SELF SUFFICIENT HOMESTEAD - What LIVESTOCK And HOW MANY of Each

[@PeterSedesse]

rabbits not cows :) 2 bucks and 6 does and 1 rooster and 8 hens are easily enough to feed a family of 4. Can pretty easily get you 16 rabbits, 100eggs and 50 chickens a month. Buy a lamb every 4 months and slaughter at 8 months ( so always have two on farm). That is a ton of protein.

[@RayGalactic]

Thank you!

[@dapooramericanhomesteadfar7192]

I am city guy my whole life. I have been homestead for 3 years. I don't recommend any animals until you are comfortable in killing them. I did start off with chickens and I couldn't kill it because I grew attached to them. I gave them away and just grow crop. I only eat what I can kill. So basically my diet is fish and vegetables.

[@dapooramericanhomesteadfar7192]

@@wayneben7195 it's not stupid and I am not even white. Humans have a genetic traits of compassion. Some of us couldn't cross that traits.

[@nukethenarrative5873]

@@wayneben7195 still managed to enslave da' brothers...

[@zechariahhambone3841]

Trade your chickens with someone else's chickens and kill them before you get attached.

[@bennettfender1546]

DaPoorAmerican Homestead Farming you could always just raise them for eggs.

[@theoriginallele_]

@@wayneben7195 I'm a fully black female and my parents grew up on the farm lifestyle and I myself grow attached to animals very easily. It's easy to judge someone if you haven't been in their shoes. It's unbelievably ignorant of you to make this about race. I'm disgusted by you, you're truly pathetic

[@babybluehashyo]

If you sprout your grains you can quadruple the amound of feed you have which will not only be more nutritious for your animals but it will fill them up faster. This plus raising worms and snails for your birds could supplement over 60% of your food costs for all your animals if you dont have enough land to raise them just on pasture

[@CaptainMattsWorms]

I have never thought of raising worms as feed for birds. : / I raise millions of worms for fertilizer for my garden and to teach others how to care for them :)

[@FoxtrotYouniform]

@@CaptainMattsWorms name checks out

[@havenheritagefarm4525]

With chickens you need to think outside the box as far as feed. Chickens can eat left over human food. They also thrive on clabbered milk. They are omnivores like pigs. They don't necessarily need grain. We have 200 free range chickens. We do Not feed them. They scratch up bugs and clean up cow manure. We have beautiful healthy chickens. We have a herd of cows to support our large flock of chickens. Great Video, lots of great info.!

[@infiniteadam7352]

Do you give them meat scraps also? I could see giving them vegetables but wasnt sure about other scraps.

[@theconstitutionalconservative1]

Notice if you have a different view he won't like it or comment. That's a liberal for ya.

[@rochelledavis3423]

We took your advice and got our first cow and absolutely have no regrets. Way easier than the goats. Thank you.

[@xanmontes8715]

Reading this video's comments give me hope for Humanity as a whole. You all are the people that will keep humanity flourishing through the worst the Universe can throw at us.

[@Peac249]

i feed my chickens with rice and left overs like fish head, vegetables, corn. I never bye ready made feeds and the chickens are perfectly fine.

[@chariseblodgett1862]

I just want to say thank you. We are a family of 6, soon to be 7 as well, our kids are similar ages. It has been so helpful to see how you all do things because sometimes people don't get what life is like with 4 (almost 5) young children. We have been able to work on our property and slowly add animals. We are up to 2 puppies, 12 chickens and 3 turkeys with hopes to add pigs this summer. Thanks again for your videos!

[@mdguthro]

Don't eat the puppies

[@SoldierOfGodKJV]

Michael, why would you say that?

[@amansingh6936]

@@mdguthro hhhhopppplvhhgjiooppkgfr

[@phoenixcolt2528]

Go with feeder pigs, they will be much easier to handle and deal with than raising a boar and sow, then once you get experience on how to handle pigs, then you can try breeding and raising your own if you choose!

[@Cookingevie]

Thank you for answering another of my questions!!!

[@thedragonslay3r]

We live next to a large flock of hair sheep. The shepherd is a prepper. He grows his own foods and loves to help others get started. We plan on chickens to get our complete supply of eggs from them. And next door to him on either side are goat farmers (one with normal-sized goats, and one with pygmy goats). We are in a good area for this kind of thing.

[@johnnyblaze2257]

I loveee goats!! 🍽

[@josephhowell6186]

Hi we are joe and angie and we looking for land to start our prepping homestead any advice and help is welcome and appreciated

[@saureco]

@@josephhowell6186 What state are you in or looking to be in?

