide manure, landscaping, pest control, weed control, which keep the whole place working efficiently.

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Quadling@reddit

Not understanding the amount of time and effort it takes to process crops after the first year or two. We just processed about 15 pounds of pole beans last night and it took for-damn-ever. And we still Have to blanch and freeze them today. (No we don’t can, and I’m saving for a freeze dryer.)

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Current_Classroom899@reddit

Honestly from a prepping perspective the biggest mistake is to not realize you can buy yourself a 30 year supply of food for far less money (and way the hell less work), then you can equip yourself to actually produce that 30 year-supply without any modern day inputs. And with a near zero risk of failure as opposed to a near certain (over 30 years) 100% risk of failure.

Now there are other reasons - good reasons - to homestead. But from a purely prepping perspective, buy and store food, don't try to raise everything you'll need to survive in the apocalypse.

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you-brought-your-dog@reddit (OP)

Of course that's true, but I wouldn't want to be sat for 30 years hoping someone else had worked out farming to feed me and my family before my food ran out. It's also much easier to share excess grown food and seeds than it is to give up a portion of a finite supply. I like a lot of options though, and I have a good supply of long term food for those bad years. I've no interest in surviving anything that calls for bunker living though, so I'd rather have the skills to live independently gathered now.

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Current_Classroom899@reddit

I mean if the apocalypse actually happens...and you survive the proximate cause, at the end of 30 years you'll be dead anyway. Pre-modern life expectancies sucked, you're already an adult (and thus have used up some of your timespan), and you don't have the skills or immunities that your pre-modern ancestors have (or the toughness/willingness to endure extremely low quality of life for...forever).

The difference between prepping buying owning 30 years of food vs. trying to grow food for 30 years, is that the 1st gives you (or more likely your descendants, should you be lucky enough for some of them to survive), 30 years to figure out how to be subsistence farmers...whereas the 2nd requires you to successfully be a subsistence farmer with no modern inputs and not even one year of crop failures, for 30 years just to get to that same point.

For people who love hands on work, making their own schedules, and already have enough money, homesteading is a great, tons of work lifestyle.

For prepping...buy food.

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HappyLife1307@reddit

Learning to grow food NOW. Buying seeds is not growing food.

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gardensitter@reddit

For seed saving Suzanne Ashworth, Seed to Seed, the best book on seed saving available.

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Traditional-Leader54@reddit

You should ask this in r/homesteading as well. I’m sure they have some good insights as well.

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wanderingpeddlar@reddit

Ok here is mine. There are a lot of cross over points to homesteading and prepping.

But the differences are notable.

Mostly homesteaders like to make a profit. Some have to make a profit or do something else for money to pay the bills. Preppers are usually willing to take a loss for whatever it is if need be.

So understand why you are doing things.

There are other differences but that one is easy.

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ArcaneLuxian@reddit

Biting off more than we can chew project wise. We have so many we want/need to get done. And in the end all of them just get procrastinated on for one reason for another I really got to learn to do one at a time. On the positive side my fall/winter garden is planted despite the fact that the weather still thinks its summer.

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you-brought-your-dog@reddit (OP)

Yes! If you're not careful you spend all your time on projects instead of doing. I got sheep 3 years ago for milk and meat, and I'm still trying to find my feet juggling them and a garden, and chickens. I dug my heels this year and said no more new projects.

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ArcaneLuxian@reddit

I made myself buckle down on the winter garden and even set reminders for succession planting.

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InterviewThick2660@reddit

Two things.

1 You can never save too much water! You go through it faster than you think. Same with fuel

2 The Rule of 3-2-1. Try to have 3 different ways to do one thing. So if one doesn't work you have a backup right on hand. Ex: start a fire. Lighter, matches, flint & steel. Light: flashlight, Candles, solar lights . Never have one point of failure on major things

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you-brought-your-dog@reddit (OP)

Yes! I have several ways to process and store food. I love electricity and freezers are great, but I also can and dehydrate, and we have woodstoves I can do both of those on if I have no power. Everything I have as convenience, I try and make surei know how to do the same thing without.

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gonyere@reddit

We raise CC every year. I have a vast layer chick flock I could pull from if I wanted or needed to, but it's not worth trying to raise our own meat chickens from eggs unless we have to.

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you-brought-your-dog@reddit (OP)

Oh for sure, real egg layers have little on them. I cross out with cuckoo marans and buff orpingtons for size, a few barn mix end up in there, but I usually end up with just under 2kg a bird, which is supermarket size here.

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coinpile@reddit

Have you looked at raising meat rabbits? They’re relatively undemanding.

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you-brought-your-dog@reddit (OP)

It's def on my radar, especially as they'd be more economical feeding wise. I'm not in a position to add more animals and infrastructure rn though.

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gonyere@reddit

That's just a tiny bird though. I raised out ~35+ CC this year, that averaged 6+ lbs - just a little shy on 3kg. And only had them till 8+ weeks. I think my total cost (including chicks, and butchering), came to ~$1.5-2/lb.

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you-brought-your-dog@reddit (OP)

Normal supermarket birds are like 1.6- 2kg here. America breed em big.

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ExaminationDry8341@reddit

You can bread Cornish cross birds. You have to feed them less so they grow slow enough that they are still able to live like a normal bird. From there you can breed them with other Cornish birds, or to othe breeds of bird.

