Homesteader Depot

Tag: meat animals

  • Why Raise Meat Chickens?

    Why Raise Meat Chickens?

    If you are used to buying your chicken from the supermarket, you might not realize this, but there is one breed of meat chicken that dominates the modern, globalized meat market.

    You know it well, and yet probably don’t even know the name. You buy your whole fryers, your boneless skinless chicken breast, your thigh meat, your wings, your drumsticks, your whole legs. It might come from different brands, priced differently, sometimes on sale, sometimes more expensive for higher quality. But it is almost always the same chicken breed: the Cornish Cross.

    The Cornish Cross has not always been the prominent meat chicken breed in the United States, but these days, it makes up the great majority of meat chicken you will buy at the supermarket. And this is not because it is particularly nutritious or has the best tasting meat. It’s mostly because it grows quickly and is easy to raise in captivity. An unfortunate downside to how quickly the Cornish Cross evolves is that its immune system cannot keep up with its body, which increases the needs for harmful antibiotics.

    This is so true of so many breeds of meat animals as well as vegetables. They are bred and raised not to offer the best flavor and nutrition, but to be suitable to the unsustainable model of the large-scale factory farm. While we are very lucky these days to have more and more options on the market as far as quality and responsible management of factory farms, nothing beats raising your own meat chickens.

    When you raise your own chickens, you get to control what breeds you purchase and raise, what they’re fed, and what their day-to-day lifestyle is. You can experience the beauty and flavor available beyond the ubiquitous Cornish Cross! This is because when you are the chicken farmer, you don’t need to raise chickens for the sole purpose of selling them, but rather for your own pleasure and sustenance.

    If you’ve ever thought about raising your own chickens, this spring would be a great time to get started! You could be slaughtering your own by fall.

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  • What Is Two Story Farming?

    What Is Two Story Farming?

    Originally hailing from the Mediterranean, two story farming is a sustainable and efficient way to multitask on your farm or homestead.

    It is essentially what it sounds, farming on two “stories”. Only this isn’t in a structure, like the visions of modern urban farms of the future. Two story farming combines agriculture with raising livestock, in a very cool way.

    Traditionally, farmers use trees as the “upper story” of the two story concept. Carob, olive oil, or some other tree, is grown above an area in which pigs, cattle, or goats roam, allowed to nourish themselves on whatever is cast down from the branches above.

    Trees that have both leaves and fruit that are edible to livestock are called “livestock fodder trees”, and are highly coveted by meat, milk, and egg producers.

    What’s really cool about this set-up, is that it is essentially permanent, and not subject to necessary seasonal work beyond harvest and tending to the animals. Because the ground beneath the trees is not tilled, there is no soil erosion, and the foliage of the trees and the pasture underneath create a wonderful habitat for the animals, which helps with meat supply.

    This essentially means that the animals live underneath the trees that produce their feed! A great advantage of this, beyond the ease and convenience of your animals getting to eat fresh, nutritious food, is that you can use otherwise inferior pieces of land and turn them into food forests for your livestock.

    With some careful planning, many farmers are able to create a nearly year-round supply of fodder for their animals. One tree might be fruiting in spring, another in summer, another in fall, and another in late fall.

    In turn, the animals provide fertilizer and nutrients for the trees by leaving their droppings. It is a complete cycle, a created ecosystem that benefits all the organisms involved!

    Some farmers even plant annual crops of grain or vegetables in between the trees. Even though there normally isn’t full sun due to the shade of the trees, the topsoil is so rich, fertile, and deep, from the manure, that it still produces quite a bit. The trees also hold the soil in place, and continue to enrich it themselves due to the falling leaves and fruit.

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  • The Best Animals to Raise on a Homestead

    The Best Animals to Raise on a Homestead

    Being able to raise livestock is one of the biggest appeals of homesteading, and it’s very rewarding too! Livestock can bring so much reward, from delicious byproducts, to valuable contributions to gardening and even landscaping, as well as companionship.

    Here are some of the best animals to raise on a homestead, and why.

    Chickens

    Chickens are just awesome. They’re cheap to feed, can be put to work in a number of ways, can easily be tended to using natural remedies, and produce delicious eggs and meat for you. Chickens are a globally popular animal to raise, for good reason to. If you had to have one animal on your homestead, chickens might really be it. They’re great.

    Pigs

    Pigs might seem like a lot of work, but they’re actually quite cost effective for raising for meat. Plus you can throw them scraps, probably my personal favorite reason to raise pigs as I hate throwing out leftovers! They don’t take up much room, they grow very big very quickly, and they’re very cheap to buy as piglets. You can easily fill up your freezer with pork for a whole season in just a few short months.

    Goats

    Goats are great for homesteads for many reasons. They’re relatively easy to care for, eat almost anything, can provide delicious milk which can pull a nice profit for your homestead, and you can also raise them for meat as well. If you’ve got lots of ungroomed land on your property that you want cut back in a totally sustainable and eco-friendly way, goats are the ideal laborers for this task, trust me.

    Rabbits

    Rabbits are a great starter animal for meat. They require relatively simple habitats, can also be fed fruit and veggie scraps, have delicious meat, mature quickly, and breed…well, like bunnies! They’re a great sustainable meat crop if you want to raise something that produces quickly and doesn’t require a lot of space.

     

    There are of course many more homestead animals you could raise, these are just at the top of the list because they are easy, affordable, and produce quickly. Try your hand at one of these types of livestock to try your hand at animal husbandry and see if it’s for you!

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  • The Meat Makers (Infographic)

    The Meat Makers (Infographic)

    I recently found this great infographic from HobbyFarms.com that breaks down each standard farm animal, recommended breeds, needs, and amount of dressing each typically provides.

    When you invest in livestock, it’s important that you are getting what you want out of the animal, if your intention is to get a return on your initial investment in sustenance. Obviously, there are plenty of other factors that might influence your choice of livestock, but if meat is your goal, this is a really handy at-a-glance breakdown of the needs and return from each animal. Enjoy!

    infographic-meat-makers

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