Elkton Farms

05/26/2026

I need milk cow ADVICE!!

Eloise is a first time heifer and we have been waiting for her calf to show up for WEEKS!

Based on how she looks today, what are we thinking? (Please tell me it’s soon.)

Also - if you have any tips for managing our first family milk cow, I’d love to hear them! What do you wish you would’ve known before getting started?

05/19/2026

Want clean meat for your family? Here are the details:

✨Our pork is pasture raised and chemical free. ✨

You can order either a whole or half hog which will be processed according to your CUSTOM requests.

Cost: $5/lb hanging weight + butcher fees

We are located north of Cincinnati and we offer a DELIVERY DAY for those in Columbus.

‼️We only have TWO HOGS left for preorder. First come, first served.

Comment PORK and we’ll send you the info!

05/17/2026

Most Saturdays look like this:

- Moving hair sheep for rotational grazing
- Logging fence posts with our draft horses
- Using the horse plow to prep fields for seed
- Pulling weeds from the family homestead garden

Honestly, wouldn’t have it any other way.

Follow for more stories for our horse powered homestead!

12/06/2025

One of the biggest blessings of homesteading life, is the ability to do and share so much with our kids.

This little cowboy loves helping his Daddy with our draft horses. He’s never far behind when there’s farm work to be done.

Other homesteading jobs our kids like to help with:

- Horse care
- Feeding and watering animals
- Rotating the sheep
- Collecting chicken eggs
- Baking bread
- Making sausage

Sure, there are some jobs on the homestead that just aren’t kid friendly. But for the most part, we’ve been able to adapt tasks and establish safety boundaries and expectations that allow our children to participate in as much of the homestead life as they want to.

12/04/2025

Not bad for our first time HORSE PLOWING

It may not be the prettiest plow job in the world - but this draft horse and I got the job done.

We are attempting to use draft horses to plant spelt to feed the horses and cows this spring.

If this works, we’ll try sweet corn, sunflowers, radishes, and pumpkins next. Each of these crops contain different vital nutrients that the animals on our homestead need to grow and thrive.

(Part of our goal to raise our animals on truly organic, grown at home feed.)

🔔 FOLLOW to learn more about life on a horse powered homestead!

11/08/2025

Is it possible to PLANT and GROW all of the feed we need to sustain our livestock throughout the year?! We are going to find out!

On our homestead, we currently have:
- 3 draft horses
- Pastured pigs
- Pastured chickens (egg laying and meat birds)
- A family milk cow and calf
- 20 sheep & goats

All of these animals required feed -- which as any homesteader or small farmer knows, can be quite expensive. That's why we've decided to put our horses to work on a new experiment: planting and growing feed for the whole farm!

We've never done this before, but if it works, it'll be game-changing for our homestead budget. In this video, we are sharing more about WHY we've decided to grow our own feed, plus the particular crops we've chosen and where we've gotten the horse-drawn farm implements we need for planting.

Is it possible to PLANT and GROW all of the feed we need to sustain our livestock throughout the year?! We are going to find out! On our homestead, we curren...

11/04/2025

Throwback to last winter when our Belgian draft horse pulled TWO round bales of hay at the same time. 😳🤯

The raw and real of homesteading is this:

Your livestock still needs to eat through the cold winter months. Even when its cold and you’d rather be inside. 🥶

For us, this means having a steady supply of high quality hay to feed our horses, sheep, goats and family milk cow.

Since it’s way more cost effective to buy large round bales of hay (versus the smaller square bales) we rely on horse power to get these bales moved around the homestead. We couldn’t feed our other animals without the help of horses!

10/31/2025

3 Lessons we’ve learned using draft horses to power our homestead:

1. There’s no shortcuts. Take your time and do things the right way, or you’ll pay for it later.

2. The most challenging part of owning horses is paying to feed them. Looking for ways to optimize your feed bills (like plowing and planting grains or spelt) can go a long way to improving the homestead budget.

3. Working horses is a great way to involve the whole family in the homestead life. Even the smallest members of our family enjoy feeding, brushing, and caring for our horses. (Always with adult supervision.)

Considering adding work horses to your homestead? What questions do you have?

10/23/2025

Have you ever wondered how much time it takes to get a draft horse hitched and ready for work?! Surely it would take WAY longer than starting up a tractor...right?

On our horse powered homestead, we rely on horses to help with just about everything. From watering and feeding our other animals to logging firewood to heat our wood burning stove, hitching up horses is a daily activity for us. Find out EXACTLY how much time we spend getting our horses hitched and ready for farm chores in this video!

(Hint: it's less time than you'd think.)

Is draft horse farming actually efficient? How much time does it really take to hitch and harness a homestead draft horse? In this video, I will show you EXA...

10/22/2025

Ever seen a field plowed like THIS?!

Josh and Percheron cross, Belle, are getting the job done! We are currently cultivating our fields in preparation for a spring planting of sweet corn and possibly tomatoes.

This is our first attempt at produce farming with horses! It’s definitely a learning curve but we are figuring it out.

Think we can pull off planting and harvesting corn using ONLY draft horse power?

Hit FOLLOW to find out!