Category: Livestock, Feed, & Fencing

After reading the article about protecting your chickens, I would like to comment on my solution.  After experiencing my early failed attempt at chicken raising because the possums would chase the night dumb chickens back and forth against the chicken wire enclosure and extrude them through the chicken wire eating as they pulled, I built chicken coop number two.    First I built it off the ground with a slightly sloping plywood floor covered by galvanized sheet metal ship lapped to protect the floor. When pressure washing, the water flows to the outside.  At the low end I raised the wood stud base plate …

My foray into the world of self-sufficiency began with two animals and a dream: two Nubian dairy goats, to be exact, and a whole load of criticism and laughter from those who thought I was crazy! “What do you know about raising goats?” , and “Why bother, isn’t it easier to just go buy milk at the store” Smirk, smirk. Little did they realize, this made me ever more determined to have the last laugh. My husband was grudgingly tolerant, and my children were excited and blindly trusting their mother to know exactly what she was doing. After all my …

A friend of mine was thinking of getting into the meat goat business.  Since I have been raising goats for several years now, she asked me a few questions to which I responded with the following.  I thought that preppers considering adding a goat or two to their menageries might be interested in these thoughts as well.  In the past five years I have learned a lot and it has taken five years to become really competent. First off, it is important to get your goats from a reputable source.  I got mine at auction, which meant that I was …

When I began to plan my families survival food stores, it quickly became apparent that if/when we lose our suburban grocery store lifestyle, my stores are only going to last a limited time.  I also realized that there is a point at which more food is pointless without more trucks to move it and more people to drive them and more mouths to feed requiring more food.  I live in Phoenix, in the suburbs, in the middle of one of the harshest deserts in the world, where any TEOTWAWKI scenario will be a G.O.O.D. situation.  Relocation now is a desirable …

James: This is my first time writing to SurvivalBlog. We have been raising goats and sheep for five years. Country Lady’s comments in Dairy Goats 201 – Birthing Kids are pretty much on the money. We have had to pull stuck twins, bottle feed when one of our ewes’ had 1/2 of her bag go dry(she had twins) and have lost sheep to pneumonia and a goat to bloating. We raise our sheep and goats for meat on the table. My wife read every book about sheep and goats that she could. It was a good information source, But in …

A few months ago, SurvivalBlog posted my article entitled “Dairy Goats 101” which described some basics of goat ownership.  This follow-up article will take you through the five kiddings that we recently experienced.  Let me start by emphasizing what many others have stated on Survival Blog:  Book learning is not enough – you must  practice survival and self-sufficiency skills.   Don’t just read about having livestock, get out there and buy some animals and gain experience immediately before you need to rely on these animals for food. To get into milk production the does must give birth.  We waited until February …

Dear Mr. Rawles: A few months ago I sent in an article titled, ‘Midget White Turkey, the Perfect Homestead Bird’.  The article described everything as it was…then.  But we’ve had a few hitches and I thought if people are preparing for serious times, they might want to know some of the problems we’ve also faced (and are facing) raising turkeys, especially since Survivalblog keeps a ‘library’ of all the articles that come in and someone might be using our article as a guide. After the first successful hatch, we were unable to raise a second one.  Multiple candlings showed most …

The following are some of my suggestions on backyard poultry flocks, based on my experience: Before you take possession of your birds consider where you will keep your flock. A backyard can work just fine, if your local zoning abides it. If you are going to let your birds roam outside their coop then you will need to fence your yard in to keep the birds in and four legged predators out. Fencing can be as simple and as aesthetically pleasing as you want. If you have an existing solid fence you are in luck. If you do not have …