Reply to What does it cost to maintain a hobby farm?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I feel like nobody replying has any idea what a "hobby farm" is. It certainly doesn't help that OP hasn't provided any details. (Probably because they have no idea themselves)

I worked on a hobby farm many years ago, and I imagine it was probably very close to what the OP is actually imagining.

They didn't plant any crops, they kept like 2 horses, 4 cows, and a few chickens. It was a "farm" for tax and conversational purposes, but it was never intended to be a business and certainly never intended to turn a profit. It was a place where well off city folk could come out for the weekend and enjoy nature and pretend to be salt of the earth.

The costs were very minimal compared to the numbers you all are throwing out. They had a horse caretaker who they paid barely anything but in exchange let her live in the farmhouse and use their horses for riding lessons and keep all the money. Then they had me who came out like 3 times a week for 8 hours at $10 an hour, and that was it for staffing costs.

The cows were taken care of by their actual cattle farming neighbor who took most of the meat in exchange, the chickens were free range and mostly took care of themselves, but the horse girl helped as well. The cows and horses took care of most of the mowing.

Not counting the mortgage, I'd estimate they probably spent about $50K a year on payroll, animal care, maintenance (so many fences to repair!) tractor gas and maintenance, and everything else.

[/quote]
This is helpful, thanks! -OP[/quote]

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