My Central Ky Habitat Addiction

CentralKyHunter

5 year old buck +
Hello Fellas ( and random lost ladies)

I'm a QDMA habitat forum transplant . The guys there ( which many are here) have inspired me to make huge strides in managing my farm for great habitat to benefit multiple species.

Gonna try to pull my post over to this thread to keep my habitat journal in place.

I look forward to continued growth here !!



In 2011 my brother and I were lucky enough to by a 125 acre cattle farm to solely use for recreation & hunting. We do have 50 acres of it rented out for crops but the rest we mainly use to improve wild life. Although our resources with time & money are limited due to the fact we both have young children and are fairly young (30 & 31) we have managed to make a lot of positive improvments to this once fescue heavy cattle farm. I never relaized the amount of time and dedication it takes to manage habitat, after all the weeds never stop growing!!!!!

We have tried to promote a lot of native shrub & berry growth for the benefit of game animals and are putting our food plots around those areas with heavy shrub and berry growth

Had F&W Biologist out last year to help with native habitat promotion & have a state forester scheduled for next week to walk our woods and site for future tree planting. All with emphasis on wildlife habitat enhancement.

FARM LAYOUT:



 
ORCHARD & SMALL GAME BRUSH PILES FROM OLD CROP FIELD:

Planted a variety of apples, pears, and plums. lined orchard with brush pile where crop field was starting to wash and then planted about 60 native Mulberry around perimeter.







Starting to have alot of Quail & Rabbits using my brush piles
 
Summer food plots I have started this year to help with my fescue erradication.

Got about 5 more acres sprayed for winter plots also.

BEFORE:





AFTER:



 
Site of our future hunting cabin. We are in process of putting up a 35X60 Quonset hut. Front half will be finished out 30X35 open lounge & kitchen witha full loft for sleeping quarters. The back 35X30 will be the garage/shop section.





This is an old mobile home located beside our future cabin. We removed the mobile home, fixed the roof and are going to concrete it for a pavilion for cook outs and family functions.



 
A view of and from a few of the stands:






 






 
Area where we will have our first winter food plots. Probably peas, turnips, & rye.





 
Gator;709001 said:
Can you show any more details about the cabin? Very interested. TripleC has something similar as well.

As mentioned the "cabin" is a 35w X 60d x 18t "S" Type (straight sides) Quonset Hut. The list price was around $20,000 but I "pitted" three companies against each other to finally negotiate a delivered price of $9800 for the package. So there must be HUGE mark-ups on these things. I ended up getting it from U.S. Steel Building out of Boone, NC.

The plan is to finish front half out and put a loft in it as mentioned. Loft will probably be 15'-18' wide and 30' deep due to the lost space on each side of the arches

I am going to try and have the finished area spray foam insulated due to the amount of heat these things get with sunlight.

When its all said and done I will probably have $30,000 in the entire project including having to run my county water 3000+ feet and all other prep work.

I was originally going to build a simple designed 24X30 "cabin" with half loft but the floor plans are so tight I wasnt satisfied. The quonset huts are free standing so I will have a wide open floor plan with only the bathroom walled off. At the end of the day I will end up getting a free garage/shop in the back half and a better floor plan for the same price as the 24x30 "cabin"

The down fall is that I will have a LOT more labor involved in this thing , which will save me money over having to hire the other built. The Hut has about 100 peices & 7500+ bolts!!

It arrived on four pallets like this:


Assemble arch in halves:


Building Site:


 
More Building Site:





This is a wider view. The area to the right will be another "orchard" for our families. I already have 30 thornless blackberries, two grapes, 6 apples, and two pears planted here. Gonne try to get about 10 more apples, same tame plums, peaches and more grapes this fall.



This is simular to what it will look like completed.



I am going to do D-Log siding on the lower half of mine and metal on the top half. My windows will be larger covering about 10ft wide on each side of door. And door will be a wooden door with oval glass. We are going to try and start raising arches this weekend.
 
No progress on cabin yet, gonna have to hire Some of it out due to lack of help.... We did manage to go through our beehives today with my buddy who has provided them, got about 75 pounds of honey and honeycomb out of four hives....






I also have some young pear trees that have a few small pears on them was wondering if I should take them off and get rid of them
 
Here are a few pics i took today while trying to clean up a couple acres we had let grow up over the last few years and it had almost gotten to large for the bushhog.,,,





The green area cut out into the corn field is one of my orchard locations. It currently has about 30 trees consisting of apples, pears & plums... Surrounded by brush on left side for small game cover and also has a lot of Mulberry trees planted around the perimeter

 
We received a couple of new Queens this week so split a few of our other hives that were very productive, we are now up to six hives if both of these make it... We are wanting to go to 25 hives across the farm.





