You might be here because you want to be a little more self-sufficient. Or you are looking into getting a small flock of chickens so you don’t have to spend outrageous amounts on eggs. Or you might have seen our cute duck videos and are thinking, “I want to experience that” or “I want my kids to experience that.” You might want to try a new hobby, be outside more, or get back to where it all started: sowing, growing, and harvesting. Whatever it may be, backyard farming is a great way to dip your toes in.
What is Backyard Farming?
Backyard Farming is small-scale homesteading where you grow crops and raise animals in a residential area. In Backyard Farming, you can grow and raise just for your family or sell the excess you harvest or the extra eggs you collect. Even if you don’t plan on making money with your Backyard Farm, you are still considered backyard farming. Whether you choose to grow a garden, raise animals, or do both, backyard farming is a sweet little taste of large-scale homesteading without the all-in commitment it takes to homestead.
Backyard farming allows residential homeowners to provide for themselves in creative, small-scale ways. You might not have a huge garden to preserve tons of veggies and fruits. But you can grow something and see the fruit of your labor. That’s a gift in itself. If you have kids, backyard farming is such a fun way to teach them about gardening, plants, different vegetables, fruit trees, and all the different animals that we care for so that they provide for us. It provides amazing opportunities, so let’s get started!
Our Backyard Farm
We have a 1/2 acre, and most of that 1/2 acre is lawn. However, we have designated areas for our animals and crops so that we can make the most out of our backyard while still providing some food for our family. Our Backyard Farm is heavy on the animals. Our livestock are chickens, waterfowl, sheep, and bunnies. We do grow cherry tomatoes in the summer, and we have lots of basil and some other veggies that my daughter picks out every year. I make homemade, dairy-free pesto with all the basil I harvest. It is so yummy. We also grow a small-scale cut flower garden, mainly dahlias, and other cut-and-come-again flowers. I sell these in subscriptions, or our roadside stand when I have leftovers.
The Livestock Animals’ Jobs in Our Farm
We keep chickens and ducks for their eggs. The goose is for flock protection. The sheep we hope to use her wool for insulating our flower garden over the winter, and we hope to get her wool turned into yarn. But we mostly got her for a pet. Her poop is amazing fertilizer, though, and our lawn loves it! Although we have retired our bunnies from breeding, at one time, we bred Holland Lop Bunnies on a small scale for profit. This was an amazing experience because my daughter learned so much about bunnies and now takes care of our three retired bunnies. Their poop is amazing fertilizer as well.
We have raised meat chickens once, and I found them to be the best whole chicken I have ever roasted. However, it’s hard to do this on a small-scale backyard farm. The meat chickens need to be raised separately from the egg layers; we just don’t have the housing for that. It ended up being more of an annoyance. But the roasted chicken from those lazy Cornish-cross boilers was the most tender, juicy chicken I have ever eaten.
An Easy Starting Point
Chickens
Chickens are a great first livestock option. They provide eggs, pay their rent, as we call it, and take little effort with a small flock. The bigger the flock, the more work it is, but when starting out, I would start with as many chickens as you have people in the house. Chickens don’t lay every day, but most people don’t use eggs daily. If you want excess eggs, get more chickens!
You can choose day-old chicks. We like getting ours from My Pet Chicken. When ordering chickens online, I like that you can choose what breeds you get and how many. Sometimes, the local stores only carry the common chickens. So, if you want a more colorful egg basket, getting chickens online might help with the color diversity of your eggs. You can also pick them up from your local farm store. There is also the option to get pullets—female chickens that are less than a year old. Some farmers with more space will raise chickens until they are feathered out with their adult feathers and then sell them at a steeper price. Sometimes, this is a great way to acquire chickens as you skip the brooding process.
Adding supplemental light to your coop will keep your eggs coming even through the shorter winter days. Egg bounty will go down, but the light helps some chickens continue to lay eggs. Some farmers let their chickens have their natural egg-laying cycle, and some don’t; it’s a personal preference.
Keep This in Mind
Chickens are notorious for messing up garden beds and flower beds. With their scratching abilities to find grubs and bugs, they will quickly mess up your landscaping. They also are susceptible to nasty critters hitching a ride in their feathers. Mites, lice, and fleas are common among chickens, making it important to keep their housing clean.
There is an easy and quick way to get rid of these critters: Elector PSP. It is a little expensive, but you will have it forever. Plus, you don’t have to throw away your eggs when treating your chickens.
Another Great First Livestock Option
Ducks
Ducks are a great option if you aren’t keen on chickens. Some people who are allergic to chicken eggs can consume duck eggs. Ducks are a great addition to the backyard as they can free-range and not mess up garden beds. Ducks can lay eggs daily, more so than chickens, if given supplemental light. Ducks are amazing layers, and their eggs make baked goods fluffy and yummy. While doing blind taste testing, I couldn’t really tell the difference between a backyard chicken egg and a duck egg.
A common misconception about ducks is that they need a pond. This is simply not true. Are ducks happier when they can get into a body of water to splash around and clean themselves off? Yes. But in our area, a pond is only available to them in late spring-early fall. We can’t provide a pond, or it will freeze over.
Ducks are less likely to have an issue with mites, lice, and fleas because they get in the water to clean off. Providing a simple kiddie pool for your ducks is an easy way to give them a body of water to wash and play around in. Ducks need a simple enclosure to be kept in at night. The term “sitting duck” is sadly very true. Ducks are susceptible to being attacked and killed by owls, hawks, and raccoons. They simply have no defense mechanism. This is why we keep them in an enclosed home at night. Read about our Easy Clean Duck Coop.
