I see people post about being self sufficient...

[drdoolittle]

I have some neighbors/friends that are pretty close to being self-sufficient. They raise cattle (black angus?), meat goats, and chickens. They share a huge vegetable garden with the wife's parents who live on the same property, and can like crazy. They grow their own hay and I'm sure something else they feed the chickens. They do their own butchering, and freeze the meat, and sell eggs. I really, really admire their way of life----the husband's only job is taking care of the animals (I believe they sell some of them) and working around the farm. The wife is a mid-wife for the Amish. They have no T.V. in their home, and drive older vehicles whioch are paid off. Also, there house is unique---it was made from recycled paper made into boards. Their children are all involved in sports at the local H.S., and do many chores daily-----fedding animals, cleaning stalls, washing eggs. It seems like the perfect life.

 

[Wifezilla]

We talk about this all the time at www.sufficientself.com . Unless you have land, you may never totally be 100% self sufficient, but anything you can do to get your animals real, fresh, natural food and cut down on your feed bill is going to help.

I have a tiny lot but grow a lot of food for the space. I had a lot of zucchini last year. The ducks got some chopped in their water during the growing season and are still eating shredded zucchini I froze. I put frozen veggies in warm water and take it out to them on cold mornings. They go nuts over it.

I also grew black oil sunflowers. Actually I only grew one. It popped up in an area where I dumped some quail bedding. I got a lot of seeds out of that 1 head and will grow more this year.

I picked up amaranth seeds from www.rareseeds.com for spring planting. I got a variety grown for seeds and another you grow for greens. Not only can the animals eat that food, it's also great people food.

In my pond I grow rosy minnows. I don't even have to feed them. They live on mosquito larvae and algae. I also have duckweed in the pond. As the duckweed tries to take over I feed that to the ducks along with offspring from the minnows.

I still buy bags of feed, but I need a lot less in summer and plan to need even less next year.

All of this is done in the suburbs on a lot that is only .167th or an acre.

 

[gallorojo]

My wife and I have been working on this whole thing for some time now. Still not there, but getting closer all the time. I have learned A LOT along the way, which I would be happy to share.

First, a bit of background-We live in central PA, in orchard country. We have good soil, although rocky, and plenty of rain. It's hilly to mountainous here, so, in the old days this was a dairy/orchard area. Both my wife and I have backgrounds in science/biology, and work as horticulture professionals. We have about 3 acres, a bit over 1 acre is fenced pasture, a bit less than one acre is orchard, plus, about a 6,000 sq. ft garden, soon to be expanded to maybe 10,000 sq.ft. We have chickens, geese, sheep, goats, guineas, cats, dogs, etc. We DO NOT buy any fruits or vegetables to speak of. That means no oranges, bananas, etc. We eat seasonally, so, now, we eat roots and squash, and canned, dried or frozen items. We are almost at the point of not buying any meat, should be there by fall of 2011. Hopefully, can be there with milk this spring. We raise our own animals, save our own seeds, etc.

Now, all that being said, we ARE NOT SELF SUFFICIENT, we still have to buy SO MUCH stuff. It's nearly impossible to be independent that way, even my great great grandparents bought things, although far less than we do today. Try making your own saw, shovel, glasses, shoes, hinges, etc. Growing your own food is a lot of work, but very do-able. Growing all the food for your animals is also do-able, but harder. I will provide some hints on that below,

1) Animals can forage most of their own food if you let them, in a good,productive environment. The animals have got to have good, healthy pasture or forest to forage in. No, if you make them find their own food, you will not get high productivity, but, if it's really just for your needs, who cares? I know a guy who raises hogs on pasture with almost no supplemental food given. He actually tried raising some with no food at all. They still produced litters, although much smaller litter sizes, but, if you are going to just eat them yourself, how many do you really need anyway? It should be obvious that predator control is essential!!!

2) If you want to be self-sufficient, super productive "improved' breeds are out. They have all been bred assuming you will feed them tons of grain, and medicate them as needed. A lot of the "improved' breeds are also constitutionally weak, and lazy. Don't get caught thinking about what your grandparents raised, they still had easy access to relatively cheap feed. You need to go back a bit farther, to what people raised when minimal food was available. I am not just talking about just cornish crosses here, I also mean Orps, Marans, Rocks, etc. My great great grandparents lived in the extreme rural VA mountains. They had dominiques, games, and probably mixes thereof. They were not raising holsteins or jerseys, they had shorthorns.

3) You have to learn what will work for you in your CLIMATE. What works for me in Pa probably won't work in Maine or Florida. I cannot overstate this enough!! The whole practice of agriculture needs to be different from place to place, especially, the varieties need to change from place to place. It takes time to figure out what will work, just try things and learn as you go.

4) You have got to start breeding, or at least selecting your own stock, of EVERYTHING, to suit your own needs. Everything from grain, to chickens, to squash, to beans, you must be taking a role in that process. Start NOW, it takes time to learn, and time to do!!

5) Summary- FREE RANGE, OLD, NON IMPROVED BREEDS OF PLANTS AND ANIMALS, LOCALLY ADAPTED VARIETIES, MAINTAIN/BREED/SELECT YOUR OWN STOCK.

OK, HERE ARE SOME HINTS!!