I also finally got a crew of guys to help get my building started up, we got about 20 feet of it done with another 40 to go.



 
Haven't got to work at the farm much lately but have done a little bit more work on the hunting cabin worked on a few food plots and potted some berry plants to place down there for personal use and wildlife. Also took our family pictures down there this year for the first time so thought I would share that as well.







Making progress buts its a little slow, lot more work than i gave it credit for....

 
Life has finally caught up with me this fall and going into winter and I have not had much time for habitat work. But have squeezed in a few hours to work on our farm cabin so thought I would share some updated pics.

Going to stucco the top half and there will be a chimney going up where the gap is located in the log siding




I guess my habitat work will start back up in about 60 days when I am scheduled to receive a very large order of trees and shrubs. I am very excited about it but equally dreading the amount of work involved!!!!
Also completed this a few weeks ago. Got a grant through the NRCS dept!!!
30x72 High Tunnel Greenhouse. Gonna do berries and a garden this year to learn the ins and out of managing one. Want to eventually transition into potted trees and shrubs for wildlife plantings.



 
Also finally got the chimney and garage door put on the cabin.





Next steps will be to have it spray foam insulated and have the stucco done on the upper half and hopefully have the chimney rocked!!

Few interior pics.



 
Well, I guess we are done hunting for the season. My brother and I did not manage to tag a deer but we did host a few youth hunts with sucess!! Cant wait til my boys get old enough!!!





 
Work has been slow in 2015. Have managed to get a few wàlls studded up in the cabin but that's about it. We have had about 30 inches of snow in the last 30 days. That is unheard of for us!!! I have received 700 seedlings over that time. But just hilled them all in my greenhouse until hopefully this weekend.

I do have some good news and some bad news to report on my habitat management. Good news, very good news, I got a call last week that I have been excepted to participate in planting about 10 acres of open ground into trees all with cost share! In addition our 30 acres of woods will all be enrolled in Timber stand improvement (TSI), and they are going to provide all of the chemicals for the eradication of invasive trees around our property, mainly Tree Of Heaven. I have worked hard over the last few years to get this done and am very excited about it!! Meeting with Forestry Dept Thursday to start putting plan into place.

Now I am trying to get our 50 acres of crop ground enrolled in buffer zones and CRP with native warm season grasses. Our farm is pretty hilly and would definitely benefit from this program..

Now the bad news. Shot a good buck the last weekend of gun season. The buck fell hard but I never could recover it. This was my first experience having to track a deer and had no luck doing so, even had a friend from another area bring in a blood tracking dog with no success. Receive some info this week that our neighbor found the skull of the deer on his property about 400 yards from where I shot it. He let me come and look at it and it was a buck that we had quite a few pictures and sheds of over the last few years. Offered to buy it from him because I would love to have had it in our cabin with his sheds but he would not part with it. The loss of this deer was my fault due to the fact that I did not prepare for a follow-up shot as I should have, I just assumed the deer was dead when he hit the ground. I have killed quite a few deer and have been lucky enough to put good shots on all of them up until him.



18 inch inside spread & 20 outside!! Would have definitely been my largest 8 pt buck.
 
Last year as part of my fescue eradication efforts i broadcast milo into alot of areas and cultipacked the dead fescue over it. Main reason was for quail and rabbit habitat but was also told deer liked to bed in it and feed on it late winter while snow is on.

Well we got about 25+ inches of snow last month so was anxious to see if the deer used it.

You all be the judge!!





I plan on using it again this year, largely bc its free but may incorporate buck wheat into it.
 
Let the fun begin. Part of me is glad that I am taking on this project but larger part of me is dreading it!!!

1500 plants to pot and it is definitely going to take longer than I expected!!!



We do have a dry place to work today though, that is a good thing!!



Will Post quite a few more pictures this evening of the bare rooted plants before and after potting.

I am definitely blessed beyond what I deserve. The good news for us is that the next farm we want to purchase borders ours with 200 acres and 60 in CRP. Our plan is to try and pay our farm off in the next 5 to 7 years and possibly make a move toward the neighbors property if interest rates allow for it. My brother and I are definitely hard workers and taught that way by our mother. We are also blessed with wives who are very dedicated professionally and are equally hard workers ( just not on the farm)!!

My biggest downfall is my lack of focus and often times getting in way over my head as I am currently with this seedling project!!!'

With that being said, I do have 750 potted.



But have 700 to go!!!

 
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