[@scottdegenaer6322]

Almost watched the whole Video. You left out an important factor (well 2) Your geographical location/environment and amount of land required to range your livestock. For example in my part of west Texas, it takes almost 3 acres of land to graze/feed one cow because we are semi-arid. So you will have to take into consideration the size of your property and or what you have access too for grazing of herbivores. I have a little over one acre in a really small rural town. I have 40 chickens, sell eggs so they pretty much feed themselves as for purchasing feed, but I also free range them as well. Got room for a few goats, been looking into that for couple of yrs now but want to get a good breed for dairy. Maybe 2 nanny and a billy so I can put meat in the freezer as well.

[@angelcastro3129]

good info guys, thanks. Oh Mutton is actually old sheep meat, better put, under a year old its called Lamb, at a year old + is a hogget, and finally adult/mature sheep meat is Mutton. Happy Easter.

[@dunestaniszewski2300]

Yes, I’ve been wanting a video like this for SO long!

[@jethrohughes2381]

Man! your Living in what so called the "Fullest" ,When i was a kid I really wanted to deal with nature and create my own food, Now I'm in 2nd year college , I started A Garden at my backyard, but after This , i will start to have my own Land and Do the same as you, Thanks For your video! Helps me a lot

[@HiltsyAdventure]

It would be hard to be completely self-sufficient, even the homesteaders of yesteryear traded and bought goods.

[@Homesteadyshow]

Very very true

[@dapooramericanhomesteadfar7192]

The most realistic comments on homestead.

[@johnnshamu5624]

you trade against what you have that is good enough.

[@adaraperry9996]

What my partner and i planning on doing is butchering for trading goods rather than money so like butcher a cow, we might ask for the hide or if they have something of use for us and not for them. We dpnt want money we want to trade as much as possible

[@dapooramericanhomesteadfar7192]

@@adaraperry9996 labor trading for good is the best form of bartering that I have ever seen. It's also the most realistic one. I have bartering 20 kilograms of daikon for helping wash 200 kilograms of daikon. It's a 10 percent cut. The hard thing about bartering is the scale system of value. That's why money is so popular for centuries. It's easier to get a fair value with money as a scale system.

[@2shay337]

My friend started raising goats: Alpine, Lamancha, and pair of Nubians. Later over the years she found that raising Nigerian dwarfs for meat, and Toggenburgs for milk. The fat content of the Toggenburgs was higest for making dairy foods. The dwarfs produce 2-3 qtrs. of milk and the Toggens 3-4 qtrs. a day. Each breeds would kid most years twins/triplets. And all the males would be used for meat...since a mature male of the N. dwarfs could grow to 30-40 lbs. and as her Buck and does aged out she would hold out one good male Buck from each breed and does for next years stock. But often would take her young, best Bucks and trade with a neighbor that had Bucks of different gene pools, and if he didn't have one to trade at the time, she would sell or trade her Bucks to bring her does to be bred by his Buck and if he didn't keep her young bucks she would give him offspring of next years kids. The dwarfs and Toggenburgs being smaller breeds were lower feeding to maintain.

[@williamfreeman9995]

Thanks!

[@MOOSEDOWNUNDER]

Start off with 12 chooks, 6 ducks (if you have a pond) Peking duck is best, load a dam or large pond with trout if possible, 4 pigs Hampshire pigs are awesome tasting, 2 dairy cows. Remember the commitment it takes, dairy cows need milking twice a day, you never get the day off people. Remember that.

[@thegreatcornholio7255]

Watching this, because my wife and I have been slowly building toward this. For the past 6 years I think, we started w/ chickens then rabbits, and now have both for learning about animals. Now we want to go bigger and move from our 1 acre to much more land, and include goats, ducks, sheep. We'll be somewhere between option 1 and 2 you cited. Probably not "self sustaining", but we'd like to focus on learning about it by trying it with a small set of our animals, just so we'd have the basic know-how if it really ever became a necessity. It's easy to do with rabbits, I can say that. The first time, we had a few babies that were ready to be weaned, and they fell in our yard, and for the life of us we couldn't catch them. My wife said I looked like Mr McGee running around with a fishing net trying. Two grew to butchering size just eating our yard.The other disappeared. Now we purposefully do it with one or two rabbits from the litters we get, and they grow fine. Anyhow, thanks for the video.

[@user-gc7pv7ok9x]

You mentioned land size, can i ask how large is your new land? We just bought a land and it's a little over 1 acre and we are thinking of starting to raise animals like sheep, horse, cow etc However i'm not sure what's a good land size to go for Do you have any advice about this?