-Feed everything to an animal that you won't eat. In summer and fall, I am literally dumping multiple 5-gallon buckets of spoiled produce in to the animals. This includes squash and bean vines, corn stalks, etc.
-Animals can eat roots.You have to cook potatoes first, but, if you heat with wood, this becomes easy. Most all other roots can be fed as is, raw.
-Animals can eat squash and pumpkins.
-You don't need to thresh or clean grains and seeds that are meant for animals. I feed whole sunflower heads, corn ears, etc to the birds. They can pick the seeds off themselves. You can pretty easily grow oats or wheat, and NOT thresh it, and just throw whole bundles in for animals. They will pick out the seeds, the straw becomes bedding.
-Dry leaves, pine needles, etc, work as bedding. Make a pile in the barn in fall.
-Larger animals will eat Honey Locust pods, which, around here ,I can gather a pick-up load in an hour for free.
- You can feed whole plants of various beans to ruminants, they can digest those without cooking. Don't give that to birds, rabbits, hogs, etc. What I am saying is, make hay from black eyed peas, feed it to your goats in winter.
-Rabbits can live off hay, sunflower seeds and roots. No, they won't produce huge litters. But, they can live without pellets just fine.
-Worms are not worth the trouble in my opinion.
-Yes, you can cut your own hay. Google scythe. Or, feed corn stalks, unthreshed grains, legume plant hay, locust pods, etc. Even branch tips of some woody plants. Apple trimmings , honeysuckle, willow, etc.
- You want vining squash, not bush.
-Corn is the easiest grain to work with. Wheat is next, all the rest are best fed right from the shook/sheave w/out threshing.

I could go on, maybe will layer, but, I need to go now.

 

[Cowgirlgrace]

I agree it is very expensive initially to become completely self suffcient especially if you plan to have large animals that require hay and grain. You either need a lot of land and equipment for producing the hay or lots of land for pasture which in the winter you will still need hay. You will also need a large barn to store the hay. You can, however, raise them on purchased feed and sell half the meat to pay for your half etc.

Things like electricity which you will need if you are freezing your meat etc can be generated by solar but are very expensive to install, there are windmills but only if it's windy etc. You could can all your meat but are you willing to can a half a cow or eat all your meat as beef jerky and use up 3 gal of milk each day becuse you have no refrigeration? Milk can be used to feed calves and pigs, make cheese etc. but just something to think about. These are just a few things and there are books on the subject so I won't elaborate.

Probably should keep your job. If married at least one should work especially if there are health benefits. In our grandparents days and beyond doctors and veterinarians would barter. I don't think they do that anymore. And people died early. Besides, do you really want to die an early death because you can't afford healthcare that would have saved your life? Or is it because your income is so low you rely on the government and working people to cover your healthcare? Hmm, makes me wonder who pays for the Amish healthcare. Do they just die even in these days? Gonna have to google that.

One expense I see coming up for us is a new roof. You can't pay for that kind of stuff without a decent income and do you really want to live putting patches on your roof and then possibly having it rot away? Even if you googled how to install a roof (need electricity for the computer) the materials are still expensive.

I could go on and on but bottom line, just do what you can afford, be realistic and don't do anything stupid.

 

[geeber]

Quote:
We have a BO & 2 SLW's. Are those 'improved' breeds? I really like the idea of 'old' breeds, not the new genetically altered breeds.

And Wifezilla... I'm going to self sufficient to become a user. Thank you.

 

[ChickenCat]

Quote:
My chickens could free range hundreds up to thousands of acres if they wanted to. All of the properties around us back up to national forest land. But, they rarely go beyond 300 feet from the house. they have pasture land, horse and cow poop, hay and grain scraps from livestock feeders, the creek to dig around in. It's not enough to sustain them in the winter though. I would love to plow up some ground and try to grow corn and oats for the chickens feed.

 

[BlackBart]

I saw this invention and thought it was a great way to save some money. I have no idea how to go about building one or how it works but some people might know. With the rising cost of electric power it is a great way to keep some money in your own pocket and become more self reliant.

http://www.cansolair.com/videos.php?page=cbcthenational

 

[The Fairy Godmartyr]

Quote:
Well, every time I go into my storage room, I look at all of the jars and think, "If the apocalypse comes, at least we won't die of scurvy--or goiters."

Next year, I will be planting much fewer cucumbers. Either that, or I will make it in pint jars and sell it at our local farmer's market.

 

[Cowgirlgrace]

Quote:
Well, every time I go into my storage room, I look at all of the jars and think, "If the apocalypse comes, at least we won't die of scurvy--or goiters."

Next year, I will be planting much fewer cucumbers. Either that, or I will make it in pint jars and sell it at our local farmer's market.

Some info if you are serious about selling canned items at the FM you might want to check on permits etc. I don't know where you live but here you need a food handlers permit, processed food license and all food needs to be processed in a certified kitchen. You will need to pay for inspections by the health inspecter also. For small amounts the whole process is extremely cost prohibitive. And good idea to have liability insurance.

 

[The Fairy Godmartyr]

Quote:
Well, every time I go into my storage room, I look at all of the jars and think, "If the apocalypse comes, at least we won't die of scurvy--or goiters."

Next year, I will be planting much fewer cucumbers. Either that, or I will make it in pint jars and sell it at our local farmer's market.

Some info if you are serious about selling canned items at the FM you might want to check on permits etc. I don't know where you live but here you need a food handlers permit, processed food license and all food needs to be processed in a certified kitchen. You will need to pay for inspections by the health inspecter also. For small amounts the whole process is extremely cost prohibitive. And good idea to have liability insurance.

I do need to check, but I'm thinking our laws must not be that strict because people (like, people I know, so I know they haven't gone through all of that) sell homegrown and home-processed foods there all of the time. Of course, I do live in kind of a country bumpkin area, so maybe everyone is just selling bootleg wares.