Quarter Acre Farming-

Agree 100%
The last steer I put up was exactly 1,300lbs live weight. I put just under 900lbs of beef in the freezer. 900lbs will fill a 14.5cubic foot freezer right to the top and fed a family of five for just over a year.

 

Just got some cherry trees, a lemon tree, an olive tree, a green house, 2 raised garden beds, and an 8'x20' in ground garden. But the local DICtators wont allow me chickens or rabbits or goats or cows. Looks like its time to build a wall...

 

Dexter milking cows are a good option for small land holdings.

DEXTER CATTLE | Dexter Cattle Australia Inc. DCAI

The Perfect Family Cow? Pros & Cons of Dexter Cattle - Reformation Acres

 

Where I'm from in Maine the minimum I would try to put a single cow on is an acre. Then some one will need to collect most of the poo almost daily.
Double that land would be a lot better.
Grass grows really well in the summer there because it rains all the time.
Some where grass doesn't grow fast or well all the time then you would need 3 to 5 acres.

 

Thanks for the links Chel!
Interesting breed these Dexters. I found a breeder here in Bama that seems reputable. All of my experience has been with Angus, Herefords and an occasional Holstein as far as raising goes. They say the Dexter does well in both cold and hot climates. Might be the ticket for something that will provide both enough milk and meat for Sass and I.
Thanks again.

 

You're welcome. Dexters have a number of advantages for the small acreage, self sufficient farmer. Perhaps not as much milk or meat comes from each individual animal, than with the larger breeds, but handling and home slaughtering is easier as is butchering etc. The disadvantage is that their diminutive size may be seen as "so cute", and so they become pets instead of beef steaks.

 

Up until last fall I maintained a decent size Dexter herd of 30 cows and 2 bulls. There are easy on the land, don't eat eat a lot are generally easy going and good tempered cattle and IMO the best all around homestead breed. As far as Milk I had one cow I milked and got a gallon per day sharing with the calf and 2.5- 3 gallons after ween. It is a rich high butterfat milk and if making yogurt is yer thing Dexter Milk makes some great yogurt. My bull like to throw Heifer calves and we typically ran 23-25 heifer calves per year and 5-7 bull calves. All of the heifer calves sold within a week of weening and I usually had a waiting list of 10-12 people left for the next years heifer calf weens. I didn't bother with registrations (Paper don't taste very good) Although my bulls were papered and occasionally I would paper a exceptional cow. The heifer calves sold for $950-$1250 per head and the bull calves got cut to steers and went into my business and personal freezers. Hated selling off the breeding herd but I had to cut back somewhere and I find the hogs much easier work than the cattle

Drawbacks are not many but worth mentioning. Bulldog face is a genetic problem in dexters a good herd has been tested and has eliminated it. A not so good herd is going to lose some calves at birth or shortly after. If you are expecting big porterhouses and ribeyes from Dexters you are going to be seriously let down. If 100% grass fed and finished they are more gamey tasting than most other breeds and will have almost zero fat. Graining the last 90-120 days on the other hand makes great dexter beef. This may be subjective and my own personal opinion but Dexters fed silage maked beef that taste like something that spent a week in my work boots.

I personally would not keep a Dexter on less than 1/2 acre of pasture per head dedicated to them. Even then you are going to run into serious parasite problems due to the inability to rotate pasture (Pasture rotation is the most effective worm control with any ruminant live stock or really any live stock even poultry and hogs) Livestock kept in cramped quarters will have a host of issues but parasite and respitory infections will be at the top of the list.

1/4 acre is not very much land 10,890 square feet which sound like a lot but look at it this way only 340 4'x8' standard sheets of plywood would cover every inch of 1/4 acre. A person would be far better off putting a high tunnel and a chicken run in and skipping the larger livestock IMO. You will of course love yer free range chickens until they peck a hole in every tomato, squash and scratch up your lettuce beds and leave piles of crap on your front porch A 30x96 high tunnel is 2880 square feet of potential growing space and will provide year round season appropriate veggies in most areas with out artificial light or heat. A chicken run the same size beside the tunnel will provide a tunnel waste disposal unit and return high N fertilizer. If you don't grow in the tunnel through the coldest months you can let the chickens in to stay warm, keep laying and clean the growing beds up and apply the fertilizer themselves. Still have enough space left over for a decent size outdoor garden as well.

Source is myself I feed 368 people 60% of their diet and another 230 folks 25% of their diet of meat, eggs and vegetables from my 40 acre farm and have done so for the last 17 years as my only employment. And 40 acres sounds like a lot of land to many people but it is not. I have to very carefully manage land use and rotations and when I had the cattle leased 160 acres of adjacent pasture to have healthy pasture rotation for the cattle.