What birds/small animals are cheap to raise for meat???

[red-hen]

The magazine, Mother Earth News, has some info that might help you decide if this idea is good for your situation.

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Homestead Turkey Production

Here's another article from Jack Widmer's Practical Animal Husbandry. Widmer talks about turkey production in this issue: turkey breeds, poults, turkey feeds and sanitation.
Article link: http://tinyurl.com/6l5gyv


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Turkeys Can Be a Profitable Sideline

A digest of the cardinal principles of scientific turkey raising, from the Have-More Plan.

Article link: http://tinyurl.com/6h9rf6

 

[red-hen]

PS:

Consider reading up on raising Guineas or Squab (pigeon) in this article from Mother Earth News. It seems a little less daunting and less feed intensive and might suit your purpose if food is the key at a lower price.


Homestead Squab and Guinea Production

Here's an excerpt on squab and guinea fowl production from Jack Widmer's book, Practical Animal Husbandry


http://tinyurl.com/5v7p66

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Also - consider RABBITs. I only raised mine as pets in the past. But when money is scarce, the rabbit can be a real savior I think. They eat little and return big. Nothing terribly fancy needed - but you do need very good fences (I'd use hardware cloth) to keep predators out. The good news is, hutches don't have to be very big - not like buying fencing for a chicken yard - quite small amounts could keep your mom supplied for meat bunnies.

EDIT:
Adding link to article from Mother Earth News on raising rabbits inexpensively for food.


Pequoda's Rabbit Hutch

Here is an inexpensive coop with which you can gain maximum results from rabbits, easy to build and inexpensive.


http://tinyurl.com/67lmss

 

[UNCLEG]

Hey, I must say I admire you and your willingness to try and help out as much as you can. Having never raised meat birds I am unable to offer any valuable advice. However I did want to mention something that may help your family stretch your food budget. There is a program called Angel Food ministries, check their website and see if there is a program in your area. It offers food packages including meat at very resonable rates. I personally have not tried it but several of my co-workers use the program and love it, stretches their food budgets.

Hope this helps and best of luck to you,

UNCLEG

 

[linebacker]

Cjeanean.
I would like to add quail to the list that Red-hen posted.

http://www.ansci.umn.edu/poultry/resources/gamebirds.htm#japanese

Both rabbits and quail are extremely prolific and are of sexual maturity very early and reach harvest size quickly. Best of luck, and I hope your mothers health improves.

Brad

 

[red-hen]

Those are great additional ideas. Maybe some more brainstorming will result in some ideas that her mother can use.

Where there's a will, there's always a way.

 

[NS2A]

In most cases not. Raising your own meat is somewhat variable costs.

Just stock up on turkeys during Thanksgiving. They're usually pretty cheap then.

 

[cjeanean]

Wow, you guys have given me a lot of ideas!!! I really appreciate it. My mom has Epstein Barr virus, fibro myalgia, and some other problems. My dad left her three years ago with no income and my four brothers and sisters to care for. It's been an uphill battle ever since, and that was one of the main reasons for me getting chickens: saving her money on eggs. I know I won't really save any money, but I know it'll help her, and right now we can afford to do it. I know geese sell for quite a bit of money, at Wal-Mart goose was almost $10 a pound. I don't know what requirements there are for selling them for meat, or what the rules are since my mom lives in kansas and that's where the geese would be, and pretty much whatever else we raised for meat, like rabbits, turkey, quail, whatever. I just really wanted some opinions as to the cost ratio for what meat to raise, cause like I said she is on a very tight budget with food stamps and state assistance, and we would have to buy the feed for her animals. We were also looking into goats for milk because of milk prices, but once again I don't know if it would be cost effective.

I am wondering about one thing. Where my mom lives there is a LOT of tall grass during the summer, can that grass be cut, dried, and turned into some sort of hay??? If so, can that hay be fed to chickens, ducks, geese, rabbits, etc???

Thanks again, everyone!!!! I really appreciate the help!!!

 

[MissPrissy]

While goats do provide a lot of milk they require brush to forage and do not graze unless there is nothing else for them to eat. To be healthy and to kid so that they can produce milk requires a descent ration of good feed and some supplements to their diet. A goat turned out on a grass field and expected to milk twice daily will get run down quickly and it would be hard to keep weight on them in the winter. My goats eat a 50 lb bag of feed each week plus 2 - 3 bales of hay plus minerals, and extras like beet pulp, alfalfa and sweet feed. To provide for yourself you really have to be able to feed the livestock properly or you end up with sick undernourished animals that drain your pocket more than it helps. Now if you have a few acres of brush that you could turn the goats out and keep them in rotation from spring through mid fall you might could get by with more forage and less feed but they still need some feed and can't survive on just forage all the time.

 

[sara]

Quote:
Make sure they carefully take care of your mom. That virus can cause cancer. I've done a lot of research on the cancer I had and Epstein-Barr virus comes up in every article. It changes B-lymphocytes into cancerous cells if the immune system is weak. I don't want to scare you, just be aware.

 

[red-hen]

I have fibromyalgia too so I grasp the difficulty. I'm lucky, I've been able to really get control of mine. I have lots of sympathy for those who haven't gotten it under control too well. I did find that many little things made a big difference for me - if you want I could email you a list of web sites where I found bits of info that helped me - regarding eating well, getting better quality sleep (a BIG underlying problem for fibro is sleep disorder), vitamins/minerals, avoiding msg and high fructose corn syrup, etc.

Anyway - back to the grass. Some kinds of grass could make an excellent feed for rabbits actually. (Alfalfa isn't the hay for them anyway - too too rich) So if it is Timothy hay - or something like that - yeah, I think you could hand harvest it. Your local feed store *might* be able to tell you what it is - and how to dry it. Or - maybe there are Amish in the area who might give ideas on how to use that grass/hay?

There was another article on Mother Earth News about sheep for small backyard farms. It was talking about what efficient grazers they are --- so maybe do some research about what feeds sheep might need vs what you've just been told that goats need.

Keep thinking.