[@panpiper]

I would think that if you are doing holistic planned grazing on paddocks, and rotating several species through the same paddocks, you might well have enough manure in your paddock to breed sufficient grubs to adequately feed a decent number of chickens, without using external feed. It would really depend on the size of the herds running through the paddocks and the quantity of chickens. Wintering of course might complicate that, but again a sufficiently large compost heap can generate a lot of chicken forage as well, during winter.

[@ciphercode2298]

Chicken and rabbits for meat. If milk,cheese,butter are a necessity I'd stick with a few of the smaller breeds of goats. There are miniature breeds of dairy cows too that eat alot less than their full size counter parts,but goats are easy to come by and require less space and resources. Smaller breeds of pigs are still great for meat too and certainly not picky about their diet. Rabbit and chicken manure are great for gardens too.

[@tjsfarmandfamily]

Rabbits are probably the easiest and they are very portable. New Zealand and Californian are the meats breeds that you want.

[@bt1vn]

A lot of people will also add flemish giants in to cross with but the bone to meat ratio is a bit high and the feed rate to meat is a bit high to have them as pure bred for meat, the rex and dutch rabbits were also used frequently, rex has the benefit of an amazingly soft velvet like coat if you kept the pelts, but make sure its standard rex not mini rex and dutch are a bit smaller than cali and nzw rabbits but arent too far behind in size. There are lots more than just the californian and new zealand whites but by far are the most popular. My comment wasnt to take anything away from yours, just anyone else reading might learn a little

[@brianthesnail3815]

Rabbit protein is not a sustainable food source. Humans cannot live long term on rabbit meat. It doesnt nutritionally support a human being.

[@tamdonovan244]

Yes New Zealand has great lines in sheep and rabbits

[@marygoat8651]

Great video. I think my #1 choice for meat production would be rabbits. They grow more slowly, but they can be totally raised on grass, weeds and greens from the garden. I have done it several times just to assure myself.

[@streetfighteralpha9891]

Do they taste good?

[@hihey304]

@@streetfighteralpha9891 just like chicken, white meat & very tender

[@RockinRack]

Not enough fat to live off

[@gingerreid8569]

We have 9 hens and 4 roosters, lots of eggs and they are dual purpose (Australorp) for eggs and meat...have 2 does and 1 active buck and 1 young buck...2 gilt pigs...should be ready for harvest this December and we just added 1 bred meat cow... and we were lucky to have two ponds on our homestead...bass and catfish... there are just two of us...so we think we have more than we will need but with enough freezers...we can sell and barter extra with neighbors for things they have that we don't and vice versa...clean and healthy food and living

[@thaisplouvier5403]

5:00 focus first on grass-fed animals : sheeps & goats For 1 big family 5:45 2-4 ewes, 1 ram Doesn't recommand dual purpose sheep, rather hair sheep (very low maintenance) 7:30 goat : nubian goat produces a gallon of milk a day (4L). weeds > grass 2 does, different lines, 1 buck Sheep cannot have copper 11:00 10-20 chickens 12:00 ducks > chickens. Produce more eggs, more resistant to difficult weather... Both can live together

[@AnimalWonders-t7x]

"Amazing! I learned so much from this video. Thank you! 💡"

[@deblawson1575]

My hens get a little scratch daily and ALL the scraps off our table also they get their own eggs once or twice a month, I do live in a mild climate. We have aprox 2 weeks a year of snow/freezing temps, the rest of the "winter" we have rain.

[@Mel-qr5ob]

Actually in NZ the weather is so variable you can get everything from multiple months of drought, to major floods which can drown your stock. This year we had a 2 month drought in Waikato, everyone depleted their winter reserves of hay in order to feed their stock.

[@Steve-ps6qw]

What about rabbits? They are one of the best sources of protein and require so little compared to goats, sheep and cattle.

[@bradsimpson8724]

Rabbit crap is also a KILLER good garden fertilizer that doesn't need to be aged/composted to nearly the same extent as other livestock, and if you're crafty or know someone who is, rabbit skins can be turned into all kinds of stuff and are easier to work with than the hides of larger animals.

[@ladyhawk6999]

One thing city people on these McFarmsteads soon come to realize is this is work, work you cannot sherk ! You feed , water , you clean stalls, tend to health issues no matter the weather , no matter how YOU feel! It's a great life but a lot of work , it keeps you young!

