In a revelation that will likely elicit nods of understanding rather than gasps of surprise from long-time viewers, 2024 has unequivocally been my most arduous year of farming to date. The agricultural gods seemed to have frowned upon our endeavors from the outset. The goose hatching season, typically a source of springtime optimism, descended into a disheartening sequence of failures, with virtually none of the carefully incubated eggs yielding goslings. Multiple hatching attempts throughout the year have met with the same frustrating result. Tragedy struck the cattle operation with the loss of two bull calves shortly after their arrival. And then there's the enigma of Sir Porkington, the mature pig who vanished without a trace somewhere in the sprawling woods surrounding our farm. His fate – whether he's alive, dead, or simply relocated to an unknown corner of the wilderness – remains a haunting mystery that frequently intrudes upon my thoughts. "That's going to kill me. That's real. That lives with us on Earth."
Adding to the litany of agricultural woes, for the second consecutive year, Vermont experienced what was characterized as once-in-a-century flooding. An actual river surged through our farm, right there behind me. "You so are you guys okay?" My heart ached not only for our own flooded fields but also for friends and neighbors who suffered even greater losses, including the tragic death of one community member. Even in the last video I managed to post, my voice was reduced to a mere whisper due to laryngitis, forcing me to rely on my phone as a makeshift voice box. "I can't talk." Indeed, 2024 has been a profoundly challenging year for us here at Gold Shaw Farm.
However, I know that a burning question lingers in the minds of many of you: what impact has this most difficult year had on our farm's financial standing? Will we even be able to sustain this ongoing experiment? Thus, continuing a year-end tradition, today's video will delve into the farm's finances, laying bare our revenues, expenses, losses, and profits, providing a comprehensive picture of our financial health here at Gold Shaw Farm. Release the quacken.
We recently awoke to another eight inches of fresh snowfall, and the gentle flakes continue to drift down, creating a picturesque yet somewhat hindering landscape. The birds, it seems, are understandably reluctant to venture out into the winter wonderland. "I'm sure this might help encourage them. Step aside, Abby dog."
Reflecting on our beginnings back in 2018, it was a modest start: just me, Po barnat (or rather, Lil barnat, depending on who you ask), and a cohort of 40 ducklings. My initial plan was always to adopt a gradual approach, scaling up the operation as my knowledge, skills, and the farm itself grew. For the most part, that's been the trajectory. My first couple of years saw negligible profits, likely not even surpassing the $1,000 mark. But as the years progressed, the financial tide slowly began to turn. By 2022, my first year of full-time farming, I felt a genuine sense of optimism about the direction we were heading. While 2023 brought a slight dip, I harbored hopes for a rebound in 2024. However, without revealing the full financial outcome just yet, those hopes were largely dashed.
As I walk you through the performance of our various animal enterprises, you'll notice that I discuss some while omitting others. This is because some animals are integral to our farm's profit and loss statement, forming the core of our farm business, while others are more akin to homestead animals, kept for personal enjoyment and perhaps a small contribution to our own sustenance and your viewing pleasure. Consequently, you won't hear me discussing the goats and ducks in this financial overview. Similarly, while the chickens and bees play crucial roles in supporting various farm activities and provide us with food, their products aren't sold commercially on a significant scale, beyond the occasional sale of a dozen eggs. Therefore, I'll refrain from including them in this financial breakdown to avoid unnecessary complexity.
The primary commercial pillars of our farm business are the geese, cattle, pigs, and trees. We also embarked on a small-scale catnip experiment, which I'll touch upon, adding a minor contribution to the bottom line. However, it's not something I would consider a core component of our farm's operations. Excuse me, Abby dog. "Oh, come with me, you guys. We got to continue this conversation."
Now, at the behest of my esteemed attorney, Saul Goodman – "What are you doing, detective? What are you doing talking to my client without me present, you Sneaky Pete?" – I must preface the following financial figures with a crucial disclaimer. These numbers are not final, audited figures. They are derived from spreadsheets I've meticulously maintained over several years, and while I've strived for accuracy and made corrections to past errors, the possibility of inaccuracies remains. Furthermore, this information should not be construed as financial advice for investment, tax, or business planning purposes. This is simply my attempt to share my experiences, observations, and the financial realities – both the highs and lows – of Gold Shaw Farm. So, please, take it all with a grain of salt, or perhaps a chunk of slush from the water trough after days of sub-zero temperatures.
It's a welcome change to have warmer temperatures, currently around 25° Fahrenheit, after the prolonged deep freeze. "A look at these Shaggy cows in their snow. They're looking so good. How's it going, Belle? Good to see you, sweetie." A quick assessment revealed that the cattle still had ample hay. "All right, looks like you guys still have plenty more hay, so I don't think I need to feed you hay today." An unexpected bovine intervention occurred during a previous, unrecorded check-in. "I was just checking in with the cattle and one of them knocked over the camera while it wasn't recording, and so uh apologies if the lens's a little foggy, but I promised to clean this off before I take you guys in to do the numbers."
