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animals – Page 2 – Homesteader Depot

Homesteader Depot

Tag: animals

  • 3 Ways to Get Rid of Moles Without Killing Them  

    3 Ways to Get Rid of Moles Without Killing Them  

     

    Moles can be a destructive force in your garden.  They burrow through the root zone of plants, and eat earthworms you depend on for healthy soil.  But they are cute little things too, so if you can keep them out of your garden without having to kill them, it’s worth a shot.  Here are 3 ways to get rid of moles that don’t involve killing them.

     

    Vibrations

    Moles are incredibly sensitive to the vibrations made by insects and worms in the ground.  This is how they find their food.  This sensitivity can be used against them.  There are a variety of manufactured devices on the market that send vibrations into the ground that irritate the mole and make it difficult for them to sense the vibrations that are looking for.  Some are battery operated, solar, or wind operated, but they all function about the same way.

    DIY Repellent

    Chemical irritants can also be used to drive away moles.  A DIY repellent can be made from mixing 1 tablespoon dish soap, 4 tablespoons castor oil, and 4 tablespoons of cayenne pepper and spraying them on the mole hills you have found after filling them, and on any area you see trails.  This treatment can negatively affect plants, so be careful not to get it on the leaves of any plant you are concerned about, including grass in a growing stage.

    Plant Repellent

    Planting crops like onions and garlic, or plants like chocolate lilies can also be used as a constant repellent, and one that offers the benefits of food production of ornamental flowers instead of dead grass and vibration devices sticking out of the ground.

     

    Not all moles are as easily deterred as others.  You may have to use more than one of these methods, or even take more drastic measures, but if you do, at least you will know that you tried to things the nice way first.

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  • Tips for Raising Goats

    Tips for Raising Goats

    Homesteaders should certainly consider raising goats. They can be used for meat, milk, and more. However, it is important that you have a good understanding of how to raise the goats properly and safely, and to provide them with a healthy environment. The following are some tips that can help you get started.

    More than One

    Even if you have a relatively small space, you should still have room for more than just one goat. Goats are herd animals, and they like to be social. Having several, at least, is a good option. It keeps them happy and it keeps them safe.

    Think About Their Needs

    Learn about goats to have a better idea of what they need. They will want to have easy access to water, and they need to have plenty of food for the entire herd. In addition, they need to have shelter. You don’t want to keep them out in a field all the time. They will need to have a barn or a shed that’s large enough for the entire herd.

    Beware of Males in Rut

    While goats tend to be stubborn, they are generally an easygoing lot. However, that can change when the males are in rut. At this point, the only thing they want to do is to get closer to the female goats. In some cases, they can become dangerous, so you will want to be cautious around them.

    Your Fence Needs to Be Strong

    Goats like to wander, and sometimes, they do not realize just how far away they might roam. If you want to keep your goats safe and sound, you need to have good and strong fences, and you need to check them regularly so you can make repairs. If you don’t, the stubborn goats might just break it down so they can see what’s over there!

    Feed Them Well

    Even though goats have a reputation of being able to eat anything, that’s not true. They still need to have a good overall diet if you expect them to be happy, healthy, and productive. It’s not a cartoon, so you can’t feed them tin cans and garbage! They need a healthy diet. Keep in mind that they tend to like to roam and graze.

    Don’t Treat Them as Pets

    This can be difficult for many people who are just getting into homesteading. They want to have happy and healthy animals, and they end up spending a lot of time with them and get attached. You need to remember that these are your livestock, they are not your pets.

     

     

    It is important to remember that these are just some tips to help you get started with your goats. You will want to learn as much as possible about the proper ways to raise your herd so you can be successful. Also, make sure you start small and with just a few goats. As you gain more knowledge and become more comfortable with them, you can add more to the herd.

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  • Best Animals to Raise for a Homesteader

    Best Animals to Raise for a Homesteader

    You want to become truly self-sufficient. Even though you might have a beautiful garden with all the vegetables you need, if you are still buying meat and dairy from the grocery store, you aren’t very self-sufficient at all. In this post, we’ll be looking at some of the best animals for a small homesteader to raise that can do more than just provide meat.

    Goats

    Having goats on the property is always a good idea, as even just a single goat can provide you with between two and four quarts of milk each day. The milk can be used to drink, naturally. However, you could also use it for a host of other things, such as making butter and cheese. You could even put it in the soap you make. Those who have large herds of goats may also use them for meat if they choose.

    Sheep

    Like goats, sheep don’t take up a lot of space, and they can provide you with some great benefits, namely wool. With the wool, you can then make clothing, blankets, and much more, which makes you even more self-sufficient. Sheep’s milk might not be something that you commonly think about, but you can use it to make some great cheese. As with goats, you can use the sheep for meat if needed. However, the other benefits they offer tend to make them more valuable in other areas.

    Poultry

    Of course, you certainly want to consider raising poultry, and chickens are probably top on your list. It’s true that chickens are a great option. You can raise them for eggs or meat, and again, they don’t require too much space. Even the chicken feathers are useful. You can clean them, and then you can use them to stuff pillows, for example.

