Getting a Farm Going

[Enfield]

Originally Posted by Milano

@ Enfield

After a cursory look throughout the web and browsing through Vesper's PDF, I really cannot give you much help. I get around 17 inches of rain between November and April, on an average year. With that I run a cow on about 25 acres. That is without feeding, which is required if the rain is late the following November. I wish I could give you more but that's about all I've got for you. If the PCs do want to go after a cattle ranch, remember that the fences, corrals, water, etc is a large undertaking. A few cows and a bull is more reasonable.

Sorry, is that 25 or 2.5? And is that about 2.5 (or 25) per cow? If there is a lack of rain (I Understand that the Okanagan Valley is pretty dry) will there not be enough grass regrowth?

[Milano]

That is 25 acres per cow and calf. You seem interested so I'll go into some details.

Our average rainfall is 17". So, last year we had 13" of rain and I had 120 Cows/pairs... this year I've gotten 8". I own and lease around 3,200 acres. Last year I had the stocking rate of 27 ac/cow.. in a week or two I'll be hope to be able to keep 80 Cows, thus 40 ac/cow. But the numbers do not reflect the timing and number of storms to get the rain fall.

Without going crazy on details for a game, that's the jist of it. Remember that acreage is on a two-dimensional plane. I live in mountains, so acreage is relative. There is also the measure of AUMs. Or Animal Unit Months. It's way more precise, but it's limiting in that the samples must be taken regularly to come up with an average.

There is science to agriculture but there is more intuition and wisdom that goes into it. (Remember that Wisdom is what we call our mistakes.)

[Enfield]

Originally Posted by Milano

That is 25 acres per cow and calf. You seem interested so I'll go into some details.

Our average rainfall is 17". So, last year we had 13" of rain and I had 120 Cows/pairs... this year I've gotten 8". I own and lease around 3,200 acres. Last year I had the stocking rate of 27 ac/cow.. in a week or two I'll be hope to be able to keep 80 Cows, thus 40 ac/cow. But the numbers do not reflect the timing and number of storms to get the rain fall.

Without going crazy on details for a game, that's the jist of it. Remember that acreage is on a two-dimensional plane. I live in mountains, so acreage is relative. There is also the measure of AUMs. Or Animal Unit Months. It's way more precise, but it's limiting in that the samples must be taken regularly to come up with an average.

There is science to agriculture but there is more intuition and wisdom that goes into it. (Remember that Wisdom is what we call our mistakes.)

Given that this is Twilight 2000 though, I imagine that not only would you have the usual problems of watching out for predators, accidents, bad weather, etc, but also the problem of a lack of law enforcement and maintenance of infrastructure and information systems. How many people do you think you would need to keep that amount of range safe? How many daily hours of work is that?

[swaghauler]

Originally Posted by Enfield

Given that this is Twilight 2000 though, I imagine that not only would you have the usual problems of watching out for predators, accidents, bad weather, etc, but also the problem of a lack of law enforcement and maintenance of infrastructure and information systems. How many people do you think you would need to keep that amount of range safe? How many daily hours of work is that?

3200 acres is only 5 miles of terrain. You can ride that [on horseback] in a couple of hours.

[Enfield]

Originally Posted by swaghauler

3200 acres is only 5 miles of terrain. You can ride that [on horseback] in a couple of hours.

Do you recommend having cattle dogs?

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by Enfield

Do you recommend having cattle dogs?

Cattle and sheep dogs can be invaluable, PROVIDED they're properly trained and the handler knows what they're doing.

[swaghauler]

Originally Posted by Enfield

Do you recommend having cattle dogs?

Yes. Dogs are useful for a variety of things like TRACKING, SENTRY DUTY, ATTACK, BOMB DETECTION, RESCUE WORK, and even as a food source. Dogs can be used to pull a plow. Native Americans used them to pull/drag litters for the sick, wounded, or cargo and Eskimos used them for transportation and hunting bears. This is why you always see dogs on Special Forces missions today.

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by swaghauler

3200 acres is only 5 miles of terrain. You can ride that [on horseback] in a couple of hours.

