You've bought the acres. Before the animals arrive.

Find out how much land you actually have

The contract said "about five acres"; the title says exactly. The paddock-area tool linked below pulls the surveyed boundary and tells you roughly what that much grass will carry. Most people find they have less usable grazing than they thought once the house, the sheds, the dam and the bush are taken out.

Start with fewer than you want

Two horses, not four. Three sheep, not ten. Six chooks, not twenty. Every animal you add before you've kept the first ones through a summer and a winter is an animal you're learning on. You can always add more in year two.

Do the water sum for the animals you're thinking of

Horses and cattle drink 25 to 70 litres a day each, more in heat; sheep and goats less, chooks far less, but all of them need it every day of the year. Where does it come from, how does it get to the paddock, and what happens in a dry March when the tank's low? Answer that before you buy the animals, not after.

Walk the whole place for the plants that poison

Every district has a handful of plants that hurt horses, cattle, goats or sheep, and many are garden escapes along the fence lines. Photograph anything you don't know, and check it against the state list linked below, for the animals you're planning on.

Fence for the animal you're getting, not the one that was there

Horse fencing, goat fencing and sheep fencing are different things. Goats need mesh they can't climb; horses need nothing sharp and nothing they can put a foot through; sheep need it dog-proof more than sheep-proof. Fix the fence for your animal before it arrives, because it will test the fence on day one.

Shelter from the weather that matters here

Shade at the hot end of the day in summer; a wall between them and the wind and rain in winter. Stand where the animals will stand, at three in the afternoon, and check.

A quarantine paddock, even a small one

New animals arrive with whatever the last place had. A separate paddock or a fenced corner for the first couple of weeks, so a worm burden or a cough doesn't go straight through the animals you already have — or the paddock you're about to depend on.

In Australia: the Property Identification Code

Before cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, alpacas or a few other animals move onto your place, you need a PIC from your state department of agriculture. It's a short form, it's free or close to it, and the seller will ask for it. Horses and chooks have their own, lighter rules by state; ask.

Ring a vet before you need one

Ask which local vets see the animal you're getting — not every practice does horses, goats or alpacas — and ring one to say hello. Ask what they'd want you to know for this district: the vaccinations, the local pests, the plants.

Somewhere for the feed that isn't the paddock

A sealed bin behind a door the animals can't open, off the ground, away from rats. A feed bin an animal can reach is the single most common way a new owner ends up at the vet in the first month.

Arrive in the morning, on a mild day

Not in a heatwave, not at dusk, not the day before you go away for the weekend. Morning of a mild day, so they have daylight to find the water and the shelter and you have daylight to watch them do it.

Watch them find the water

The one thing to see with your own eyes on the first day. An animal that hasn't found the trough by evening gets shown it.

Get the record from the seller

When they were last wormed and with what, what vaccinations they've had, when the feet were last done, what they've been eating. Write it down before the seller drives off; it's the start of the record your vet will ask for.

Change the feed slowly

Whatever they were eating, keep feeding it for a week or two and change it gradually. A sudden change in feed is a sudden change in the gut, and that's colic in a horse and bloat in a ruminant.