Have you ever thought about raising chickens in your backyard? If you live in an area where backyard chickens are allowed, you should seriously consider it. You get fresh eggs, chicken meat, free fertilizer, pest control, weed control, and more. However, you can't just dump a bunch of chickens in your yard and throw them scraps every now and … [Read more...]
15 Ways To Keep Your Chickens Cool In Hot Weather
Chickens are hardy birds and can adapt to most common weather fluctuations, with the exception of heat. Hot temperatures can kill an entire flock just as quickly as any predator. Sudden jumps in temperature are far more dangerous to chickens than a seasonal or gradual temperature increase. Unlike humans and likely many breeds of livestock on … [Read more...]
5 Myths About Goats
There are many, many benefits of raising goats. The most obvious benefits are that they produce milk and meat, which is delicious. But you can also use the milk to make soap, you can use their dung as fuel, they'll eat all your food scraps, they'll eat all your weeds, they produce manure for your garden, they're fairly easy to train and deal with, … [Read more...]
How to Clip Your Chickens’ Wings
If you were stuck in one little backyard for most of your life, you'd probably get pretty bored. You might think, What's on the other side of that fence? Maybe some fresh juicy bugs! Well, you wouldn't think that last part, but you see what I'm getting at. Chickens get bored, too, and they very curious. So if your fence is too low (about six feet … [Read more...]
6 Things Every Chicken Needs
If you're getting chickens for the first time, please don't dive in too fast. Take some time to learn what chickens need to be healthy and happy; because if you don't take good care of them, they won't lay many eggs, they could get sick, and they'll be miserable. In this video, Doug from Off Grid With Doug & Stacy lists six things every chicken … [Read more...]
3 Best Birds To Have On Your Homestead When The SHTF
Everybody knows that after the SHTF, you want to be as self-sufficient as possible. Not everybody knows how important birds are for this. Just think about it: birds provide you with eggs, meat, and fertilizer every single day. It's hard to overestimate how great that is. So the question is, what kind of birds should you get? Ducks, geese, … [Read more...]
6 Things You Need to Get Started with Sheep
There are many great reasons to raise sheep on your homestead. For starters, sheep wool is wonderful. It's nice and warm and very valuable. Sheep milk is super nutritious with far more calcium and vitamins than cow milk. And if you decide to breed your sheep, you can make a lot of money from the offspring. The downside of sheep is that they … [Read more...]
3 Animals Every New Homestead Needs
When people talk about homestead animals, they're usually referring to cows, goats, chickens, and other livestock. But in this video from Becky's Homestead, she talks about other types of animals that every homestead should have. For example, cats are great to have around because they keep mice and rats away. Also, livestock feed tends to … [Read more...]
10 Common Livestock Mistakes to Avoid
On a homestead, there is no time more exciting than when livestock first arrives. When animals begin to fill the barn, pens, and hutches, it makes newbie homesteaders feel like they have finally arrived. Unfortunately, a well-crafted plan to grow and raise your own groceries can rapidly turn into an epic failure if you make one of many common … [Read more...]
20 Creative Ways to Cut the Cost of Chicken Feed
If you have a dozen chickens and you're feeding them organic, non-GMO commercial grains, you're going to spend well over $100 a month just on chicken feed. But as Justin Rhodes says in this video, we've only had grain for chickens for about a century, and chickens have been around for thousands of years. This is very good news because it means … [Read more...]
10 Predators to Beware Of On Your Homestead
Homesteading life is filled with lots of fulfilling work, dirty jobs, great joys, and sometimes, tragic sorrow. The one sure way for a homestead to fail, and fail quickly, is to allow a predator problem to go unchecked. When wild animals are not taught farm avoidance, it will result in not only heartache, but wasted money, and a lot less food to … [Read more...]
6 Ways to Protect Your Livestock from Predators
Whether you keep poultry, cows, sheep, goats or other types of livestock, there are predators that will try to make a meal out of your animals, and there are common principles and methods you can use to protect your livestock from said predators. Here are a few of the most effective ones. The first three items on our list are types of fences. … [Read more...]
9 Most Popular Animals Among Homesteaders
If you're a new homesteader or thinking of starting a homestead, you've probably been wondering which animals you should get first. There's no need to jump in too quickly. Investing in animals for your homestead is a big commitment. It's important to take plenty of time to consider your options so you can do what's best for you and your family. … [Read more...]
8 Best Dog Breeds for Homesteaders
You’ve outfitted your homestead with a garden, stockpiles of food, fortified windows, and the ultimate backyard BBQ area. Your kingdom is almost complete! There is only one thing missing: your four-legged friend! A house isn’t a home without companionship, especially when you have kids around. When it comes to selecting a pup that is going to be … [Read more...]
8 Tips for Raising Happy, Healthy Ducks
If you’re considering getting birds for meat or eggs, ducks may be an excellent choice for your homestead, farm or backyard operation. They are hardy, relatively disease free, easy to care for, reliable egg producers, and are exceptional foragers, eating many garden pests such as slugs, snails, grubs, and a wide variety of plants (including many … [Read more...]
10 Things You Need for a Basic Chicken Coop
If you've been dreaming of eating freshly gathered eggs in the morning, you may be considering building a chicken coop in your backyard or on your homestead. Designs and plans can vary widely for chicken coops, depending on what building materials you have on hand and how many chickens you want to raise. However, there are some basics every good … [Read more...]
Butchering a Year’s Worth of Chickens (In One Morning)
I've known many people who talk about how great it would be to raise their own chickens for meat, but most of them have never actually butchered a chicken, and a few of them would probably be too squeamish to handle it. Butchering chickens is not exactly fun. It's messy and brutal, but necessary. If you're interested in raising chickens for … [Read more...]