[@jaredcolahan759]

I was going to wait until I seen the second video, but, someone beet me to it. Yes rabbits. research has proven that rabbit is the most profitable by way of meat production. every 4 pounds of food will produce 1 pound of meat. and one breeding pair can produce 360 pounds of meat annually. this is far more thane any of the others mentioned. Side note it's easier to raise either goats or sheep and not both. remember the does produce, the breeding males don't. they are only needed temporary. A.I. might be more beneficial. But this is an excellent video.

[@streetfighteralpha9891]

Maybe buy 3 or 4 females to start and learn. Have them A.I. and maybe keep a ram if they have a good one.

[@cyrilthomazeau6292]

A miracle topic and Video!! Forever Thank you! #AskHomesteady, Could you do a video on how the homestead generates feed, grass and the nutrient that the livestock will require throughout the year, to be as self-sufficient as possible?

[@Homesteadyshow]

You gonna go and make it hard on me Cyril! See what I can find ;)

[@4philipp]

That should be fairly easy to calculate. Let’s take your chicken feed. If you use 1 ton of feed (1000 kg/2000LB), divide it into its ingredients. Let’s say equal parts of corn, oats and barley. Roughly 670 pounds of each. Now take into consideration a 80% germination rate, seed stock for next years planting, some losses due to wildlife...rounding it up to 1340 pounds of each at harvest. Now you can google how many acres are needed to grow 1340 pounds of each of those ingredients. This is one problem if feedlot operations. You May only need 5 acres to raise 100k chickens, but the 100 acres (guessing here) needed to grow their feed and responsibly spread their manure is often overlooked. A traditional family homestead used to be 5-10 acres, of which 1/3 or more was a wood lot. But those people didn’t eat as much meat as we do today either

[@cyrilthomazeau6292]

@@Homesteadyshow Im soo sorry! ^^ It's because Ive never seen a homesteader talk about it, was very curious to hear your way of approaching it. Greetings from London, England! :) I dream of a homesteady life every day but sadly atm Im a recently-married 28yo man starting family life in a skyrise flat.

[@4philipp]

Cyril Thomazeau look on KZbin for “tales from the green valley” - its a 12 part series from bbc Scotland about medival farming. They have several editions to represent different times in history. They are absolutely awesome to watch.

[@RefinedLook]

wow amazing video...this is what we are looking into: MODERN SELF SUFFICIENCY!!!! Thanks so much...we are looking into developing a homestead and your videos are soooooo helpful ..watch out we'll be following you hahehe

[@Rdwrer]

These videos are so feel good whilst very informative :) thank you for your contribution to the KZbins!

[@ritamccartt-kordon283]

We spent hours rubbing corn off the cobs, after it dried. We did this every year. Made sacks of it. We fed our chickens and some to the pigs. We had to make sure that there was enough gravel/grit for the chickens. They use the grit to crush the corn in their craw. The pigs would eat just about anything! We also had rabbit and squirrel to eat, as well as deer. Once in a great while, we bought a gallon of milk from our neighbor! But that was a treat, not something we had very often. It was an old way of living, not many do it now. I know if my health holds out, I'd make it if the need arose.

[@joannbrewer6046]

Well, I'm just eat-up with jealous. Of course you knew but overlooked that I am your Pioneer Super Vierwe. Yes I'm an old (very old) lady but i live my farm life vicariously through your videos and some time I'm lucky enough to hit an miss the pod casts. Maby I'll get that digital path sorted soon. Truly I adore your precious family and I'm in love with the goats, chicks and biting wanda?? The jerseys are lovely. So fondly mrsjob

[@octopussmasher2694]

As a hopeful homesteader I’m more concerned with making a living than eating off of my farm. How would I make enough to support myself without a hundreds of animals?

[@idealmattress]

I love the idea of starting my own little farm in Ontario Canada , I have 20 chicken already and it has been successful experience. my challenge is that I have 55 acres but mostly Forrest and about 10 acres of scattered open lands so fencing the open land would be challenging. Perhaps I will come up with some kind of plan to raise beef cattle , sheep , goats.

[@horiatomescu]

Don't make me drop everything in here in the US and come and help you...😆

[@horiatomescu]

Sounds very tempting 😉

[@auburn696]

Go with heritage breeds that have more foraging capabilities.

[@blessedabundance6266]

Electric fencing may help you

[@callumsmith9756]

Quail make quite a good animal for a homestead because the produce extremely tasty eggs and there meat is delicious as well also the mature really quickly

[@wartdog345]

watching from NZ. thanks for the shout out..... grass for life

[@jesseblack9460]

#askhomesteady Can you go more into detail about home much area each animal needs to live comfortably?