Check out our Easy Clean Duck Coop Plans.
Protecting Your Duck Flock
Another way to protect your duck flock is to get a guard goose. We chose to get a Buff Goose. They are on the smaller side of domestic geese. They are friendly and sound the alarm whenever they see something in the sky. When our Gerty Goose is nesting, she really starts to honk whenever anyone gets close to her nest. She has never chased us or attacked us. She does an amazing job at protecting her flock. We haven’t had any duck deaths since having her, and I would say it’s a testament to how well she looks out for them.
Other Animals For a Backyard Farm
Bunnies
We chose to have Holland Lop Bunnies as a pet, but it soon turned into a hobby of small-scale breeding. I wanted my daughter to experience caring for baby bunnies since I got to do that as a child. Learning through experience is such a great way to learn, and it’s fun for kids! She has learned so much about animals from our backyard farm, and it’s amazing to see her love for animals grow and grow. Holland Lops are strictly pet animals, but we used them to make a little income on the side. Read about How to Potty Train Your Bunny.
Meat rabbits are great for backyard farms, though we have never had any animal on our farm specifically for meat. We just can’t bring ourselves to kill an animal. But, having meat rabbits is an amazing income generator and sustainable food generator. Rabbits breed easily and give birth quickly to large batches of kits. It’s an amazing way to feed your family and fill your freezer with meat.
Sheep
Although Susan, our sheep, is more of a pet, she greatly benefits our backyard. Specifically in her manure. It is amazing fertilizer, and it isn’t like dog poop that sits on top of the grass; it drops into the grass, making it almost undetectable when walking around. Her amazing wool, like cashmere, has a higher micron count, so it can be worn next to the skin. I don’t know if we will ever turn it into yarn; I think I would like to at least once, just to say, “Hey, I’m wearing Susan today,” but we will definitely be using it to insulate our flower tubers this winter. Plus, she chomps on our lawn in all seasons. She’s a great addition to our backyard farm. Read How to Care for a Babydoll Sheep on a Backyard Farm.
Helping the Sustainable Food System in a Backyard Farm
Did you know that growing seasonal veggies and fruits help create a sustainable food system? The more you eat food in season, the less carbon emissions are produced. I can only do my part in sustainable practices, so I practice sustainability where I can and where it makes sense for me and my family. This means that I’m not planting a garden just to plant it. I’m planting a garden with veggies and fruits that we will consume and can do something with.
Seasonal gardens are a great way to get your kids outside and excited about something they might not have known they would be interested in. My daughter loves to harvest yummy goods from our seasonal garden. It’s an adventure each time you go out to the garden. You see bugs, bees, and butterflies working together to make your garden and soil amazing.
Fruit Trees
You might wonder how to fit a fruit tree in your yard, but I’ll give you some ideas. First, get a dwarf tree. They won’t fill a huge area, but you can still harvest fruit and enjoy the fruits of your labor – literally. Also, we have one fruit tree in one of our flower beds that lines a fence. It adds some height differentiation and is a great way to add more fruit trees to your backyard. We also have found that getting self-pollinating trees is a great way to not have to plant many fruit trees. You could choose one fruit tree and still get fruit from it because it doesn’t rely on another tree to pollinate. We also have two fruit trees in our sheep enclosure. It’s perfect for adding shade to an area that didn’t have any before. I also think putting a tree in a chicken run is amazing because the chickens could eat the dropped fruit and have some shade and a place to chill. You will want to limb up the branches so you don’t have any escapees. Read about How I Can Pears.
Vegetable/Fruit Garden
An annual vegetable and fruit garden is a great and simple way to have sustainable food. However, I have realized that when I plant my seasonal garden, a lot of it goes to waste because we don’t eat the harvest. So, instead of planting just to plant, I spend time figuring out what we use and what will serve us for the winter.
My seasonal garden has taken on many forms. We had raised beds, we sowed in the ground, and this year, we are returning to raised beds because our ground is now used for beautiful blooms. In our raised beds, we will plant lots of basil for homemade pesto, cherry tomatoes, and greens for salads and to freeze for smoothies. So, it’s not a lot, but it’s enough for us.
Remember that a garden doesn’t have to be a specific size. Think about different ways to grow tomatoes or herbs—like on your porch in containers or on a back deck. There are ways to plant your favorite herbs or plants that don’t require a large space! Where we live, there are a lot of tall pine trees that shade much of our neighborhood. Our home doesn’t have any of these large shade trees because we had a huge windstorm
Other Backyard Farm Options
It once was said, “Find a hobby to make you money, one to keep you in shape, and one to be creative.” A Backyard Farm can cover all these, which is why backyard farming is so special.
Small-Scale Flower Farm
A small-scale flower farm could be added if you are more into beautiful blooms than growing veggies for your meals.
In 2024, I dreamed of starting a flower farm in a growing zone where Dahlias are annuals. It didn’t feel like an easy dream, but I wanted to use my artistic side to build bouquets. It did not disappoint, and I made a little money the first year but learned a lot more lessons along the way. A small-scale farm is an amazing hobby, but it also can provide you with some money! It also gets you outside, doing something enjoyable with your hands, and every time I’m out in the flower garden, I leave feeling like I accomplished something. Whether that be deadheading or cutting flowers for my next bouquets. Read about our Small-Scale Flower Farm.
Get more LoDown in these posts:
Chicken Breeds for a Colorful Egg Basket
Happy backyard farming!
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