Prepping: Self-Sufficiency is THE Ultimate Prepper Goal
Hi everyone! I pray you all have been well! I am so sorry I haven't been on here much here lately! I have had a LOT going on. Needless to say, things have finally begun to slow down a bit for me so hopefully I can make regular posts once again. Thank you all for being patient with me!
Today I want to talk with you about my live chat topic last night: Animals to Consider for Self-Sufficiency.
Sell-Sufficiency is my ultimate prepper goal. I don't want to have to depend on anyone but God for our needs. There are a great many aspects to meeting that goal. One of those aspects is providing a sustainable food source.
When considering WHICH animals to acquire, one must consider WHERE these animals will be kept. Every animal has varying spacial needs depending on the size, activity, etc.
A rabbit, for instance, does not need as much space to roam, play, eat, bed down, etc. as a cow or a horse.
One must also consider on this road to self-sufficiency that each animal will have various dietary needs. Do you have enough room to grow what crops are needed for your animals' feed and bedding?
If you intend to move to another location and have a wish list of animals you want to acquire then you must consider the above-mentioned points while location hunting.
Another thing to consider are which animals provide the most for the least amount of effort to care for them.
Chickens do not require as much feed as a cow and provide eggs, meat, the shells can be dried and used for supplementing the garden and more. Cow require much more space and feed while providing the possibility for meat, milk, cheese, cream, sour cream, yogurt,and the fat can be used for candles or making soap. Horses need a great deal of space and feed while providing transportation and the possibility of labor such as pulling a plow.
The point I am trying to make is do your research on each animal with all of these considerations in mind.
If you found this useful, please let me know! I love hearing from You! In addition, I have live chats Thursdays over on You Tube at 8:00 p.m. Central/ 9:00 p.m. EST. Please join us! Everyone is welcome! ;)
Don't discount quails! Sharing to twitter!
I love our quail. Thank goodness my sons can process them, I cant bring myself to do it. They're just too sweet!
Oh I don't! We intend to raise them! ;)
Awesome!
the sasquatch needs lots of room to play hide and seek tho...
Lol!
I may be able to provide some insight to this topic. We have cattle, chickens, pigs, turkey, quail, ducks, and rabbits. We have also had sheep, goats, pheasant, and a horse. The trick is to have a variety of livestock that can provide different things throughtout the year. And if one animal fails, or gets eaten by predators, then you have the others to fall back on.
Cattle eat alot. They graze almost non-stop, so using rotational grazing methods is a must (unless you have a few thousand acres or own the feed store Lol). They are difficult to butcher on your own, but provide a whole lot of meat all at once, whereas something like poultry or rabbits are easy to process as needed (no deep freeze required). Turkeys are a nice trade off for size and grazing needed, but you have to get some that are nice or you will spend alot of time running from them! Ours are so sweet but our friends have turkeys that run you down.
For me, I'd say rabbits and chickens are the best because their meat is lean, rabbit droppings can be used right away in the garden, chickens can help till the garden and add nutrients, both are easy to process as needed, and they both can graze so you wont need large amounts of feed or grass all at once. Just my 2 cents. Im sure there's more, but it's still early and I havent had my hot tea yet....(btw, the mini-horse was a bad idea for us. Beautiful little guy went down to the pond for a drink and a gator got him. So environment is definitely a consideration when choosing animals).
Oh wow! Great input! Yes, environment is definitely something to consider! I wish I owned the feed store. Lol! Would make everything much simpler! Thanks do much for the insight!
We've had quite a few different animals over the years - pigs, goats, turkeys...
Now only chickens, ducks, geese - and two puppies coming next week.
Next on our list at the moment are alpacas
Awesome!
Rabbits will help with your garden as well as their manure is cold and can be used right away.
So true! Right now we have cattle out here. We are getting chickens in the next couple of months then we will likely raise some quail. Little by little. Lol! Maybe rabbits will be in our future as well!