To the nay sayers: read the article again, it is just stating how much LAND is required, not a complete system by any stretch of the imagination, nor does the poster even imply that it is.

This is something we are planning on when we purchase our house, along with a number of other options to take ourselves off the grid and to supplment our food budget (which is you haven’t noticed yet we are at the beginning of a world wide food crisis).

The short answer is that is entirely possible if you are not a slave to your existing work, I took a job that allows me to work from home and doesn’t require my absolute devotion of all my time. My wife is a stay at home mother and would like to stay that way, this type of ideal would allow her to continue to do so and my son can help out as well.

Yes it is WORK, but it real work for youself and that is more rewarding than anything else. No one who is serious about this doesn’t understand that is alot of work but it completely doable. Oh noes I won’t have time to watch TV, boo hoo, I prefer to read which can be done at any time.

We are looking at using Solar, wind (water if we can get land with a good stream/creek), biomass etc for power generation but we don’t expect to turn into land loving hippies.

I don’t think most of the naysayers really understand how fragile out current infrastructure is (any one remember the NA blackout in 2003, imagine if you can if it lasted a couple of weeks or months, good bye current society).

planning to be as self sufficient as possible is just smart, thinking that the status quo will last forever is stupid, it never has in history and it never will.

Thanks for the info, it has helped my planning.

Cheers!

Have a Time!!!

We do a little here and there at our home in Ohio but with our new place in Alabama we plan to do more.

Right now I am growing sprouts for my chickens. Easy to do and doesn’t take up any outdoor room (I am doing it in the house.) I think it’s pretty cool.

Anyway, loved reading your post.

Dora Renee’ Wilkerson

I searched for this article about how much land it takes to feed a person so that he can be self sufficient.

Self Sufficiency

It’s about 0.1 acres per person (Of course you gotta also combine yo……

As far as the chickens go, I have a hen that has set every year now for three years. We never bother her nest which she loves to hide behind our tool box.
She has three nests every year without fail, her lowest hatch was 14 her highest 24 but she usually comes closer to 18 or 19. In all reality a good hen is worth her weight in gold. We was very lucky that she and her off spring all have a big urge to set nests, she was our first out of 3 years to do so. We have always used incubators to hatch ours. So far all of her offspring have also been setters (the ones we kept). 1 good hen if temps don’t get really hot or really cold will lay an egg every 25 hours for 10-11 months, depending on her molting time. We eat a lot of eggs and give eggs to friends and feed to other animals and still get over run at times with around 25 hens.

I know what you mean about not much time in the garden, I planted, water with a sprinkler, have very few weeds (due to planting thick), and my 3 year old grandson will throw fits if he doesn’t get to do the harvest no matter how big.

Thank you for the article…….. now if I could just figure out my ducks?