[@bradsimpson8724]

When it comes to larger pastured animals(goats, sheep, cattle, etc), the amount of living space really depends on where you live and the quality of your pasture land. My local agricultural extension recommends one and a half acres of pasture per cow/calf pair, and suggests six sheep or goats per acre of pasture.

[@jesseblack9460]

@@bradsimpson8724 may I ask where your local agriculture is? For reference

[@bradsimpson8724]

@@jesseblack9460 I'm in British Columbia(Western Canada). I would expect that the Pacific Northwest would be pretty similar.

[@ZZZELCH]

Excellent video. Great perspective.

[@KateGoldauthoress]

I love that I knew you were from PA before you said it. I'm from PA too!

[@nellie2m]

My first drake drowned three hens in the pond trying to maye with them before he got rehomed, but I tend to have bad luck with first tries.

[@snakethepeg7828]

Thanks for your expertise. Very helpful for a prospective homesteader like me😁

[@Millenialhermit]

I thought he stopped homesteading i watched one vlog of him wherr he said hed do something else. Nice to see this vlog

[@thegreekanimalkeeper]

For the seep with goats together it 100% work, my dad does it in a small scale

[@jsb7398]

*_Ah yes, I would really like to grow my very own eggs, meat and milk_*

[@voyager1420]

Do children grow? Then chickens, goats, and cows all grow too.

[@federalmemeist961]

This is an under appreciated comment.

[@rbo350]

#AskHomesteady, I just purchased 40 acres in arizona and in the future will start with a few of the animals you mentioned after we amend the sand and plant fruit tree's and other food producing plants, I like goats but I am lactorse intollerant so I will either sell the milk or make cheese, I also like chickens, ducks and quail we want to be as self sufficiant as possible but there are somethings like gas that is inflexable and you have to pay what the gas station is charging

[@ChelseaVampyre]

Ringo Star you could also make goat milk soap :)

[@noniemarley7012]

Ringo Star check it out, sometimes people who are lactose intolerant can drink goat milk. Goat milk is very different than that of a cow.

[@johnhildenbrand2642]

Sheep, goats, chickens and rabbits...those are probably the biggest bang for your buck, efficiency per acre animals. Add in a great big garden/field and supplement with hunting/fishing.

[@moreheadhomestead3025]

Just subscribed! We are starting our homestead journey. Look forward to watching your videos and learning from you guys! I’m quite a bit smaller but let me know if you need anything in the Oklahoma area!

[@starrmiller8737]

The only issue I’ve had with keeping my chickens and ducks together is all of a sudden one of my hens decided to start trying to peck one of my ducks eyes out. Not pretty. Of course it was my best laying hen so she did not go to freezer camp and I just had to separate them

[@GoldenTouchVideos]

50 seconds in and already loving it!

[@davisfamily1712]

Goats and sheep neither one need feed. They will thrive on forage, pasture, and hay

[@cassieoz1702]

'No outside help' means not buying in salt/spices or (usually) coffee and grain, and very few people really mean that. We milk two standard sized house cows, freeze their calves, keep three dorper ewes and a ram, 12 heavy bodies hens and a rooster, and buy in two weaner pigs per year. There's extra beef, pork, eggs and cheese for trading.

[@kikikaakau-delizo8152]

We don't have, not could we have, a pasture; ashy, clay, lousy soil. My original plan was to have a couple of hair sheep or dairy goats and a couple of donkeys and an Amish buggy. That plan went out the window. Chickens (for eggs) need an artificial heat source in winter and we have no electricity so they're not an option. What can we raise!? It's only two of us so what do you recommend??

[@TheAnimalFamily]

Such a good one! 👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻

[@4philipp]

Something to keep in mind for this level of self sufficiency is the choice of animal breed and expectation of performance. How meaty does your chicken or goat have to be? Looking at Africa or the Middle East you’ll see goats and chickens roaming around villages but they do not look by any means as meaty as our western worst performers. Also consider storage and preservation. If freezer space is available with nearly unlimited electricity, no problem but in a shtf situation that can quickly fall by the wayside, even with enough solar panels. So with electricity you can grow a bumper crop of meat animals when natural forage is most abundant and freeze them for winter. This means you only need to maintain your breeding stock for the winter months. If you do not trust in power to stay available, there are a couple options: 1) eat fresh - harvest animals when ready to consume. Downside is you need to maintain a herd when no natural forage is available in winter 2) drying and curing. Salt pork or salt fish used to be stable winter meat options. Jerky is also great but makes for a poor meal. 3) canning. You can Can meat on its own or cook meals containing meat for long term storage. While this is a great option, when you run out of canning lids it’s game over. Consider the volume of stored resources for that 5-10 head family The last major option is to simply cut back. You May keep salted cured meat and perhaps only keep enough livestock for a breeding herd and a few animals for holiday meat. You can easily make it thru the long winter with little meat if you stock up on storage fruits and vegetables. For cold winter climates, there might be another option, however I have no information on how save it is. Butcher in the winter when temperatures are steadily below 25°F. You might be able to freeze the meat during those months. I’d keep the cuts small so they freeze faster. Might be worth researching if and how this used to be done and how safe it was was. The bottom line is how we view food availability. People used to eat whatever was abundant and during some time of the year that meant fasting. Clearly we are more knowledgeable these days to keep a full larder for the winter, but a little fasting hasn’t hurt anyone yet. Coincidentally, this happened in late winter and early spring, like around Easter.