    You certainly have some other choices with poultry as well, including ducks and geese, as well as turkeys.

    Hogs

    If you raise hogs, you will have a substantial amount of quality meat on your homestead. You can make bacon and sausage, and you will have plenty of pork chops and roasts. Hogs will eat many different things, including some of the table scraps that you have and that you might otherwise throw away. Just make sure there isn’t too much protein in their diet. Also, you can use hog manure in your garden.

    Learn About Your Animals

    Regardless of which type of animals you choose to raise as a homesteader, you need to do your due diligence. This means learning about the different animals and the various breeds that are available. You want to choose the best animals for your lifestyle, and you need to know how to care for them properly. With a little bit of research, you will have no problem when it comes to raising and keeping these animals. Of course, these are just some of the good options for homesteaders out there. You can find plenty of other good animals that might work better for you, such as rabbits, or even fish.

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  • Indoor Pets for Your Outdoor Garden

    Indoor Pets for Your Outdoor Garden

     

     

    Unfortunately, some people just can’t see the benefit of backyard chickens, and they can’t let others be.  You may live in an area that doesn’t allow for livestock such as chickens and have neighbors that have a lack of appreciation for self-reliance and fresh food.  But does that mean that you have to buy manure?  Or that you can’t raise animals for meat?  Not necessarily.  You could raise animals indoors or in discreet cages, animals such as guinea pigs or rabbits.

     

    • If you are wanting meat, rabbits are the obvious choice because of their superior ability to reproduce with high rates of surviving offspring.
    • Both guinea pigs and rabbits can have their diets largely supplemented with vegetable scraps from the kitchen and garden making them cheap to feed.
    • Both animals produce manure that is great for your garden or compost pile, and that smells a lot better than chicken manure so your neighbors are less likely to notice or complain if they do.
    • Both animals can be raised in relatively small pins without causing undo stress to the animals compared with chickens.
    • Neither guinea pigs or rabbits are as social as chickens are and can be raised solitarily if given attention without the animals suffering.
    • Both animals can deal with cold weather if they are kept in unheated rooms such as a garage or on a covered porch. But care should be taken to provide them with relief from the heat.
    • Neither animal makes much noise that could be heard by neighbors.
    • Both guinea pigs and rabbits are cute animals that are fun for kids to have as indoor pets that can be allowed out of the cage and safely handled.

     

    Just because you live in an area that restricts your ability to raise livestock doesn’t mean that you can’t find a way around it that could provide you with manure and even meat.

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  • Chickens Do More than Just Produce Eggs

    Chickens Do More than Just Produce Eggs

    If you are new to homesteading, you will find that many who practice this way of living will tell you that you should get some chickens. What is it about chickens that make them so great? Well, in addition to producing eggs, not to mention meat, they have some other benefits as well, and they could be just what your homestead needs.

    Chicken waste is full of nitrogen, which is very good for the soil. In fact, chickens can help to produce some of the best manure you can find for your garden. All you need to do is keep your chickens in the area you want fertilized for a couple of days. In addition, chickens are able to remove a wide variety of pests from your garden. They will gleefully eat all of the bugs and pests that would otherwise ruin the plants in your garden.

    Chickens can also help to spread out mulch. As they go through the mulch looking for food, they will naturally spread out. Even a small flock of chickens is able to spread out and reduce the mulch pile in no time.

    Of course, raising chickens is a bit more complicated than just going out, buying some chickens, and putting them in your yard. You need to do some research so you will have a better understanding of how to raise the chickens properly, what type of housing you need to build, what to feed them, the best breed of chicken, and more. As long as you take the time to understand what it takes to raise them, you can experience all of these benefits.

    Now that you know just how beneficial chickens can be, it’s time that you added a few to your home.

     

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  • Slaughtering Pigs: A Simple Guide

    Slaughtering Pigs: A Simple Guide

     

    After investing so much time, energy, money, and emotion into raising your pigs you want things to go right when you slaughter them.  If it is your first time slaughtering a pig, a sloppy kill and messing butchering can really turn you off from wanting to raise pigs in the future.  The following are directions and tips on slaughtering and butchering pigs.  Make sure to thoroughly plan things out before you begin, you will not be able to stop half way through and finish it later.

     

    Clean Kill

    Plain and simple, shot the pig between the eyes.  You do not want to try to bludgeon, or stab an animal that is as large and powerful as a pig.  It could easily only injure the animal, prolonging its suffering and putting you at risk for retaliation.  To get a clean shot, put some tempting feed in a container on the edge of its pen, this will put the pig in one area, holding still, with its head down.

    Cut the Throat

    Cutting the pig’s throat immediately after shooting it will allow it bleed out quickly while the heart is still pumping.

    Clean the Pig

    Get the pig out of the pen and hose it off so that you are working with a pig covered in mud and manure.  Pay close attention to the feet, they are the dirtiest part.

    Raise it

    If you have the ability to get the pig off the ground it will keep things cleaner and easier, though it can be done on the ground if you have to.  Cut into the pig’s legs behind the hoof so that you can pass the knife behind the tendon, leaving the tendon intact.  Pass a rope or chain through the holes and wench the animal to a height that is comfortable for you to work at.

