Raising meat in city limits

[SomeChickinTN]

I'm not sure which category to put this in... I am on the outskirts of town, and while I know I can have chickens and other small animals, I'm guessing I can't have much of anything else (a goat, sheep, hog, etc)... I had hoped to rely pretty heavily on the the chickens for the eggs and the meat, and it's pretty disheartening to realize that 50 chickens would take up too much of my backyard... Maybe I still don't understand chicken math.

Are there other eating birds that could roam the run with the chickens while having their own shelter?

I've read that if you keep meat rabbits, you can put the hutches up high in the coop, and then the chickens will eat the dropped food and compost the rabbit droppings....Are meat rabbits worth the cost of raising them? Where would you buy them?
If you have a backyard farm, what do you raise for meat?

 

[ChickenCanoe]

You may want to pose some questions in the sister sites.
https://www.backyardherds.com/
https://www.sufficientself.com/
Keep in mind that space is always going to be your limiter. The more closely confined animals are, the more labor intensive they will be to keep the land/pens/coops clean.
I know people that have kept rabbits for a long time. I'm not sure how effective of a poultry feed rabbit droppings would be. It is good for vermiculture though.
Perhaps look into quail or pigeons. They grow fast, are a good source of meat and don't take up much space.
I attended a seminar on pigeon raising. Raising them for meat used to be quite common and they apparently can be eaten as early as 30 days.
Your city ordinances should inform if pigs, goats, sheep, etc. can be raised.
There are a couple cities in our county that allow goats and sheep.

 

[SomeChickinTN]

You may want to pose some questions in the sister sites.
https://www.backyardherds.com/
https://www.sufficientself.com/
Keep in mind that space is always going to be your limiter. The more closely confined animals are, the more labor intensive they will be to keep the land/pens/coops clean.
I know people that have kept rabbits for a long time. I'm not sure how effective of a poultry feed rabbit droppings would be. It is good for vermiculture though.
Perhaps look into quail or pigeons. They grow fast, are a good source of meat and don't take up much space.

Thanks. I was meaning the chickens would eat the food that the rabbits dropped, not that the chickens would eat the rabbit poo just wanted to clarify

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Oh, ok, thanks for clarifying. But, having done so, the food the rabbits drop is usually covered with rabbit droppings.
Here is a read you may enjoy.
https://www.popsci.com/eat-pigeons-squab#page-3

 

[EggSighted4Life]

Some cities have rules against slaughtering (even chickens) with in city limits.

Raising broilers for meat instead of heritage breeds can help a lot with space issues.

I *suspect* meat or any rabbits would be MORE worth the cost if they were ranged on the ground with the chickens... grass is where I see my most saving. But I haven't looked too much in to it. And if hay is good rabbit feed (over something formulated)... it's extremely affordable, though not easy to move a whole bale and storing it seems to attract rats.

Here to learn!

 

[MotherOfPeepPeeps]

Rabbits are awesome and totally worth it! 1 doe can have 12 litters a year, but I usually only do 7 or 8. At an average litter size eight kits, butcher at 12-15 weeks old at an average weight of 5-1/2 lbs (yeilding approx 3-1/2 lbs of useable meat)... Yes, they are totally worth it! Especially if you are using meat mutts or heritage breeds with hardy digestive system that you can feed out on natural fodder.

I recommend a blog called TheHostileHare for further research. I found her blog very inspiring.

 

[MotherOfPeepPeeps]

Also, I do have my buck cages mounted on the wall in my chicken coop. The chickens keep the dropping scratched up and picked free of bugs and spilt feed. My does are in larger wooden outdoor Hutches, but I have the bottom skirted in with chicken wire so I can turn my chickens in there a couple times a week to clean things up.

 

[MotherOfPeepPeeps]

I also plan on adding quail and a pair of muscovy ducks to my urban meat production project.

 

[SomeChickinTN]

Rabbits are awesome and totally worth it! 1 doe can have 12 litters a year, but I usually only do 7 or 8. At an average litter size eight kits, butcher at 12-15 weeks old at an average weight of 5-1/2 lbs (yeilding approx 3-1/2 lbs of useable meat)... Yes, they are totally worth it! Especially if you are using meat mutts or heritage breeds with hardy digestive system that you can feed out on natural fodder.

I recommend a blog called TheHostileHare for further research. I found her blog very inspiring.

Wow. At that rate it would almost be better for me to keep the chickens for the eggs, and the rabbits for the meat. Thanks

 

[itsasmallfarm]

am not urban, but rabbits are usually classified as pets not live stock, i would like to get into them but still have a hard time killing livestock. (yet no issue with wild game) they seem to provide a lot of meat in a small space and minimum effort.

also have you looked into fish? like small scale aquaculture can provide a ton of fish to eat (depending on species like tilapia) where you can breed and raise them to a plate size in a year.