My 15 year old Son has been telling me he wants to get a part time/Summer job working on a farm somewhere. I told him that Farming aint easy and it will involve a lot of manual labor, but he will get to learn to operate some heavy equipment also. Hes really wanting to earn his own money and Im proud that he has made a choice to take a road that's not easy.
Hes a BIG Ol Boy, at 6'4 310lbs and plays football and aint afraid to work or get dirty. He said he would rather be in the agricultural farming side of it but wasn't against animal farming either.
I know that at his age its going to be tough to find him a job on a real commercialized farm, but was hoping there was a smaller family farm were he can get some experience.
Also theres not to many large operations in our home town.
anybody got some advice?

send him to 257 for the summer.

Tell him to find something else to do for a living.

Mama's .... dont let'cha babies grow up to be FARMERS ...

Sounds like his best path might be offensive lineman. Farm for a hobby, make your money some other way.

Let him go stay with bamaplowboy for a week or so.

I also feel he needs to experience what real work is. I don't care if he just learns how to fix fences, dig holes or run a combine or a bush hog. He tried to get a job at the local Co op but they told him he had to be 19

No Way!! I cant afford to buy all the Tito's!

I know theres atleast one peach orchard in hartselle. They should have a good crop this year. Its about time for the real work to get started. They might be looking for some labor right now.

I started working on farms at age 10 grew up on small cattle farm, started working round logging and tire shops at age 15 tough times lot people dont want help but good luck with search.

As someone who has lived in the country for the last 30 years let me say this. I'll take one country boy over a whole neighborhood full of useless, can't even change a tire city boys. Just about every one of the red neck country raised boys I've seen grow up, have turned out pretty well. Most have grown up driving tractors, slinging hay, tending critters, etc. They've learned all kinds of skills and learned how to work hard and see results from it. If nothing else, they'll learn to get a good education or learn a technical trade if they don't want to be a grunt for the rest of their lives

My brother has farmed for a living his whole life and has done really well. The key is he married a girl whose dad had 4,000 acres of Mississippi river delta farm land and she was an only child. He's up there in years now and his only son has taken over the operation. You can't go out and buy farm land and make it.

A summer job is one thing. I would never in my life advise anyone to go into any business which is tied to a commodity. It is always feast or famine. You are not in control. Been there, done that and have gone broke twice in 2 different industries tied to commodities in my life.

They wont hire him until he is 16yo. he wont be 16 until Feb.

A lot of my family used to farm parts of the stretch between Leighton and Tuscumbia. One of them loved to tell the old joke: "There's one sure way to make a small fortune farming. Start with a large fortune."

Call your county extension office and they may know of someone to put him to work.

The land is one cost but you could rent land. The cost of equipment for row cropping is unbelievably high.

Talking with a coworker yesterday and we both said the exact same thing.

Every teenager in school should be made to work one summer on a farm. The wealth of knowledge they would receive is more than I can teach them in a whole year. Real life knowledge and book knowledge are two completely different things. Most kids now don't even have a family garden they tend to. Can't feed themselves --I'll stop here.

B

Does your high school have an ag teacher? He/she may know of someone. Or maybe a large animal vet in your area. Check at the local feed store as they may know someone looking for a kid to buck hay this summer.

As a teenage boy, I worked for the Underwoods on a lot of this ground. I sprayed enough Roundup to poison the world working for Jerry Don. I chopped many a row of cotton on that stretch also. I didn't mind chopping cotton because I hunted arrowheads as we walked the rows. Found a lot of good stuff along the Brush Pond tracts.

B