    Remove Skin and Hair

    If you can dunk the whole pig, or half at a time, in hot water, the job will be easier.  But you can get it done just by pouring pots of boiling water on one area at a time.  You can use a specified tool, a “hog scraper”, or just a sharp knife or razor to scrap the hair and outer skin off the animal.

    Remove the Head and Innards

    Unless your pig is still small and you are going to roast it whole, now is when you will want to remove the head.  Then, make your cut to open the pig up.  Start just in front of the anus on the belly side, and go down to the sternum, starting shallow.  If you can open the belly up slowly and then cut around the anus carefully so as not to open the intestines, push the anus through the hole and out the hole in the belly, then remove the intestines and all innards.

     

    At this point you can cut the pig in half with a bone saw, dividing the pig left and right.  Or if the pig is smaller and you have room, you can store the pig whole and butcher it to your preference later.  It’s not for those with a weak stomach.  Before raising a pig, carefully and honestly consider if you are going to be willing and able to process that pig into meat.  If not, raising pigs just isn’t for you.

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  • The Benefits of Having a Rooster

    The Benefits of Having a Rooster

    Roosters have a bad reputation.  Many people who want to raise hens for eggs choose not to have a rooster in the flock.  Some have heard that roosters are aggressive, or they don’t want to noise, or they just so the reason to have one.  But the reality is that hens can be just as aggressive; if there is no rooster around the dominant hen will take on the role of rooster.  If noise is keeping you from having a rooster around then you shouldn’t have chickens at all because hens make plenty of noise.  There are benefits to having a rooster in your flock, here are 3 of them.

     

    Chicks

    Hens won’t fertilize their own eggs.  If you want to raise chickens as a source of food then having subsequent generations of chickens is important.  One rooster can keep 12 hen’s eggs fertilized.

    Protection

    One of the reasons that roosters get a bad reputation for being aggressive is that they are protective of their flock.  The less domesticated breeds have more protective, and sometimes more aggressive roosters.  While the hens are doing their thing, the rooster will take up a high position and watch out for threats from predators high and low.  They will scan the skies for birds of prey, watch out for dogs or weasels, and sound an alarm that is specific to the threat letting the hens know how to best react.

    Social Order

    Flocks with roosters simply function better and seem to offer a better quality of life for the hens.  Roosters keep order in the flock, help find food for the hens (sometimes they trick them), and even help the hens by scouting out potential nesting sites, though the hen ultimately chooses to approve or reject the site.

     

    While roosters are not without their potential annoying drawbacks, namely the crowing, they can offer benefits that greatly outweigh their annoyances.  Try adding a rooster to your flock if you don’t already have one. If it doesn’t go the way you want it to, you can always eat him.

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  • One Way to Clean a Chicken

    One Way to Clean a Chicken

    As with the proverbial cat, I’m sure there is more than one way to clean a chicken.  This is just one way, you can tweak it however you feel the need to for your situation.

    Kill it first

    Starting with a live chicken that you have a hold of, grab its neck with your strong hand down, so that your thumb is closer to its wings and your pinky is closer to its head.  Now spin your hand in a tight circle fast so that the chicken’s body spins in a larger circle.  This will kill the chicken for sure.

    Chop chop

    After you have wrung the chicken’s neck it will still probably move a little.  That’s ok, just hold it down with its wings in tight with your weak hand, and lay its neck on a piece of wood that you can drive a sharp edge (like a machete) into.  Chop off the head.  Then hold it up by the feet letting the blood drip out until it has stopped.  Then lay the chicken down again and chop off its feet just below the feathers.

    Pluck it

    At this point, most people would dunk it hot water.  But wet chickens smell worse than wet dogs and you really don’t need to do this to get the feathers out, though it will speed up the process.  Just hold the chicken down with your weak hand, and close to your weak hand, so as not to allow the skin to stretch and tear, grab some feathers and pull.  Repeat until the chicken is bare.  You shouldn’t have much trouble except with the tips of the wings, where you might want to use the hot water.

    Gut it

    Make a cut around the neck, going low towards the collar bones, but trying not to go too deep so that you don’t hit the gizzard.  Reach in and remove the neck innards and the gizzard (which can be eaten if desired, just make sure to separate from the intestines).  Then flip it over and cut around the anus while keeping in mind that you do not want to puncture the intestines. However, if you do puncture them, there is no reason to throw out the chicken, just wash it well afterwards).  Once you have a complete circle around the anus, remove it, with the intestines attached, then pull out the rest of the guts.  If the chicken is a smaller breed you may need to enlarge the hole, but get the intestines out first.

    Wash it

    Wash it off, and wash it out.  Just water and vinegar should do the trick.  This is more important if you are going to freeze it or marinate it instead of cooking it right away, but might as well play it safe, it will only take a second.

     

    Now it’s ready to cook and eat.  If you have not cleaned an animal before and are considering raising other animals like rabbits or pigs for meat, chickens are a great animal to train on.  They aren’t as large as a pig or as cute as a rabbit, but they taste just as good. Who doesn’t love chicken?

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