want to add more animals, need advice on self sufficiency!! #43

I live on about 50 acres of land, this past summer we began remodeling the barn and plan on finishing it up this spring. So far we have 21 RIR's that provide us with 21/21 every single day. I am now selling about 90 percent of all the eggs. It was a slow start up but now people are always calling for eggs. the word has spread I suppose and truly is good for us because the chickens lay the eggs, we sell the eggs and the money is used to buy more feed and bedding and what ever else. In the end I do come out ahead cause its not coming out of pocket at all.

the plan when we bought our place was to turn it back into a productive and self sufficient farm. this spring the greenhouse is also going up. we will be planting vegies and around it we will be planting some fruit trees as well. An herb garden is a must and we plan on planting some grains too and see how that goes. before we moved here it used to be a wheat field. and the neighbours say our soil is very rich for planting and we don't have to do anything to it but turn it over, deweed and begin planting.

Now we are sitting here having conversation after conversation about what animals to get in the spring, that will serve a good purpose. for those of you who are already living in a self sufficient farm or starting one up, what animals would you recommend and why?

I am already getting a couple ducklings, but those will be pets. and we have agreed to a couple meat pigs that we will get as piglets and raise free range to our liking.

as far as interests go, I want to fill my freezer in the fall to reduce the cost of grocery store meat and increase quality of meat. I know I can also sells eggs and people have already began asking me when I will be getting pigs as they are interested in buying one in the fall. I haven't worked all of this out yet, but its something we plan on hammering down.

any advice on what animals to include would be greatly appreciated.

thank you,

Ema

 

Quote:goats are definitely something we have been talking about a lot lately too, cause I can make goats milk soap and bubble bath and a few other things like cheese etc. and sell at the farmers market.

a friend on the next road over has meat cows and has offered us a calf in the spring for real cheap, but I haven't decided yet cause I would need to fence in a lot of land for it. my dh said it would be very worth it. I still need to give them an answer by next month. so i have some thinking to do. I can pick up a couple goats at a local farm for 100 a piece.

 

Quote:thanks, that is something dh mentioned too about getting more than one, but not sure if my friend will have more than one, so if he doesn't I will wait as I do nto want a lonely depressed animal