A growing number of young Americans are leaving desk jobs to farm

Re:A growing number of young Americans are leaving desk jobs... by MAGZine on Friday November 24, 2017 @09:53PM (#15774174)

Depends where you live, and what you farm.

In the case of e.g. cereal crops in the north, there are 4-6 months where you can do little beyond some maintenance, buying/selling equipment, planning next year's crop, etc. that means there is plenty of time for vacations. You are right that during seeding or harvest (especially), all bets for travel are off.

But, it is incorrect to imply that because you farm, you ought to kiss vacations good-bye.

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Re:A growing number of young Americans are leaving desk jobs... by CydeWeys on Friday November 24, 2017 @10:17PM (#15774237)

Animals need taking care of every day year-round. There's very few homesteaders who don't have at least some egg-laying chickens. I have a feeling you're thinking more about industrial-scale monoculture farmers, but that's not what the linked article is talking about.

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Re:A growing number of young Americans are leaving desk jobs... by erikpukinskis on Saturday November 25, 2017 @01:38AM (#15774748)

Chickens are pretty easy though. You can pay some neighborhood teenagers to take care of the flock while you’re in Aruba.

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Re:A growing number of young Americans are leaving desk jobs... by discreteevent on Saturday November 25, 2017 @04:20AM (#15775174)

We had about 20 chickens and this is exactly what we did. Not sure why you got downvoted.

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Re:A growing number of young Americans are leaving desk jobs... by rmrm on Saturday November 25, 2017 @10:35AM (#15776325)

Talking about farmscale agriculture, it's hundreds of chickens at least. If it's pastured, they likely need to be moved quite often.

Chickens are likely easiest, but on a scale to produce a living for a family, I don't think any type of farming or ranching is low effort or easy to step away from.

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Re:A growing number of young Americans are leaving desk jobs... by dghughes on Sunday November 26, 2017 @09:11AM (#15780951)

I bet most people don't know chickens need light to lay eggs, their egg laying will slow down as the days grow shorter. Plus they will kill each other if even the slightest bit of blood appears. And the smell oh the smell!

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Re:A growing number of young Americans are leaving desk jobs... by pvaldes on Sunday November 26, 2017 @06:19PM (#15783661)

This problems improve if given enough space and aren't crowded

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Re:A growing number of young Americans are leaving desk jobs... by clord on Sunday November 26, 2017 @12:31PM (#15781947)

We have hundreds of chickens most years now, and yea the neighbours can take care of them for a week or two. The biggest thing that keeps us from traveling in the summer is our "garden".

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Re:A growing number of young Americans are leaving desk jobs... by myth_drannon on Sunday November 26, 2017 @03:04PM (#15782694)

When I was a child we had some chickens. The most difficult part was keeping them safe outside dogs, cats kill them for fun. Foxes and other wild animals tend to really like them for lunch.

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Re:A growing number of young Americans are leaving desk jobs... by skeleton on Sunday November 26, 2017 @07:02PM (#15783822)

We learned the hard way that pigs also like to kill chickens for fun. Although it's possible this behavior was unique to our pig.

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Re:A growing number of young Americans are leaving desk jobs... by randomdata on Sunday November 26, 2017 @06:05AM (#15780363)

> I have a feeling you're thinking more about industrial-scale monoculture farmers

That seems to be what the article is about. The first case study is a vegetable farm, without any hint that they produce anything else. They are also industrial-scale, else they would be considered gardeners, not farmers.

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