"All right, now we can have a proper chat." This makeshift desk, often the backdrop for my videos, seems an appropriate place to delve into the financial intricacies of the farm. "This is like my farm working desk. I've been shooting a lot of videos here more than anything else." So, the pivotal question: how much money did our farm generate in 2024? To provide clarity, I've prepared some slides outlining the details. The underlying data originates from the aforementioned spreadsheets, updated periodically with revenue, expenses, and other relevant financial information. This data is then translated into a presentation format for easier discussion and sharing. "This was actually the color I used last year, and it feels way too perky. I feel like this dark gray is a much more representative color of the vibe I'm feeling for 2024." A furry assistant decided to make an appearance. "And by the way, please ignore my uh assistant here. Jenny barncat will probably be trying to hog all the attention for this video, which I don't know what to tell you guys about it. I'm not a cat person, but somehow she just seems to like to spend time with me."
So, the moment of truth: "Yes, how much money did I make in 2024?" Let's start with the headline figure. "Our revenue for the farm this year was a little over $20,000, $20,312 to be exact." This figure represents revenue solely from agricultural products. "That is the revenue that our farm generated that are from only agricultural products. So I'm I'm not counting merchandise, I'm not counting videos, anything like that. From the agricultural side of it, like selling farm products, we made a little bit over $20,000 in Revenue this year." To provide a broader perspective on the farm's potential income streams, I presented a comprehensive list. "And if you want the big picture of what our farm business actually looks like and the ways that our farm can make money, here's the grand list. Not say that we always do make money this way, but these are traditionally the businesses that we've had." As mentioned earlier, some enterprises are no longer part of the profit equation. "As I said earlier, we're not doing ducks for profit anymore. Goats are not even part of the equation on this picture. As you can see, the chicken eating eggs, they they make a little of money, they basically make just enough money to cover the cost of the chicken feed, and so I'm going to stop trying to include that in the mix here as well because just complicates things. But the big farm businesses we got are the goose operation, the pigs, the cattle, and the trees." The significant role of content creation in sustaining the farm was underscored. "And then obviously the content side of it. I can't underscore how that actually is really how I'm paying my bills on a regular basis. Like so, you know, making money from AdSense revenue from YouTube or meta or Tik Tock or sponsors or merchandise or even our book, and we're going to actually probably be putting out two books next year, all of these ways are ways that we make money." However, the focus of this financial review remained on agricultural revenue. "I'm going to be talking specifically today about the farm revenue, and that's the place where I'll be getting into all the details." The complexity of the farm's diverse activities was acknowledged. "And kind of what makes a lot of this complicated to talk about is the fact that I have so many different activities going on, and I have some operations that are for-profit operations, others that I would term as simply Hobbies or uh side projects, and then obviously the content side of things, which again, I make multiple times of what I make from the farm doing that stuff, and that is really how I pay my bills."
Reflecting on a previous video addressing the realities of small-scale farming and the "back to the land" movement, I reiterated the often-overlooked role of off-farm income, particularly content creation, in sustaining such ventures. "Earlier this year, I actually made a whole video talking about how nobody lives off the land and about the back to the land movement. What if I were to tell you that there was a rich couple who were both homesteaders living off the grid and they were working as content creators and they were trying to pretend like they were able to live and just exist off of their living on the land? It's probably maybe one of the videos I'm proudest of, and one of my key points and one of the things I wanted to really address in that video is dispelling that myth that a lot of small farmers, particularly small farmers that you see on social media, like that they're paying most of their bills through their Farm, because the truth of the matter is they're not. And I myself am no exception to that."
Turning to the individual farm enterprises, the tree business emerged as a consistent bright spot. "Now, the big bright spot in our farm business has always been and continues to be the tree business. You know, we have a tree orchard that's still developing and growing, but I'm just starting to get some production out of it, but not really anything enough to actually become like something I report on in these videos. That might happen in future years, but we're just not ready for it yet. But what we do is we also sell Chestnut, black locust, and apple tree seedlings, and so that is something that we've been doing for several years now." The genesis of this enterprise was traced back to the orchard's establishment. "In fact, even when I bought the trees that I installed in my Orchard back in 2017, I actually bought more than I needed, and then I was reselling some of those trees to some of my neighbors, and it worked out good as just like one of the initial like how to make money farming type of things that I was doing." The impressive sales figures for the year were then revealed. "This year, we didn't quite sell 2,000 trees, but we're getting close to it. That meant more than $12,000 in Revenue. So if you are thinking back to what I said earlier, that's more than half of our revenue is now coming from trees, and the tree operation actually made a gross profit of $1,885. So almost $12,000 from the tree operation." The success and potential replicability of the tree seedling business were emphasized. "I did a whole video on this topic of the trees, and honestly, if people are watching our videos for finding ways to make money as a farm, that would be the only one I would advise that you look at and say, well, maybe there's some things that we're doing that you might want to copy. I wouldn't suggest anybody copy anything else that we do."
