HDIG - High Density Interval Gardening - Part 6 - Some animals suitable for an urban homestead

Successful, vertical, high yield urban gardening for terraces, balconies and lawns

Please, Vegans, hear me out! I really think at least a few animals are necessary on an urban homestead for various reasons:

Earthworms

Since earthworm compost is simply the best soil for growing plants in, I would suggest at least 3 buckets with soil, sand and earthworms to grow and multiply inside a house as they are a bit sensitive to temperature. If you are comfortable with a temperature, then they are, too.

In total we have 3 buckets with earthworms in them, but we plan on more:

They can eat all the food scraps, so there is not a lot of waste and what ever other, bigger left-overs there are can be composted in a commercially available compost bin for homes or outdoors in a dustbin with or without earthworms. Which earthworms?

Most people go now for the California Wiggler which seem to be the fastest in eating and reproduction. But, if you don't want to buy them, simply wait for a rain and look under pot plants and you will most likely find a few young ones anyway. Locally found earthworms will also do their job and they do it well.

It may take a few months until your earthworms reproduce enough for you to take a few little ones out and distribute them into your containers or veggie beds where they will then do their work supplying nutrients for the plants, especially around the roots.

Like with the bees, people will realize too late when there are not enough earthworms in the soil, because they get killed by artificial fertilizer and pesticides. So your little earthworm farm may well turn into a goldmine one day.

A cat

We've been working our homestead for 14 years and now over 6 months in our urban homestead and in my experience there is absolutely no way to keep mice and rats in check unless you have a cat around. No amount of poison or traps will deter mice and rats in the long run, so we always have at least one or two cats.

A bunny rabbit

Children love those fluffy little rabbits, but have to be taught how to treat a rabbit well as kids can be rather thoughtless and cruel with them without even wanting to. So there is a good educational value in having a rabbit as it has to be fed and cleaned out regularly.

Furthermore it is fairly easy to train a rabbit to use a cat tray. All you have to do is put a little rabbit poo in the tray and sit the rabbit in a few times next to the poo. They learn quickly. Then you take the rabbit pellets out every day or every other day and put those small quantities right on top of your plant containers or veggie bed. Just a little to use as mulch and long term fertilizer.

A dog?

At least in Europe they have made laws that a dog must be on a leash where ever you go with it, they are not allowed in restaurants/hotels, they must be vaccinated/have a passport and due to the totally unsuitable dog food that the industry supplies, most dogs get very sick later in life and then there are very high vet bills to pay.

There are many dog lovers in Europe, obviously, but they are not welcome in most places. Yes, there are a few hotels and holiday places that allow dogs, but not many. So if you want to go on holiday, you usually have to find a dog minder.

I personally love dogs, too, and when we lived in the mountains, our dogs certainly protected us and were very good companions.

Also remember that a dog can get between approximately 12 to 20 years old, so you have the responsibility for it for quite a long time not just for Christmas.

Vegans stop reading here, please!

Meat rabbits

Not all rabbits taste nice and produce a lot of meat. So do your research to find a suitable meat rabbit for your urban homestead and provide them with the necessary housing. Rabbits don't need a lot of space, but the more you can give them, the healthier they will be. There are many very useful YouTube videos on this subject, so do a bit of research. It is very important to have healthy rabbits that reproduce well, otherwise it's really not worth the effort.

Also research on the internet on how to slaughter and process rabbits efficiently!

We had angora rabbits and they were fairly nice to eat and since I'm a hand-spinner, I could use their hair to spin lovely yarn which I later converted into gloves and hats etc. I also tanned a few rabbit skins which is a useful thing to know, if ..... Again, lots of YouTube videos are available on spinning and tanning.

Chickens

The little Silkies are just the cutest chickens around. They come in white, a sort of grey and a sort of blue/black. This is the chicken to keep if you have to get certain neighbors used to the fact that you want to keep chickens. Silkies will also lay nice eggs, but not very many. And if you are just starting off, avoid getting a cockerel, ask the neighbors first!!! Remember that Silkies are nice to eat, too, but they have black skin.

Also remember that laying chickens and meat chickens are not quite the same thing. Laying chickens need special food if you want eggs all year round and you have to research which chickens are best and are also available where you live.

The same goes for meat chickens. Research for a good race available in your area and also research how to raise them for slaughter fast and if you are not fussed about time, then let them range free and slaughter them when they have the desired weight which might be up to 6 months.

Tip: If you want really soft and tasty chicken meat, take the chickens to be slaughtered into a room with no sunlight, just a bit of light for a week and give them bread soaked in milk as much as they want to eat.

