Cheapest way to raise meat to eat

[Beekissed]

I believe the cheapest way is to stack species, ala Salatin. If you don't have much pasture, then small herd animals are the way to go.

Could you explain what this means, I have never heard of it before?

Joel Salatin has sort of been a big starter in this type of farming where you rotate several different species on the same pasture with each species gleaning nutrients and adding to the soil health.

He puts cattle on a pasture for a day, puts them on new pasture the next. Three days later he puts broiler chickens in tractors or even his larger setup of laying hens on the first day's pasture and lets them glean bugs, greens, and fly eggs from the manure of the cattle. They disperse the manure into the soils and keep the parasites down. The birds and rabbits follow the herbivores and they just cycle like that all spring, summer and fall.

He used to tractor rabbits over the pasture as well and may still do so, but he now keeps rabbits suspended over his winter hen houses~picture large hoop houses~ and also runs hogs under the rabbits along with the hens. Saves space, the chickens and hogs keep the deep litter turned and they all benefit from dropped foods and the heat generated by the multiple species in the houses.

In the spring the hogs are moved to his barns to turn up the bedding there and the hens are moved out on pasture, rabbits moved to another hoop house and tomatoes are grown in the soil that has been enriched by the multiple species manure and the bedding. Sort of active composting and not having to haul it anywhere....saves space and time and lets the animals do the work. Tomatoes grown early in this green house atmosphere and sold by his family...extra income. Think about how many things were grown, fed, lived and provided extra food and income from one hoop house each winter!

This can all work very well on small acreage and on a smaller scale to provide for a family's needs. After the initial startup cost of the hoop house and materials for tractors, the rest is gravy.

Read the books and get some great ideas.

 

[FarmerChick]

with most people having full time jobs who has time to do all this


farming is hard work lol not easy gravy

 

[savingdogs]

I'm glad to see so much interest in this thread and there are some great ideas here.

Pigs? When I've been around them they seemed to really smell is my only problem with them. Perhaps there is a less smelly way to deal with them?

Rabbits sound really interesting because I already know how to care for them, we have had rabbits before. Don't you have to bring them all their food though? I don't see how you come out ahead with them. Mine burrowed out of a very sturdy concrete wall fence, I don't know how I'd contain them other than hutches and then you are bringing them all their food.....

Hunting is a great suggestion but my hubby doesn't really do that. I'll have to suggest he take up the hobby.

This multiple use farming is very interesting to me as we are already doing that to some extent. We have found the poultry like the goat area and instead of things seeming dirtier in there, it seems cleaner with all their scratching the manure and dropped hay into the earth.
I am thinking about just raising more meat chickens too and using a tractor, sounds like you guys are doing that better than I thought it could be done.

 

[freemotion]

You can tractor your rabbits, but you need a bottom to the tractor so the grass can poke through but the rabbits can't burrow out. This can be done on a smaller scale...I've seen pictures online, smallish boxy structures that could even be dragged around a suburban backyard.

My pigs do not smell. I do have a large area that they have plowed up. No smell whatsoever. Yet. I don't feed commercial feed other than whole corn at this time, and they barely eat that. So far they have been very low cost....except for fencing, but that will be a lifetime investment. Shoulda done it right the first time. Live and learn! Even so, it looks like pork will be mighty cheap and mighty good here this winter!

 

[savingdogs]

I love pork. Perhaps when I smelled the stinky pigs they were not cleaning up after them properly.

 

[FarmerChick]

my hogs stink to high heaven
and that ain't no lie of course I have over 50 of them right now

 

[eggs4sale]

If you have a cattleman near you, you can ask him to notify you of any injured or accidentally killed cattle he may want to sell.

We buy our Brangus steers from a cattleman that sells across the country. He can't sell a lame steer, though, or a dead one for that matter. We bought a young steer (steerling?) that had it's leg permanently injured by it's mommie dearest rolling on it. We've received calls asking if we want to buy a fully-grown steer or bull or heifer that has broken a shoulder bone, leg bone, etc. They aren't cheap, but they're a lot cheaper than paying for a year's worth of feed. And HE delivers them to the butcher, saving us the need to find a trailer. Brangus cost more than a lot of other breeds, so maybe you can get a really good deal. You just need the freezer space! (That reminds me of that I Love Lucy episode.)

 

[eggs4sale]

my hogs stink to high heaven
and that ain't no lie of course I have over 50 of them right now

I've got 2 and they stink to high-heaven, too!

 

[FarmerChick]

my hogs stink to high heaven
and that ain't no lie of course I have over 50 of them right now

I've got 2 and they stink to high-heaven, too!

We need to get a smiley face pinching his nose closed!

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

my hogs stink to high heaven
and that ain't no lie of course I have over 50 of them right now

I've got 2 and they stink to high-heaven, too!

We need to get a smiley face pinching his nose closed!

i hear that! mine are out there stinkin' it up also....pigz.. grrrr.....