The goose operation, a multi-faceted enterprise involving gosling sales, adult geese sales, and meat production, encountered significant setbacks. "Now, the goose operation is another one that has been something we've been doing for a number of years. Typically, we've had multiple parts to our Goose operations, so we typically sell goslings after we hatch them here on the farm. We will also sell adult geese as people want them over the course of the summer. It's like a tiny part of what we do. And then in the fall, typically we've made a few thousand dollar uh selling geese for meat, you know, so we'd raise somewhere like around 40 to 60 geese, butcher them here on the farm, and then sell them to people, and it was actually a very profitable and and good Enterprise to be in." The disastrous hatching season brought this promising venture to a halt. "Unfortunately, I had a pretty bad run this spring, and after building a brand new Hatchery, I was unable to hatch any goslings. Like actually, I that's not true. I had like a couple of goslings that were very weak hatch, but not enough to continue my Goose operation the way I traditionally have, and so I basically put the whole business on pause this year. I plan to restart it in 2025 and try to get back to selling Mees and do a better job hatching. I've replaced my incubator, I'm trying to improve a couple of other things that I think were causing my hatching problem problems, but yeah, it sucks." This setback served as a cautionary tale about the potential fragility of relying on a single successful enterprise. "I feel like this is an important lesson to showcase for people. It's something I've known for a while, but I think a lot of other Farmers that I know or particularly beginning Farmers I know fall into this trap of they have like one or two really good years doing something and then something goes wrong and then that whole business falls apart. If you structured your farm Enterprise where you're relying on that Revenue as well as that profit to keep you afloat, you've got to be exceptionally careful cuz like one of those things going wrong can absolutely devastate you." The financial impact of the failed hatching season was quantified. "And in fact, when I was looking at the expenses, what I came to the conclusion is I probably lost about $500 just to feed the geese that I have by not having the goose meat operation." However, a small profit was salvaged through the sale of fertilized eggs. "But thankfully, because I sell the fertilized goose eggs, we actually still eak out a bit of a profit here, and like keeping my breeding flock remained not like a money loss just because the other thing I'll do is when I get fertilized eggs in the winter and early spring when it's too early to try hatching here, I will sell those to people." The unexpected success of the fertilized egg sales, despite the poor hatching rates on the farm, was noted. "And I actually only had a handful of customers for the fertilized eggs, but they were buying a lot lot of them on the regular, and surprisingly, despite my bad hatching success, their hatching rates were really good. I reached out to about a quarter of them, like all the hatching rates I got reported back were somewhere between 40 and 60%, which is kind of normal for geese, and so I actually felt pretty good about that. But I'm not happy with what happened with the goose operation overall."
The pork production, relying heavily on food scraps and recycled food products, fared relatively well. "So the other business that we're in is we raise pork for meat. We try to raise them mostly on food scraps and recycled food products, so like vegetable scraps, Brewers grains, apple drop, and overall that actually did pretty well. We started with four piglets, they gained weight, we were able to keep them over that 80% Target in terms of the source of their food, so that kept our expenses down for raising the pigs." A shift in processing strategy proved beneficial. "Unlike last year where we butchered the pigs on Farm which meant we couldn't sell the meat, we actually ended up taking them to an official processor, and while that increased the cost significantly, it made it a viable business, and so I had customers who bought our pork and that worked out great." However, the shadow of Sir Porkington's disappearance loomed large. "But as many of you guys know the big downside to that was one of our pigs went missing. Sir Porkington is gone, and yes, when I say gone, I mean like he's gone. He is not here on the farm, and I don't exactly know how to explain it either. I feel like this might have been one of my biggest farming failures ever. I'm not exactly sure what I should do about it." The baffling circumstances of his vanishing were recounted. "And the way that happened is just one morning I was looking for the pig, couldn't find the pig, it was gone, and I have not seen any tracks, seen a carcass, seen really anything that between the you know probably 14 hours that he went from when he was seen to when like I went to look for him and he was missing in that window there were no signs of anything really. And over the last several months as I continue to look for him, I've had no luck, and so I just don't know what happened. I don't I don't think he's alive to be really honest because typically when something like that's happening you'll see it out on like front porch Forum or like one of uh like our Facebook groups or something and there was like nothing like that and so I don't know what happened to that pig but it's gone." The financial consequence of this loss was significant. "And so unfortunately rather than having four pigs to sell which would have actually put me a pretty good place financially we only had three." Updated financial figures for the pork operation were provided. "I made a whole video breaking down the costs, but I actually screwed up some calculations on the cost when I was like triple