Always lock your fowl in overnight, because even if you think that there are no foxes around, there will be!

Quails

Quails are like very, very small chickens. They lay a goodly number of very small, but very tasty eggs and people love them at parties. The shell is a bit harder than the one of chicken eggs, so you have to crack them with a bit more force.

Quails are totally easy to slaughter and pluck and the meat of one quail is probably sufficient for one person/meal and it tastes delicious.

Our quails in their cages, two females in the top cage and a pair in the bottom cage:

Quails are very messy birds, just to have it mentioned.

Geese

I had ducks in the past and I don't recommend them for an urban environment. They are just too dirty usually. I also don't recommend turkeys, because they are very noisy animals.

Geese on the other hand can be kept in quite a small place and they will guard your place well. At the moment we have 3 geese and the people of the village we live in come up especially to see them. Our geese are not vicious normally, but won't take any nonsense from anybody. Be aware that an angry gander can be a dangerous animal if provoked, but personally I've never seen any attacking. But the possibility is there.

Our geese:

The reason why we keep geese is that they are our only source of animal fat which in bad times might be important.

Mini-pigs, small goats, small sheep

If you can find the mini-version of those animals and you have a little space, well, go ahead and keep a few, but in an urban environment it is very difficult to keep on top of all the poo, so you have to get creative on how to dispose of it!

Personally, I can slaughter quails, chickens, rabbits, ducks and geese, but pigs, goats and sheep are too heavy for me, so I would really recommend to find out if there is a slaughterhouse or a travelling slaughterman available in your area BEFORE you buy bigger animals.

I've never tanned a pig skin, but of course, it is possible. I've done goat skins and I've also shorn my sheep to be able to spin the wool, but I must admit that there is a lot of heavy work involved, the wet skins are big and heavy, the sheep wool needs washing and sorting, also very heavy work to do by hand.

I hope you like this honest account of what it's really like to keep animals on any homestead. I find that most websites and YouTube videos only cover the "romantic" part of keeping animals, but if you want to eat meat, then this "romantic" attitude is really totally unsuitable.

When animals are born, you might be up all night, when they get sick, you might be up for days, sometimes they die without apparent reason and finally you have to sacrifice them. You need to know how to use a knife or an air pistol and if I'm totally honest about it, I don't want to keep meat animals anymore. I have found other homesteaders that have them and I can buy from them.

Bees

We had bees on our big homestead, but now we live in an urban environment and well, I don't recommend keeping bees in a city, town or village unless you already are a very experienced bee-keeper.

You will be responsible if a kid gets stung and with parents so hysterical these days, the hospital bill might crush you.

I have found out that there is a bee-keeper in the village here and I think I'll contact him to offer voluntary work which is always a good idea to help, learn and get a bit of honey for free.

Crayfish

Depending on how much space you have in your urban environment, maybe Aquaponics is possible, but we simply haven't got enough space. So we bought a couple of gourmet or king crayfish from Germany. They arrived alive and well and we slowly put the pair into their big clear plastic tub. We had prepared the tub with sand and stones and other things for them to hide, but ours like to live under their respective rocks and only come out at night. There were times when I didn't know whether they were dead or alive.

But they live and we'll have to wait until they'll be 3 years old until they reproduce which gives us another 2 years to prepare for their offspring.

Freshwater Crayfish are fairly easy to keep if one has a water filter/aerator. We feed them mostly peas, but they eat everything, so I also give them a few bits of carrots, a few crushed eggshells and everything else that sinks to the bottom of the container. Crayfish don't come up to the surface to eat. I tried fish food flakes and they ate the ones that got down to the bottom and the rest floated into the filter, so we had to clean it out again. Peas and carrots seem to fit the bill.

To make use of the aquarium even more efficiently, I also bought a bit of duckweed and that floats on top and keeps the water clean. Plus one can eat it, it tastes like lettuce and has up to 40% protein. Yes! Maybe I'll get a duckweed farm going, too!

I hope this blog will give you a quick introduction and an insight to my experience with animals on a homestead or in an urban environment, but I really urge you to do your research especially on YouTube!

And for the preppers out, here a little time scale:

Eat sprouts and microgreens within a week
Eat vegetables, legumes and grains within a year
Eat meat within 3 years
Eat fruit and nuts within 3+ years

I'm afraid that is the reality if you want to be self-sufficient with your own food.

Fishing and hunting may be an option in other parts of the world, but not in Europe where just about everything is forbidden or licensed and taxed.

But the Spanish men have a good saying:

Madrid (seat of government) is far away, at home my wife rules and I do what I want. Ha, ha! Me, too! :)

Love to all!

@antje