Let's talk MINI-HOMESTEAD/RANCH... (rabbits, quail, chicken, goat?)

[saddina]

Some reading:

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Nature-Community/1972-05-01/Grow-It-Rabbits.aspx

Maybe hit the library and see what they've got as well?

 

[Stefrobrts]

If you're just talking about price, I don't think you can beat the price of factory farmed meat, eggs, and milk at the grocery. Now if your animals produce enough extra that you can feed yourself and sell the excess, you might be able to break even. But with regulations on dairy, meat sales, and even egg sales, they make it very difficult. I mean, if there were no laws and you were living in the back of your van in a anarchic zombie wasteland, then you wouldn't have to worry about breaking any laws - but then there wouldn't be any factory farms or grocery stores either - so you would just do the best you could.

It's actually quite interesting to study other countries and see how people who are still living closer to the land handle their farms, producing their food, and preserving their bounty so they'll still have some in the lean times. Read up on Mongolians sometime - many still live nomadic lives in tents with no electricity. Now that's living off the land!

 

[deb1]

NC has some very fair laws about farmers being able to sell directly to the public. You can't slaughter meat for sale on your land but if you have a walk in freezer than you can sell the meat to others.

 

[Wolf-Kim]

Glad this really took off.

I'll have to look into the square foot gardening.

As for the rabbits. So three cages, two does and a buck. Wouldn't I need cages for the young to grow out in or not? I'll do some research on that.

We finally found a feedstore other than TSC and they have very reasonable prices. $10 for a 50lb bag of chick starter crumble. The same thing at TSC was $14. Of course I'll have to price rabbit and goat feed, but I know that the breeder down the street goes to them for feed.

-Kim

 

[deb1]

Quote:
If you are going to do this you need to start a blog or record for all us interested people.

It might make a good idea for a book on frugal living.

 

[Wolf-Kim]

Quote:
If you are going to do this you need to start a blog or record for all us interested people.

It might make a good idea for a book on frugal living.

If I do it, I'll make it an experiment and I'll post records and whatnot. Space is my main concern at the moment, I just read that once young rabbits are weaned they can be moved to an individual cage. It said a doe gives birth to 6 or more, 3-4 times a year. So that takes the cage number from 2-3 to 6 or more. If that is the case, I don't think I have the space or money/materials to have or make that many cages.

I need to take a notebook to the feedstore and price the feeds to see how they would pan out in the long run. The key is cheap food.

Also on the note of selling extras, I could sell extra chicken eggs and sell extra quail and rabbits both live so I wouldn't have to worry about "food" laws. Any extra rabbits could be sold as pets or food so not worried about the laws. The only thing I would worry about is the lack of being able to sell the extra goat milk, I heard from the breeder that the government is paranoid about raw milk. So who knows. If I had a pig, all the extra milk could go to the pig, but I'm not considering and don't want to use a pig for this situation. Chickens and quail could use only a little bit of milk, I think too much is harmful. Anywhoo, lemme run some more research and numbers and I'll keep ya'll updated.

 

[saddina]

Extra milk can be used to make ice cream, butter, yogurt & cheese.

 

[deb1]

Ihave a friend who makes goat milk soap and candles but I don't know how much her initial costs for molds and stuff were.

 

[deb1]

I know that you can buy yurts in this country to live in. I think that they are supposed to be cheap.

Wolf kim, if you can research how farmers long ago managed their animals and produce that might give you some ideas.

My grandmother always talked about having a springhouse to keep her milk cool. Maybe you could have a similar set up. Your in the south and old timers had it rough years ago. I bet if you asked older rural people how they managed to raise animals and still save money that you could get some ideas.

This guy is mainly a pig farmer but he has some good ideas about living very cheaply. He built a tiny cottage for himself and his family. .

http://sugarmtnfarm.com/blog/labels/Tiny Cottage.html

He also has a very cheap hen house.

http://hollygraphicart.com/misc/wirehoopcoop.html

 

[Beekissed]

And you might just link over to SufficientSelf.com at the bottom of your page and find how others have done and are doing the same thing!

Your chain link dog kennel can hold your rabbits and your chickens and possibly your Nubians, depending on the size of the kennel. There are a lot of folks raising goats on whole grains and foraged roughage~ask Freemotion on SS for foraging hay for goats.

You can suspend your rabbits over your chickens and the chickens can eat fallen alfalfa pellets. You will need a finishing cage for youngsters and you can make more meat:feed progress with meat rabbits than any other small livestock. And the meat is good for you, you don't have to feel bad because they live in cages~ideal setup for these animals, and you can actually make a side profit on the sale of rabbits you cannot eat.

Your nubians and chickens can co-habitate on the floor of your kennel and you can even rotate their living quarters in a pie design around your living quarters to give fresh ground every day or so.