Just out of curiosity.....

[mlynd]

Ya that is what I was thinking :/ we had a mild winter here this pass one so any other yr I have to think of winter feed and I'm trying to think of how to feed without buying to much( cause I'm dont really know what is in feed ) so I have to at lest think of feeding rabbits ,goats, chickens and maybe a pig........ humm things to think of

 

[BarredBuff]

I think in terms of feeding a limited number of animals on a small homestead, we need to think outside of the silo. Plus embracing waste not, want not.

Chickens, ducks, and turkeys would have to be free ranged. What you do feed them, feed it after a day outside. So that you fill the empty spaces left not their entire stomach. Hungry birds forage better. Utilize table scraps, and rotting fruit, and moldy foods. They will pick out what they. Allow them to forage your orchard to use the rotting or faulty fruits, not to mention any pests present. Plus any rotting garden produce that the goats or rabbits can't use.

Rabbits could be fed mainly greens except during pregnancy and lactation then you'd have to think of something high protein to feed them. Also tree suckers from fruit trees, they eat the bark. Plus allows them to keep their teeth trimmed down by the wood underneath. Dandelions are also good for rabbits, as well as clover. Maybe some old fruit with the bad cut out. You can sprout grains for them as well.

Goats would be pastured Fall, Summer, and Spring. With some supplemental food, which could be ANY root crop, squash, or extra sweet corn. Plus extra apples or pears from the orchard. The suckers from those trees, weeds from the garden. Maybe even let them in the garden in the fall to clean up. You can feed corn stalks, and I'm sure others things as well.

Something I am considering doing for all of our animals, is to buy the corn and oats in bulk. I feed fermented grains to the chickens and ducks, to my understanding rabbits can be fed oats with hay supplementation plus greens, then goats and cattle can be fed fermented grains as well. So I am going to be adding grain bins to our shed.

 

[hqueen13]

Acres? As many as we can afford!
We could make it work on smaller acreage I am sure, but I want enough room that I don't feel too close to my neighbors.

 

[BarredBuff]

I want isolation

 

[Jared77]

Couple of things I think that are being missed here.

One other thing to consider are the land rotations so the land has time to recooperate and be able to maintain what you've turned out to pasture on it. That's added land that you have to provide or supplimenting your animals to meet their dietary needs.

Instead of free ranging them, why not tractor your smaller animals? This still puts them on fresh ground as often as your moving the tractor, and you can concentrate their stool so you could improve the quality of the grass on a pasture that has been well grazed and is now resting to recooperate. Move the tractor around the pasture daily so the birds get fresh ground, will scratch and break up whatever stool that the larger animals (cow, sheep, goat) left helping break it down faster as well as hunt for insects and add their own stool to the mix. Both rabbit and poultry stool are classified as cool compost so why not concentrate it and put it to use? And at certain points I would free range them with electric poultry netting. So when the fruit falls from your orchard or your fruit bushes and you get yellow jackets, wasps, etc, on the ground turn the fowl army loose on them. When the garden is done before you turn it under in the fall let them go wild on whatever plants and immature veggies/fruit you have left. They'll gladly mow it down for you. Or will clean up a cover crop in no time.

Or you could build ajoining runs and a single coop with a door to each run off that single coop. 1 year the L side run is a garden and the R side is a poultry run. Year 2 you switch and the L side is a poultry run and the R side run is a garden. This way your taking advantage of the newly enriched ground. Year 3 you switch again and its back to the year 1 set up. That way each year your garden gets a break from being planted and is replenished with nutrients for a whole year by your chickens. Id do a set up like that with my breeding flock and tractor the young birds that I'm raising either for freezer camp or to replace the aging layers that I have in my breeding flock. That way everybody is safe and your taking advantage of everything they can offer you. And when you clean out the coop its a VERY short toss to use as mulch in the garden.

Id put my breeding rabbits over my compost pile so their waste goes directly into the pile. No need to haul it, it just falls down and is broken down. The rabbits I'm raising go in tractors to grow to a slaughtering size or to be kept as replacement breeders. Again anything to cut down on the amount of food out of my pocket and taking advantage of what's available.