Category: Livestock, Feed, & Fencing

How to Process Chickens and Rabbits – Part 1, by Elli O.

This article won’t change your life. It won’t win any prizes. But it will give you the ability to take a small, live animal and humanely dispatch it then process it for personal consumption. So rather than read this less-than-riveting article, I would suggest you print it and file it away for when the time comes to use it. A little background on my experience with both chickens and rabbits: I started raising layer chickens about 10 years ago and really enjoy the fresh eggs as well as the convenience of retrieving food for our family. After having layers for …


My Experiment in Small-Scale Pig Farming, by SaraSue

It was a fluke, sort of, that I got a breeding group of pigs.  I had obtained two “feeder pigs” to see if I could raise them for the freezer.  I spoiled them, named them, and they had the run of the farm because they could get under the gates quite easily.  I didn’t really mind.  They were cute and would follow me everywhere.  The closer we got to their butcher date, the more they earned their new names: “the terrorists”.  I started calling them that because their love of food outweighed everything else.  They would get in the chicken …


Milk Cows on the Homestead – Part 3, by SaraSue

(Continued from Part 2. This concludes the article.) More milk cows Cows are no trouble at all if they have what they need: plenty of grass to graze, hay during the winter, a little grain at milking time, minerals, plenty of fresh water, good fences, shelter, and no predators. I should tell you that I obtained more milk cows and there’s a reason for that.  Once I weaned the calf, my Jersey’s milk production started to drop until she was giving half a gallon of milk a day.  This happened over a few month’s time.  She was about 8  months …


Milk Cows on the Homestead – Part 1, by SaraSue

Trends in Homesteading It’s become very popular to have a homestead milk cow.  I can see why!  No running to the store for milk.  When my children were little, milk was the item we were always running out of.  I love being able to open the “milk fridge” and see gallons of milk sitting there.  I love being able to make cream cheese, or ice cream, or whipped cream, or yogurt without having to run to the store.  Chocolate milk is a treat and is easily made when there’s plenty of milk.  In years past, I would have never drank …


The Importance of Good Record Keeping, by Hollyberry

It is very important to keep accurate records of purchases, insurance polices, banking information, and other useful data. Organizing and maintaining files are not something most people (including myself) like to do but it makes life easier in the end. A little extra time on the front end saves a lot of time on the back end. It’s much easier to be organized than to spend half a day trying to locate one document that you desperately need. If you are lucky enough to find old family journals or family Bibles, read them! They are a wealth of information. The …


Post-TEOTWAWKI Community and Employment – Part 1, by 3AD Scout

Humans are no strangers to catastrophe. Through the centuries, civilizations across the earth have succumbed to volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, floods, plagues, and crop failures. Regardless of where this took place, or the people it affected, there was a rebuilding of society and life went on. For many of us, we focus on surviving the immediate effects of disaster or catastrophe, but few focus on what comes next, the recovery or rebuilding phase. Just like being prepared to survive the immediate impacts of an incident starts in the years long before the disaster ever strikes, so does preparing for rebuilding our …


Downsizing: Back to Farm Basics, by SaraSue

Things can change overnight, and recently, they have.  In my opinion, we have entered WWIII.  We don’t know yet how bad it’s going to be. But what we do know is that things are heading south, fast. There is no way to rationalize that we Americans are “going to be okay” with what is happening on the world stage. Not to mention, how quickly goods and services have degraded here at home.  You’d have to have your head stuck so deeply in a sand dune that you can’t get it out.  It is better to stand up and face reality …


Countering Rampant Food Price Inflation, by SaraSue

When one of my daughters, who has a good job, starts complaining about how insane food and supply prices are, I pay attention.  She has started shopping at Walmart searching for the lowest possible prices.  Her recent cart rung up at $450 and she didn’t buy hardly any food – mostly toilet paper, paper towels, dog and cat food, a few household items, and enough food for a few good meals for her family.  She exclaimed, “This won’t even last us a week!”  I keep telling her to shop Costco for certain items – you get way more product for …


Could You Live Off Your Land, Right Now?, by SaraSue

As world events, both nationally and internationally, explode in violence, deep debt, instability, and uncertainty, I ask myself have I done enough?  Am I far enough away from the violence?  Do I have systems in place that will hold me and my family in good stead for years to come?  It’s complicated, and a heavy burden, to detach from the culture, from the world systems, and to create a self-sufficient lifestyle.  It is also freeing.  There’s so much detail to each aspect that it’s no wonder people throw up their hands and say it’s impossible.  I think it’s possible to …


Cows and Chickens and Goats, Oh My!, by Elli O.

In this article, I compare different livestock – Start-up costs, Continuation costs, Profits, and Contradictions. I was not raised on a farm but when we purchased 20 acres I knew that we needed to put the land to good use. Thankfully, I have a husband who is almost as adventurous as I am so we jumped into the farm and homesteading life with both feet. God was gracious and we landed well- not very gracefully but we are surviving and even thriving in most areas! This article will compare the different animals that we have tried to raise on our …


An Honest Look at My Farm – Year 2, by SaraSue

We are coming up on the second-year mark of developing this small five-acre farm.  I share my experiences in hopes it will help others.  I’ve had some great successes and some disappointing failures.  I am in the process of reviewing my own work to see where I can change processes for more success in year three.  I’ve learned so much I can’t even write it all down.  I’ve worked too hard, of course.  I’ve spent too much money, guaranteed.  I’ve often had to do things over, trying to save money, only to spend two to three times what I could …


Our Experience in Raising Meat Rabbits, by K.B.

For the past 8 years, we have been raising rabbits as a source of meat and have had an “interesting” learning curve that we would like to share with you so that you might have an easier time of it and learn from some of our mistakes. Why raise meat rabbits? They are quiet, can be raised in compact surroundings, and provide a secret source of untainted protein as inflation worsens. People in the city of Paris even raised them during WWII. Do you have a garage? If so, then you can raise rabbits. Do you have a small hobby …


Long-Term Survival Poultry, by J.S.

A few years ago, we moved out of the suburbs and onto a farm/homestead with plans to start raising every farm animal imaginable. Lots of friends and family thought we were crazy, but we had spent years researching animal husbandry and couldn’t wait to put our book knowledge to work. We moved in around Christmas and by mid-January we had baby chicks in the brooder and some donated hatching eggs in an incubator. While our farm is not our main source of income, we do run it like a business and each spring we raise a few hundred pullets (young …


It Is Chick Season!, by Hollyberry

I open the mailbox and oh… there it is! Nothing perks me up from the winter blues more than getting the McMurray Hatchery chick catalog or a garden/seed catalog. I spend hours pouring through the pages of the catalogs and planning and plotting where I can add more chickens or growing space! I really don’t need any more birds in my flock but that will not deter me from adding at least 4-5 more this season out of our incubator. The first time I purchased chicks I ordered 50 meat birds and 50 Leghorn layers figuring I would kill at …


Butchering Chickens: Slow and Effortful, by Mrs. Alaska

For a decade, we have raised laying hens and enjoyed them immensely, for their eggs, foraging for bugs, and alerting us to predators, as well as for their entertaining antics. We have kept 4-10 at a time, and named them. I have never been able to kill any hens (cockerels yes) or eat those that died. However, I do like to eat chicken, so I thought it time to explore raising and butchering meat chickens. A friend had the same idea. So she bought 25 Cornish cross chicks, which are the ones most commonly raised for meat in the U.S. …