I know several people who keep egg layers and a couple Cornish cross roosters.that way they get the benefit of size quick growing from the Cornish cross when they want to raise meat birds, but they also get high egg production from the layers. But only have to feed a couple pf unproductive birds to have that option.

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06210311200805012006@reddit

Neglecting community. If you're homesteading and you don't know all the folks in a 1-2 mile radius, I suggest you fix that.

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jolllyroger027@reddit

Most people overlook the basics. If it's really shtf and were in for the long term, lifestraws won't be enough.

Water- Get a water filter system that can run some volume. 5 gallon buckets 3/8 washed torpedo gravel, fine quartz sand, fine blast media sand, lump charcoal, activated charcoal, and some filter cloth. All of those items individually are less that $20 with exception to the activated charcoal. My last bag was $104 for 25lbs. But have it on hand. It litterally can not go bad. (Seal your activated charcoal in an air tight container) But it will be a game changer when you're trying to filter pond or creek water.

2nd is passive crops.

I checked out a property for sale and had a connex full of food. But not 1 tree planted.

Pecans, hazelnuts, persimmon, hickory, walnut, ect ect. All of them are fairly easy to harvest, self sustainable, store very well, and you have zero input once established. And they draw wild game. Free easy to collect calories. Also learn to identify the trees, so if you are foraging after the collapse you can identify possible additional resource caches.

And if your scenario means plants can't grow like nuclear winter or comet impact, well I don't want to be around anyway

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bitx284@reddit

8 weeks? My grandpa's had it, but they used to grew up for A YEAR!!

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you-brought-your-dog@reddit (OP)

Yeah, In the uk the breeds they use are nearer 12 weeks, my dual purpose I usually cull at 18 - 20 weeks, otherwise pluckings a nightmare lol

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gonyere@reddit

Yes, that's what you have to do with non-cc chickens. Butcher out at 6-9+ months, at best, for a decent sized bird. It's why almost nobody raises non-meat chickens for meat. "Dual purpose" just take too long and too much $$$

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bitx284@reddit

They were his hobbie after his retirement.I still can remember the flavour...omg But yes, he used ugly vegs, corn, and hard bread. That's all.

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Enelson4275@reddit

It's the little things IMO. Being anti-vax and too far out of town for emergency services to save you from tetanus is a mistake. Not conducting soil/water tests on a routine basis means assuming that one-time clean water or healthy soil is permanently clean water or healthy soil - that's simply not how the world works. Not eating shit with a smile to be friendly with neighbors.

My neighbor tipped a golf cart and it landed on him. He got insanely lucky that it happened at a place on his property where his neighor could see him/hear him. He still almost died. Life is fragile, and homesteading is life without the safety nets of civilization.

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you-brought-your-dog@reddit (OP)

Very much so. We're pretty rural, and there's a lot I don't agree with my neighbours, and we're never going to be great friends, but we all have each others backs, lend tools, trucks and time, share harvests. If you want the village you have to be the village, not just to those you like.

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BallsOutKrunked@reddit

I think the amount of reliance on external resources in general. It's hard to know exactly what to prep for in general as none of us know the future. With covid lockdowns it wasn't that you couldn't get anything, you could get most things, it just took longer and there were periodic outages, etc.

I feel like a lot of prepper mindset is for "full shtf" and at least the most recent big thing (covid) we were watching tiger king on the couch eating cereal. Not really to your question, but I guess I would just advise everyone to think about how their world would work in a degraded mode of operation, not necassarily Mad Max, since the former is a lot more likely than the latter.

On the chickens I hear you. They worked well for us one summer when we were living at our cabin just for the summer to work and try things out, we wanted something that we could work with and would be ready for the dinner table by late summer when we went back to our other house. Some folks may just want some birds for the warmer months and not hassle with the winter issues, I get it.

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you-brought-your-dog@reddit (OP)

Agreed, I think with animals/livestock, it's the delays. So while in a genuine mad max scenario, if I had a lamb that needed milk and say, the ewe died, then the chances are lamb would die as well, but in a mundane situation, notbeing able to get milk replacer when you know there IS some out there, is devastating. I very much prep for those times of the year where I can.

And yes, I have no problem with people feeding their family as they see fit, but from along term pov, I'd always wat a plan B chicken.

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IlliniWarrior1@reddit

firstly - obviously not all preppers are homesteaders - same same for not all homesteaders are preppers >>> possibly to their ultimate end .....

many homesteaders have no defense plan - actually unreasonably passive passive non-violents - many anti-gun to the point their livestock have to suffer unnecessary predator death ....

argue alllll you want >>> not going to survive - might see a violent end during a serious SHTF - having no way to defend against even a minorly armed single intruder - uber pity when there's others depending on the superiors to make the best decisions ......

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IWuzRunnin@reddit

Agreed. It kills me when they're like "they're just doing what's in their nature." Yes well, they may need to eat to survive, but so do we, and I'm not letting something that's not in my family have priority in the self preservation instinct area. My nature is not to let a predator take what's mine. Self preservation doesn't only apply to wild animals. Self preservation is in my livestock's nature and I'm their keeper. Self preservation is sure as shit in my nature.

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Lopsided-Total-5560@reddit

We did not prioritize the order of things that we needed to get done. Like I said in another thread, planting fruit trees and getting perennials going (blueberries, blackberries, asparagus, etc.) should have been the first priority. Second tier should have been fencing and outbuildings. Finally got it together but we surely would do things differently if starting over.