[@4philipp]

What about Hunting? In times of peace, prosperity and general abundance, hunting according to state laws and principles of conservation is a great way to add meat to your freezer. However, in times of conflict, depression and scarcity, you will find wild game not just a poor choice to rely on but not available at all. During the Great Depression white tail deer in the US were nearly eradicated. Besides the kill rate that’s higher than birth rates in such times, we also need to understand wild game habitat. Wild animals need to eat, and instead of browsing the wilderness they do what any sane animal would do and go were food is abundant. That happens to be near population centers and in particular near farm country. That’s were hunters have easy pickings. If it wasn’t for farms, wild game may be browsing for miles and miles in search of food. It’s not uncommon for deer to die of starvation or become easy pray. With the exception of bears, we don’t really eat predators like wolves, foxes, pumas and coyotes. So it’s not really a closed loop that we can take advantage of. But, with the heavy reduction of wild game, predators will come closer to human settlements in search of food. All of a sudden your livestock needs 24/7 supervision to protect it from hungry predators. It’s inevitable that you will loose part of your herd and if not attentive, even members of your clan. Bottom line here is that hunting brings its own challenges if/when shtf

[@auburn696]

You really thought this was some groundbreaking insight.

[@daxisperry7644]

For me, I want to be self sufficient to the point where I can provide food, water, and power to my family without Relying on shady 'authorities.'

[@zaccariasippidabarbercollins]

Very Good Video. About to get my first Home with 24 acres of land Lord Willing. Very Informative

[@AnneGoggansQHHT]

The chickens aren’t eating the grass as much as bugs, small animals, and seeds. My dad got RIR mixed with game hens and we fed them very little. It depends on the breed how much they can forage, but they don’t lay as many eggs. It’s give and take. I’ve seen my hens in a circle pulling apart a vole like the little raptors they are. You can grow grains for chickens, and know THEY ARE NOT VEGETARIANS. They are little raptor omnivores. Carcass in the pasture? You might catch chickens pecking at it.

[@clintkinowski6277]

I am looking to get into homesteading for a family of 4 how much land and how many of each animal should I start with? I am looking at raising meat rabbits, chickens, ducks, geese, guinea hens, beef steer, dairy cow, dairy goat, sheep, Idaho pasture pigs, and a garden

[@derekpaul6319]

I love this channel.

[@amandabest7364]

Love Love DEFINITION 💘 NAILED IT

[@gentleman423]

Hello Amanda 👋 How are you doing today?

[@danielkennedy4518]

I heard about a farmer who kept a steer for a pet. He named it Duncan Nonuts!

[@RidgeLife]

Thx for the help We are growing quickly here @RidgeLife!

[@DuderScooter]

Question at the end. Your videos on ducks and chickens are incredibly helpful. I'm going to start a farm on 40 acres in east Texas with my great highschool friend. We will both be living there (him first, we live in the suburb). So 2 families, 4 adults & 7 kids in total. What is a good crop to take to farmers markets for... ergmm.. hipsters in Austin? #askhomesteady I was thinking it would be good income starting off, so my only idea so far is gourmet popcorn. TIA!

[@gr8flb]

I think it's going to depend on supply and demand. It sounds like you understand your customer. What is not in the market already? Where is the market underserved? Here in Georgia where it gets hot, King of Pops has made it big selling gourmet popsicles. Also, think about expansion possibilities. Can you sell to stores or restaurants?

[@4philipp]

Go to the market and see what they sell.

[@bmiles4131]

@@4philippyes, because markets vary and change over time.

[@RobinsFamilyHomestead]

Great advice as always!!!! Thank you!

[@wneikhao9235]

We have 2 acre of paddy field. House is another 1 acre. Another 3 acres as forest. Got 2 oxen as the draught animals. 30 chickens. 5 rabbits. 2 dogs. 2 cats.

