Blog

– livestock

When someone begins trying to support himself on a subsistence farm, his first impulse is to acquire livestock.

I believe that is a mistake. Because as soon as you get the animal home you are immediately faced with the multiple problems of feed, feed storage, shelter, and control (that is, fences), all of which are mighty hard to come by when you’re starting from scratch.

If I had it to do over I would put all my efforts into gardening until I was providing myself with a year-round supply of vegetables, grains, and legumes.

After you’ve gotten this far you might decide that you don’t need as much animal protein as you thought.

When you are ready for livestock you might start something like bantam chickens. They provide most of their own food during the summer. They require a small shelter. They don’t have to be fenced. They produce both eggs and meat and you don’t have the problem of preserving the meat without utilities because you eat it all in one sitting.

Don’t go to the large animals (goat, cow, horse) until you have summer and winter pasture and only have to buy hay for bad weather. Buying grain for these animals is bad enough but when you have to buy enough hay to feed all winter the hardship is too great.