If you live on enough property to have animals but haven’t added any to your brood yet, you’re going to want to make sure that you have everything prepared for them before you welcome them to their new home.
How you’ll set things up will depend on what type of animals you’re bringing in. However, there are some guidelines that work for almost all types of farm animals.
So to help you get your property ready for your new additions, here are three tips for setting up your property for farm animals.
Don’t Get Too Much Too Soon
One of the first things you’ll want to figure out is exactly which types of animals you’re wanting to take care of now.
While you might have high aspirations to have your own full-fledged hobby farm, Lauren Arcuri, a contributor to TreeHugger.com, shares that it’s best to only bring on one or two new animals or breeds of the animal at a time. When you go about building your farm in this way, you’ll give yourself time to learn about these animals without overwhelming yourself. It can be a steep learning curve as you learn animal husbandry, so make sure you aren’t stretching yourself too thin as to not give all of your animals the care and attention they deserve.
Research The Kind Of Fencing You’ll Need
In most situations, you’re going to need to set up specific areas where you’ll allow your animals to be on your property.
To decide which areas are going to be best for which animals, you might want to take a tour of your whole property to see how it’s going to be best laid out, both for the animals and for you. Then, you’ll want to section off the areas. As you do this, SouthernStates.com advises that you pick fencing materials based on which animals will be housed there. For example, you won’t want to use barbed wire to fence in horses.
Keep Food And Water Close By
The last thing you want to be doing multiple times each day is using your tractor to haul food and water all over the place for your animals.
Knowing this, Jennifer Rpovey, a contributor to PetHelpful.com, recommends that you try to set up each animal’s area so that they can be close to the food or water that they’ll need to eat and drink each day. Not only will this make your life a whole lot easier, but it will also be much more convenient for your livestock as well.
If you’re ready to bring some farm animals onto your property, consider using the tips mentioned above to set everything up for them correctly.