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“Hi Shepherdess,
My name is Cal, I’m 16 years old. I’ve been looking into agriculture lately, with a focus mainly on livestock. I like how you break things down simply and easily — it makes the whole process feel less overwhelming and easier to manage.
I’m still in school, but starting a small sheep farm or another kind of farm is something I’m seriously considering in the next few years, thanks to you.
If you’ve got a moment, I’d love to ask a couple of questions:
- What’s one piece of foundational advice you’d give to someone before diving into farming properly?
- How did you decide on the scale of your operation when you were starting?
- Are there any common mistakes beginners make that I should watch out for?“
Dear Cal,
Thank you for writing to me. You asked some really good questions, and I will answer them individually in a minute. But all of them have a very similar answer, and it goes along with a personal slogan I adopted when I jumped into farming five years ago: “Think big, start small, don’t quit!”
There are no limits to the plans you can make, but no matter what, starting small is going to be your greatest advantage—especially if you don’t have any previous experience as a farmer.
Taking a year to raise just 3 or 5 sheep before jumping in with a huge flock is going to put you way ahead.
Here are more in-depth answers to your individual questions, based on what’s worked for me and my friends.
The Most Important Advice Before Jumping into Farming
Pencil out your large-scale goal and know your numbers. If you can make your farm work on paper, you have a much greater chance of making it work in real life. If you cannot make your farm work on paper, there is a low chance it will work itself out in real life.
Don’t overcomplicate this initial planning process.
Start With Three Key Questions:
- How much do you want to earn as a farmer?
- What do you want to sell?
- How much will your market pay for it?
Once you have these pieces of information, it’s simple math.
For example: Say you want to earn $10,000 per year, you want to earn that money by raising sheep, and you find local markets will pay $200 per lamb.
$10,000 ÷ $200 = 50 lambs per year to meet your income goal.
Even if you are just raising animals for personal food, try to tie a goal to each animal before committing to it.
For example:
- Meat sheep: Figure out how much meat you want per year and how many sheep it will take to meet that goal.
- Dairy goats: Determine how much milk you need per year and how many goats are required to meet that goal.
Your business plan will grow as you go, but walking through this three-step process is critical before you spend a dime.
To buy a farm or start a homestead with no goals at all is like setting out on a road trip without a destination—it will be fun for a while, but at some point, you’ll wind up lost and out of gas.
Start Small: Scaling Your Farm the Right Way
Once you have this three-step plan penciled out, take the smallest step possible toward that large-scale goal.
If you have decided to raise sheep, start your first year with just 2-5 sheep. Once your lambs are born, work to find your first customer and make your first sale.
Big success almost always starts with small wins.
And on the flip side, if you find out you really don’t like raising sheep after all, you’ve figured it out before spending all your money and energy on 50 sheep—which is a much easier thing to do.
The way you do small things is the way you will do all things. So give the small things all you’ve got.
How I Decided on the Scale of My Operation
I simply started with what I had in front of me, which was 30 acres. I didn’t own the land (and I still don’t), but my family was willing to lease it to me.
I didn’t start with the goal of becoming a big-rig rancher and owning thousands of acres someday. I just wanted to be a good steward of the resources I had access to and make a business out of them.
Land Size vs. Profitability
Profitability doesn’t have anything to do with how much land you have.
For example:
- I interviewed an organic vegetable farmer who makes more profit on 1.5 acres than most commodity grain farmers make on 1,000 acres.
- I interviewed pastured meat producers who make more profit on 20 acres than most commodity cattle producers make on 200 acres.
Profitability directly correlates to your market and your marketing.
Both of the farmers I just mentioned have a direct-to-consumer subscription sales model for their farm products (called a CSA subscription). This retail business model allows small farmers to cash flow small plots of land far better than commodity producers on large acreage.
No Land? Try This!
If you don’t have access to land, here are some ideas:
- Start with what you have. My friend Nancy regeneratively grazes six grass-fed dairy sheep on just one acre.
- Diversify. My friend Nichole raises goats, pigs, bees, chickens, quail, winter wheat, and a vegetable garden on one acre.
- Rent pasture. My friend Teressa in California put out an ad on Craigslist and was able to rent 10 acres for her Boer goat herd.
Start with what you have—because more than likely, it’s all you need.
Common Mistakes Beginners Make
The most common mistake? Starting too big and investing too much money, without a clearly defined goal.
This isn’t just a beginner mistake—it can happen at any phase in the game. In fact, it happened to me.
My Biggest Farming Mistake
Despite starting small and making a plan, I got cocky. In my second year, I added cows and a goat herd on top of my sheep. I had no real plan for either the cows or the goats, so they rapidly began to consume all of my resources without providing a return.
It cost me a lot of time, money, and energy, and pushed me into a severe season of burnout.
But thankfully, rather than causing me to quit, the burnout humbled me into a new season of focus and carefulness. I sold my cows, kept a few goats as pets, and returned to my original business plan of just raising sheep.
Start small to grow your wins rather than magnifying your losses.
The Future of Farming: A New Opportunity
There is so much opportunity for new farmers today—but it doesn’t look like it used to.
High-input commodity farming is less profitable than ever and poses a risk to soil health, the atmosphere, and human health due to heavy chemical input.
- Wholesale prices for crops are no longer supporting farmers.
- The cost of inputs (fertilizer, seed, equipment) outweighs the value of the crops grown.
- Government subsidies are the only thing keeping many large farms afloat.
But a new wave of opportunity is opening for the small farmer.
What Consumers Want Now
Consumers are waking up. They are trading out grain-based diets for:
- High-quality meat
- Pasture-raised dairy
- Organic produce
These are the customers we must look for as new farmers because these are the products that can be grown without expensive inputs like combines, tractors, and massive facilities.
As new farmers, we need to focus on selling to customers who pay retail prices, rather than brokers who pay wholesale prices.
Final Thoughts
If you’re reading this, leave your best tips for Cal in the comments section.
And download my FREE “New Farmer Kickstart PDF” with all of the videos, interviews, and business planning templates I mentioned in this post.
-the Shepherdess
“He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.” Luke 16:10