[@nggalpacas1777]

Alpacas are a great livestock to raise I have been raising them for over thirty years !!

[@klaudia711]

NGG Alpacas do you use them for anything or are they just pets?

[@autismocharismo]

Alpacas are used for their fibre. They’re a prey animal and best kept in groups! The biggest cost is getting a good shearer to help keep intact the ‘blanket’-the most valuable piece of fiber. Alpaca fiber is very sought-after and you can use it for anything.

[@christianshiels2819]

the background music is perfect

[@Toonstead]

Hi! new sub but been watching for awhile! Yall have a beautiful family and homestead!

[@activeuser9995]

#askhomesteady Hi Austin, Did you invest a lot on your homestead? Or did you start with a small investment? And how much do you make in a month?

[@tonyabsoluteam3456]

can you rank them as infrastructure scale. for instance it's much easier to take care of a 50-gallon fish tank versus a 10 gallon tank. and what are the cost effective variables. like it's cheaper to buy a 10 lb bag of something versus 10 1lb bags. yet you don't want it to go bad before you had an opportunity to use all of it. like some animals do better by themselves as well as others do better Possed up. so what would be the good minimum for raising animals?

[@brianthesnail3815]

There are 68 million people in the UK. We don't have enough land for self sufficiency. I was a farmer for 25 years. Only people who have inherited a farm or who have earned a living from something else and sold an expensive house in a city can afford a farm that can sustain life for a family. The caveat in this video is 'self sufficiency as much as possible' isn't actual self sufficiency. The reality is you need to be rich already.

[@cummerou1]

Depends on where you live, in Denmark for example, you can get a farm (one 3 bedroom house to live in with 1-2 buildings next to it about the same size used for storage, plus 3-6 acres of good farm land) for about 110K. Additional land can be bought for 5-6K an acre. The difference is that 1. The UK has twice the population per square mile (so half the amount of land available per person, which inheriently makes land more valuable), and 2. Is a lot more concentrated, you can get land at a decent price if you are okay with living in Wales or something like that. But the land in the South is extremely expensive due to how many people live there, (any land suitable for housing will be very valuable), you also have many large cities or cities with outstanding natural beauty or historical significance, which again drives up cost.

[@christianemmanuelf.domingo793]

Cool

[@bestlifeever4548]

I have had my homestead/farm long time and dont think many who move out here have any idea of what it takes in money, time, infustructure, and all the other things. It isnt cheap and even doing it on buget or frugally you cant count or depend on anything. We see so many with grand plans to move to country or live off grid or grow own food but not prepared for learning curves or mistakes or other things. We have lots of animals which cost a lot to feed and care for. The weather can destroy all crops. Also people think can just move to rural area and be accepted or part of community when so far from case most places. Especially if not from there and different than locals . If you dont respect the people and culture and heritage aka history then dont move there. Dont come to change anything . People complain about animals that get out or other things that is normal to living in country.

[@user-1281]

I live in New Zealand!

[@PeterSedesse]

The problem is most people focus on how many animals they need, but they should instead focus on how to grow the food for animals. BSFL, crickets, mealworms can all easily be ' farmed'. That really is the secret to chickens and ducks. Make decent space to raising insects for your poultry and it should be a part of your chore routine. A well developed vermiculture system will also produce harvestable worms as well as worm castings for your veggies.

[@ivarvoorel3590]

7:00 how about quantity of land i am actually in Malaysia and i try to figure these things out #askhomesteady

[@kaydars]

Yup, that's an important question that I'd like to know too.

[@marilynferguson3483]

Have you looked into waterglassing eggs? You can also can raw eggs for hardboiled eggs. Do you can any of your milk and butter? It has a great shelf life. You tube has lots of info on this.

[@gentleman423]

Hello Marilyn 👋 How are you doing today?

[@parissamuel4610]

" Steady."

[@hawk270leadflinger9]

I’m definitely not a duck fan! So we have chickens here at Dry Hollow homestead! But my question regards the guinea fowl! What are they good for? And I prefer lamb chops over goat chops!!!

[@mr.greenjeans8323]

Aww they love their daddy

[@danconcompany9285]

Consider geese for fowl that can completely forage for their food. Some varieties also make a good guard animal.

[@zacharyebert67]

How would you compare a yak to a cow, which one do you think would be better for a homestead. If you were coming into to homestead again brand new which would you think you should pick from food as well as other benefits. or maybe if a cross between the two would work as well.