You can, but you can't be everywhere at once either. Somebody up to no good only has to wait in concealment until you pass by on your daily patrol before coming out and doing whatever they're intending to do.

Then there's this small detail in the game rules (2.2, I imagine the other versions are the same):

Feeding: All draft animals need to graze for two four-hour periods per day. Horses and mules also require grain if they do any work that day (including being ridden). The amount of grain required is given on the Food Consumption Table on page 273. If they do no work, they need not be fed grain, but must spend all day grazing to make up for it.

Realistic or not, that will seriously restrict mobility unless you've got remounts available or vast amounts of grain to feed your horse.
Note this rule includes animals used for plowing, hauling carts and wagons, harvesting, etc

[Enfield]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

You can, but you can't be everywhere at once either. Somebody up to no good only has to wait in concealment until you pass by on your daily patrol before coming out and doing whatever they're intending to do.

Then there's this small detail in the game rules (2.2, I imagine the other versions are the same):

Realistic or not, that will seriously restrict mobility unless you've got remounts available or vast amounts of grain to feed your horse.
Note this rule includes animals used for plowing, hauling carts and wagons, harvesting, etc

Like I was saying, range riding as currently done seems to me (though I am no ranch hand) to be more appropriate to say organized territories. I think that in most other cases except maybe cantonments that you probably at the very least need a watchtower or two in addition to regular patrols.

[swaghauler]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

You can, but you can't be everywhere at once either. Somebody up to no good only has to wait in concealment until you pass by on your daily patrol before coming out and doing whatever they're intending to do.

Then there's this small detail in the game rules (2.2, I imagine the other versions are the same):

Realistic or not, that will seriously restrict mobility unless you've got remounts available or vast amounts of grain to feed your horse.
Note this rule includes animals used for plowing, hauling carts and wagons, harvesting, etc

You are misperceiving LINEAR DISTANCE with SQUARE AREA. Milano's ranch might encompass 8km but it is most likely 8 SQUARE KM. This means that the farthest distance from his ranch house to the fence might be 2 or 3 km at most. In open terrain, you can often see this far with just a pair of binoculars. This is why I told everyone in my post above to imagine an Acre as a football field. This gives one a good idea of the size of a given patch of terrain.

The food chart in Twilight2000 is WAY OFF. The amount of grain it recommends for a horse would be for a Percheron or Belgium DRAFT HORSE doing heavy manual labor. A Quarter Horse being ridden two periods a day might require 4kg of grain (if ridden HARD) and 4kg of hay. It may need less IF it were allowed to graze before and after riding.

For those wanting a more accurate chart than Twilight2000's, just GOOGLE "Horse feeding requirements" and a number of charts that cross-reference a horse's weight and activity level will give you accurate, real-world amounts of grain and hay based on activity v. size.

[swaghauler]

I will begin posting my homebrew rules this week. Done with all the Court stuff, now I just have to get Dad's stuff sold or distributed [to various family members].

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by swaghauler

You are misperceiving LINEAR DISTANCE with SQUARE AREA.

No, I'm not actually.
Yes it might be possible to see that far, but that assumes relatively flat and open terrain. I grew up on 200 acres - a fairly small block really, but there was no way you could see from one end to the other because of the ridgelines, forested areas, etc. It was often impossible to even hear gunfire from some points.
Additionally, the idea is to meet any threats well away from your boundaries if at all possible. You'd want to extend your patrols several miles in all directions.
If you're dealing with bandits within your boundary, you've got major problems.

Now, if your land is on nice flat ground with clear sight lines for miles, then a simple watchtower might well suffice. Problem with that is sight lines are two directional.

In the initial stages while the characters are learning the how of farming, as I mentioned earlier, it's far better they focus on small area subsistence farming with an emphasis on concealment and protection. As their skills and resources improve (scavenged machinery, seed stock, additional personnel, etc) they can expand their cultivated area, always however with security as a background thought - even several years post nuke there's still a lot of starving people willing and able to do nasty things to get a meal.