43 Ways to Make Money on Your Hobby Farm

Did you know you could earn a living off of your land? 

The more you dive into hobby farming and homesteading, the more you realize: there is no “off season.” In other words you complete one task to move to the next, and are constantly shifting your focus based on the time of year. Early springtime means starting seedlings, and hatching chicks. Then planting season begins, which moves to maintaining your gardens, the high egg production of summer time, honey, raising cattle and pigs, cut flowers and manure. As you head into fall, harvest kicks into high gear, canning season and pumpkin season take over – only to be met with orchard season. Once winter hits, firewood and snow removal take center stage outdoors, and focus can be shifted indoors to your various crafting and woodworking skills. And then it’s not long before its time to start those seedlings again.

This is the natural cycle on the farm. It seems like every year we add more to our ever growing homestead – whether it be a new vegetable, a new animal, or something new to make for ourselves or sell. Pushing ourselves closer and closer to self sufficiency. While you aren’t going to make fortunes on your hobby farm, money can be made on literally every step of this process if you plan accordingly. This lifestyle requires a lot of hard work and it’s okay to creatively earn money to support it.

You more than likely won’t make enough to sustain yourself off of any one thing, but combining several avenues for profit could lead you to that dream of quitting your day job and homesteading full time.

Eggs and Chicks

1. Egg Sales – While sellings eggs isn’t the most profitable avenue, it is one of the easiest ways to get started selling from your farm. A dozen eggs can get you around $3 per dozen depending on your area. They are easy to market, and attract a large variety of customers, that can lead to up-sells. After building a customer base, it’s easier to spread the word about new products you offer. Word of mouth goes a really long way.  For us, the egg sales offset the cost of feeding and caring for our flock, but not much more, so don’t expect high profits, but I think this one is really about getting your name out there – and I love being able to provide quality eggs from happy chickens to members of my community.
2. Fertile Hatching Eggs – You can take egg sales a step further, and sell fertile hatching eggs. This works really well if you have in-demand breeds. Pure bred chickens or certain egg colors (chocolate brown and olive colors) can fetch a lot more money. What I like about selling hatching eggs, is that it takes a lot of the work out of selling chicks.
3. Day Old Chicks and Ducklings – Take it even one step further and hatch them out yourself. Each step earns you more money. All you need is an incubator (or some broody hens) and you can hatch out your fertilized eggs.  Depending on the breed they can go for anywhere from $2 a chick to $18 a chick. I do know people who focus on hatching specialty breeds who have turned this into a full time, well paying job.

Poultry

1. Raising Broilers – If butchering doesn’t bother you, raise broiler hens. They grow quickly and can be ready to process in as little as 12 weeks. You could take them to a butcher if you’re not interested in doing the deed, but with chickens it greatly cuts into your profit margins and I haven’t found it to be worth it. I love being able to find hormone free, ethically raised meat though, so I appreciate farms who do this.
2. Turkeys – Instead of paying a high price for a commercially raised turkey at Thanksgiving time, raise your own. A great way to earn money on your farm is to add to everything you do. So if you’re raising a couple for yourself anyway?  Add a few more to the flock to sell.
3. Building Coops and Nesting Boxes – There’s a really good chance that once you start keeping animals, you’ll get handy with building and working with chicken wire. You’ll learn how to make small coops, chicken runs, nesting boxes, rabbit hutches, brooder boxes etc. You can build these things for newbies and help get them started!