[@SapioiT]

A few chickens or ducks for eggs, one or two goats for milk and cheese (and cheese has fat which helps absorb nutrients from meat, which is why fatty meats and fatty cheese with lean meat are the best for eating very little food for very much energy). And instead of a cow, I would recommend a buffalo, since it's milk can have up to (I think) 9% fat, compared to up to 4% (I think) for cows, which means more energy-dense milk and cheese. Though you need some large-enough pond (preferably with flowing water, but not necessarily) for the buffalo to cool down in, especially during the hot summer days. Honestly, I would also add hobi (blue) corn to the list, since although not an animal, it is a nutrients-rich food, potatoes for balancing the nutrient profile and onions and garlic both for the value as spices and for medicine for increasing immunity and fighting off colds. You might want a patch of land to grow weeds in, fenced off well enough for wind to not get the seeds across the fence, where to let the chicken or ducks roam a few hours a day. The ducks might also enjoy visiting the pond. I would recommend splitting your parcels in 4 sub-parcels, 3 cycling between multiple foods, including corn, potatoes, onions and garlic, and another one growing a good mix of animal feed. The most efficient meat-source would be crickets, which once fried, can be ground/grinded into flour (be it courser or smoother). That cricket flour can then be mixed with normal flour (from wheat or from corn) to make more fulfilling breads, can be mixed with cheese to make a more fulfilling cheese, can be mixed within soups and gravy to make the liquid more consistent, and the crickets require up to 9 times less food per quantity of meat than non-insect animals, but don't have the fat required for humans to absorb all those nutrients from the meat. And cricket meat is more humane, because of a few reasons: 1. You can use a sieve every week to harvest the old crickets and everything but the old crickets would go back to growing. 2. Frying is a very quick way to make them not be in pain for more than a fraction of a second, which is a lot less pain than other animals require for harvesting. 3. Next to no waste, and what little waste there is can be added to a compost bin to help plants grow. 4. Amount of plants required to feed them is lower, which means you can grow a lot more of them without them starving, and your goals is to get them rather fat, so they would be well-fed. 5. Low amount of space, compared to other animals. As a bonus, if you want to get into commercially selling cricket meat, you might want to look into the relation of the percentage of oxygen in the atmosphere with the size of the insects. So you could even get current-day insects and separate them into age groups, and the older they are, the more oxygen you pump into their little sealed box. With electrolysis, you can get both hydrogen fuel for cooking, and oxygen for the insect growing, from mere water and electricity.

[@beastsoundz617]

Hold on crickets?

[@TwelveAcres]

What breed is the rooster at 14:40? He's beautiful!

[@johnnyblaze2257]

And delicious

[@dove111]

So much valuable information thank you Austin, would you and your family ever consider raising rabbits?

[@HeatherNaturaly]

You omitted the most efficient animal that can live on nothing but weeds and grass, and hay in Winter and produces more meat per year than a cow. RABBITS have a 31 day gestation and the kits are ready to eat from 8 to 12 weeks at 3 - 5 pounds. Rabbits have between 5 and 15 kits per litter, depending on breed. All it takes to feed them is access to grass and weeds. Yes, they do better on supplemental feeding with sprouted grains or pellets, but that is not essential. Boyd Craven Jr has a book out called "Beyond the pellet' which details how to raise rabbits , and thus meat, for free. You can grow Mennonite sorghum and have grains and sugar in one crop..

[@jocelynsoria2590]

THE MUSTACHE!!!! IT’S GONE?!?! This is the first video I see where it’s gone.

[@joanneganon7157]

Your Roosters are beautiful.! They seem to get along . Jo Jo in VT 💕😊

[@simplecambio6462]

The video starts at 3:45

[@Earthto_Ayo]

Can hens keep doing natural incubation throughout the winter?

[@AviaryBirdsAndCo]

Great Video! Hope to have a homestead in the future!

[@victoriabulcock8823]

When keeping goats and sheep together, we feed EVERYONE sheep feed and then offer goats copper separately. One of my family memvers will take the sheep to a different pasture (like when we rotationally graze thema nd we are moving anyway is a great time to do this!) While we offer the goats supplements or copper bolus them.

[@meguileadmen3859]

Nice

[@TikiArtdog-eq1rz]

How do you keep the ducks from flying away? Clip their wings?

[@anceluda]

Holistic planned grazing - creates abundance of forage for year round grazing even in cold snowy climates. Look up Greg Judy regenerative rancher.

[@JoeSmith-sl9bq]

In Bosnia our chickens lived off forage and scraps and gave eggs on the regular. I’ve seen them eat mice, snakes and lizards.