Nothing magical, just logical. I farm for a living and for the most part we are self sufficient. We have a large year round garden and I raise 4 different types of livestock and each type must be self supporting at a minimum. The production layers help pay for my purebred birds who are not as profitable. Just like the sheep where the majority of my profits comes from meat (as opposed to eggs). The cattle profits are split between beef and breeding stock. For the past couple of years the bees have barely been a break even as the weather has not been great for a tremendous surplus of honey. We hope this year will be a better year. It seems from year to yeast when profits in one area are up they are down in another area, but we eat well and I'm blessed to no longer program computers for a living and instead I can farm which is my passion.
Hmmm...my purebred birds are most profitable but I'm small scale. Chicks and hatching eggs pay for my hobby and then some. With the egg business, it buys the feed and our eggs but no profit. Good job!![]()
My purebreds are very small scale because I am very anal and very picky. The breeder/mentor my HRIR came from told me last year that more than half of the birds I put in the freezer where superior to most others in the country. But I am an unknown... I don't show heavily like he used to. I just love the breed and breed for myself and sell the extras if someone is interested and put them in the freezer if not. I don't want the complications of shipping live birds, although I am shipping quite a few eggs this spring (and probably not charging enough for them). Oh well... genetics is a fascination of mine and like all of my other livestock I truly believe you have to breed the best because no one else is going to sell you their best, only their second best. The best genetics can rarely be purchased, they must be bred. And very few people are willing to cull as ruthlessly as I do to achieve the results I'm looking for. The lack of willingness to cull when breeding livestock is a huge problem these days. As with the sheep and cattle... I show often enough to assure i am not be coming " kennel blind" and am on the right track. But i don't enjoy showing... I enjoy the challenge of continually trying to improve and gain more knowledge.