Farming full-time for income
Updated Dec 17, 2025
Seeking
- 51-100 Total acres
- 51-100 Acres of pasture
Desired locations
Women owned family farm seeking pasture/acreage near Hillsborough for regenerative farming. Lease, lease-to-own,
Plan
We are a beginning, woman-owned farm launching Thistle & Thorn Farm in 2026. Our focus is regenerative, rotational grazing of Belted Galloway cattle, Mangalitsa/Berkshire hogs, Bourbon Red & KellyBronze turkeys, and pastured poultry (and possibly Akaushi cattle). All animals are raised on diverse pasture with silvopasture, no routine antibiotics, non-GMO feed, and daily moves for soil health and animal welfare.
We seek 20–60 acres of open pasture, woodland, and farmer housing near Orange/Chatham/Durham/Wake Counties. Existing fencing and water are ideal but not required. We will install electric netting and water systems. Long-term land security is our goal.
Desired infrastructure
Equipment and infrastructure details
First and foremost - farmer housing will be the main thing we're looking for as we are want to live, with our children, on the farm. Outside of that everything else is net positive, nice to have.
Preferred type of opportunity
Opportunity details
We are open to a multitude of different opportunities. We are looking to start with a lease and eventually (upon scaling) would like to own.
Desired farming practices
Practices details
We want to put back into the land what too many decades of commercial monolithic farming has taken away. We also want to help the common person better understand and more-so appreciate where real food comes from.
Production goals
Farm experience
Years of experience
3 total years of experience
3 years employed as a worker (non-manager)
3 years as a manager
Education, training, and employment experience
Experience details
We operated a 20-acre regenerative homestead in Damascus, Maryland, from 2017–2024, running a 80-member CSA and co-op drop sites in the DC metro area.
Our primary enterprise was pastured poultry (broilers and layers) using daily-move Salatin-style pens, producing 2500 birds annually alongside eggs. We also developed a line of farm-made CPG products (fermented hot sauces, seasonal jams, and pickled vegetables) sold at farmers markets and through the CSA.
All production followed regenerative principles: rotational grazing, no routine antibiotics, non-GMO feed, compost systems, and cover-crop integration. Skills we’re now scaling at Thistle & Thorn Farm.