Livestock

1. Raising Beef – Pasture raised beef is always in high demand. Raise a few head of cattle to butcher, and sell what you don’t need yourself.
2. Raising Pork – Same as beef. I love purchasing my meat from a local farmer, and I’m certainly not the only one. Raise pigs to be butchered. You don’t have to do any of the processing if you don’t want you. Drop the pig at the butcher, and have your customer pay the processing fees.
3. Goat Milk – If you have goats, or an interest in goats, you can milk them. Then sell their milk or make cheeses to sell.
4. Manure – It’s no secret that animals create waste. That waste is fantastic for building up your soil to grow higher yields in your garden or crop. Every time we clean the coop, we then spread the manure and bedding in our pumpkin patch. You can sell anything you can’t use yourself, so find an interested farmer or gardener to work with. 
5. Wool – You can raise sheep! Not only are they a fun addition to the farm, but you can shear them every year and sell their wool.
6. Breeding – If you keep animals, let them reproduce. You can then sell young livestock to new farmers or those hoping to get started with a new animal. We all start somewhere, right?
7. Breeding Livestock Guardian Dogs – Do you have some great farm dogs? Let them breed too! You could then sell a few pups each year! Just make sure you are breeding responsibly. There is always interest in healthy puppies from a small farm – which means people would love to get them from you over a pet store.

Gardening

1. Pumpkin Patch – With not much land and a decent location you can move a few hundred to a few thousand pumpkins each fall. Specialty pumpkins don’t yield as high, but they go for a higher price because of that, and people love you use them in their decor. Jack-o-lantern pumpkins can yield very high, and there is a bigger demand for them close to Halloween for carving. You can pick them yourself, or run a u-pick patch. Read about my family’s journey to a thriving pumpkin patch business with The Little Green Wagon here.
2. U-pick Vegetables – You would need easy access to your garden and ample parking for this, but everyone loves produce picked straight from the garden. Tomatoes, cucumbers, peas, beans, zucchini, peppers, onions, squash – you name it! People want it fresh.
3. Roadside Sales – Similar to the U-pick garden, you can set up a stand at a roadside location selling your veggies, fruit, pumpkins or sweet corn etc.
4. CSA – Comunity Supported Agriculture. You can set up a CSA and sell portions of your harvest. Each week you will then fill boxes for your members to come pick up their share.
5. Seedlings – Every spring people are in need of already started vegetables, flowers and trees. Start them from seeds indoors and sell them once the ground thaws.
6. Orchard Fruit – Do you have space for a small orchard? Invite people to come pick their own apples and pears. Or maybe you only have enough room for a few trees, then pick them yourself and sell them. Or turn them into apple sauces or pies to sell as well.
   

Products from the Gardens

1. Jams and Jellies – Use any fruit you grow on the farm to make jams and jellies. Strawberries, rhubarb, raspberries, and grapes can make delcious spreads. My great grandma always made the best strawberry rhubarb jam, and I would LOVE to buy some that reminded me of her. Make some for yourself, then sell any extra.
2. Pickles – Do you have a good pickle recipe? Use the cucumbers and dill you grow to make jars of pickles. Then you can sell them at a Farmer’s Market, or by placing an ad on social media.
3. Fresh Cut Flowers – If you have the space to grow flowers, plant allll the seeds. Not only is this so wonderful for the bees and pollinators, but you could add another source of income to your farm. You could sell fresh cut flowers at a farmer’s market, or grow them for weddings. Sunflowers and gladiolas do well at markets.
4. Honey – After planting all those flowers to sell, you could then get some bee hives. Bee keeping is an amazing way to help save the population of bees from extinction. Why not sell their excess honey? Or take it a step further and create honey products to sell.

Trees

1. Christmas Trees – If you have the space for it, another option is to grow Christmas trees. Give people the Griswold experience and you could make a pretty penny each holiday season.
2. Fire Wood – If you own a chainsaw and a log splitter, you can sell firewood. There always seems to be trees down in storms that people need taken care of. You can help them by taking the logs off their hands, and then you have free wood to cut, split and sell.
3. Tree Services – We often get requests for Rich to come take a tree down. He gets paid to do so, and we get the wood which is a double win. Cutting down trees can be dangerous though so make sure you know what you’re doing, have the right equipment, and bring a buddy with you.
4. Maple Syrup – It takes a lot of sap to make syrup, but oh is it worth it! Nothing beats real maple syrup. Make some for yourself and extra to sell!

Crafting and Woodworking

1. Quilting – There’s always a demand for high quality quilts. So if you have the skills or are interested in learning, start sewing! You can sell your quilts at craft shows or in an online shop.  My sister and I sew baby quilts and sell them in our Etsy shop Lulu and Louise Baby.
2. Wreaths – Did you know you can make gorgeous wreaths for every season using things found around the farm? Turn vines into your wreath base then add greenery, pine cones, twigs, or dried flowers to make stunning decor.
3. Upcycled Decor – You can also turn old items into something fresh again. Birdhouses using old tin, picture frames out of barn boards, planters out of galvanized wash tubs, or snow globes out of old mason jars.
   
4. Handmade Soap – Making your own natural soap is great because you can use natural ingredients that are much better for your body – and consumers want that as well!
5. Knit – Or instead of selling the wool you get from your sheep, use it yourself to knit and sell mittens, scarves and sweaters.
   
6. Repurpose Pallets – There are so many crafts you can do with an old pallet. Wooden signs, Christmas Trees, porch swings, bookshelves, coat racks. Search Pinterest and find something that looks fun to you – and sell it.
   
7. Christmas Ornaments – Christmas ornaments area a fun way to express your your creativity. For instance, if you are a skilled wood worker, you could make small wooden ornaments. You could feathers from your chickens or even paint designs on the globe ornaments. Most importantly, use YOUR skill-set to creatively come up with your own ideas. Then sell them at craft shows, open an Etsy shop, or market them on social media. Here are some chicken feather ornaments I like to put on my tree and sell.

Selling Your Craft

1. Craft Shows – Do you make something you could sell at a craft show? Sewing, knitting, woodworking, painting – the sky’s the limit. devote time to your craft and apply for a few shows to get started.
2. Etsy – Maybe craft shows aren’t your thing, but you still want to sell your handmade items. Open up an Etsy shop! It’s not as hard as you might think. You can also sell vintage items here.

Share Your Skills

1. Welding – If you have a welder and any skill with it, you can do odd jobs for people. Rich likes to do this when things are slower.
2. Teach a Class – While living on a hobby farm, you develop a lot of skills that people want to know. They would often times be happy to pay for a lesson in these skills – chicken raising, bee keeping, canning your vegetables, quilting. All you need to do is pick something you are passionate about, then set up a class. I bet you’d be surprised how many people are interested.
3. Photography – Do you have an eye for photography? Living on a hobby farm can provide endless photo backdrops, props, and opportunities. You could photograph families, or create stock photos for sites such as istockphoto.com or shutterstock.com 

Use Your Buildings

1. Boarding Dogs – Do you love dogs?! You could provide a fun and loving space to board dogs for the night when their humans are out of town. 
   
2. Wedding Venue – Do you have a gorgeous barn? Rent it out! You can charge a few thousand dollars for someone to have their wedding at your farm. This one would entail quite a bit of set up, possibly creating a place for parking, making sure you have proper insurances and permits etc, but if you booked most weekends in the summer you could make a large portion of your yearly income off of wedding season.
3. Barn Wood or Old Tin – Maybe your once goregous barn has seen better days and is no longer usable as a venue. If you have an old barn or shed that you need taken down or re-sided, it can still be of value. Don’t throw out the old boards and tin! There’s a high demand for salvaged materials and people will pay a pretty penny for it! Once you tear it out, you can market it on social media or Craigslist.
4. Renting Farm Land – If you have extra acreage you could potentially lease them to a nearby farmer and collect a yearly rent check. I love this idea because it can make you a good amount of money without much effort on your part. This is one of those passive income avenues that Rich and I are looking to add to our homestead. If you have the land, just sit back and collect your check.

You Can Do It!

While turning your hobby farm into a sustainable income isn’t easy, it IS possible. The great news is that the skills you need do it, are already in your back pocket. Choose the avenues that you are most interested in for yourself, and adding a bit extra for profit doesn’t increase your workload by as much. Hobby farming and homesteading are truly labors of love, but if you continue to brainstorm and work to creatively share that love with your community, you might be able to achieve the ultimate dream of quitting your day job to homestead full time! You’ve got this! 

Let me know how YOU make money off of your land in the comment section below.

This article contains affiliate links. This means if you click through and make a purchase I may receive a commission, at no additional cost to you. For more information see my disclosures here.