Discovering my freedom in Slovenia - start of a long book

Rabbit tractor

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Okay I will need to have some nose plugs on to watch that gasifier video. You are so right about rabbit piss, only one thing is worse and that is getting on the wrong side of a skunk which is any closer then 20 feet. Perfect Shot gun range. I am not a very good shot any more.
Bob

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WHAT! No coyotes and Badgers and Man to deal with? You live in a wonderful place.

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We dont have anything that diverse here, and for some reason l rarely loose rabits to predators. Rats occasionaly kill newborns thats about it. Free ranging chickhens, forget it. We got foxes and once it smells a hen it will not stop untill all flock is gone.

Al, l like the wooden slits floor on that tractor!

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Al, how much aditional feed you need to give them? How often you move?

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Moving would depend on how many , but usually a daily move. You need to check out Joel Salitan on you tube, he can up with this design, and many more to move livestock. Depending on the quality of the grass, this could supplement 25-50% of the feed.

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I visited Joel Salatins home place back in ~2007.
His winter raising hogs system on added wood chipped litter with spread in corn was very interesting. Hogs would root for the corn incorporating it all. The actual feed troughs were on manual cable winch lifters to account for the added rising bed height.
Come Spring then all was tractor scooped out for spreading onto his hillsides previously depleted fields. 30-40 years of doing this was showing a great improvement versus neighboring properties.
His place was the first I’d ever seen with the outbuildings made of band sawn site milled hickory wood. Ha! He had no pine trees.
I was impressed with the direct simplicity of all of his in-use evolved systems.
Regards
Steve unruh

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I gess one would have too put chickens in biggest cage can afford I think some believers, think the food laws were for old testmate followers.And i caint stand these half breed polititions, passing all the Quer rights crap.Let alone they are promoting it. Considering the sourse,half the politition came from HOLLYWOOD.California.Sorry about rambleing off coarse a BIT.

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In the winter move rabbits and chicken into a shelter. Salatin's "RAKEN" House | Rabbits & Chickens Together - YouTube

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Kristijan, I’m expecting visitors tomorrow to look at my woodburners. The family is self-reliant (food-wise) and when I saw pics of their antique combine-harvester I come to think of you.

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@JohanM is right, enaugh littering on Gorans thread.

Grazing, well, we had first real frost a couple of days ago. So l guess yes, we do have a longer season.

Truth is, we are perfectly pleased with goats as far as milk and chese go, healthyer milk also. But its hard to make butter and we eat a lot of it. Also, goats are the children of Satan. They WILL escape a paddock and they WILL destroy crops as soon as they do.

Manure is also one reason lm looking at bigger animals. We need a lot of it.

There is a smaller, Alpine local breed called Cika. About 400kg adult. Im thinking of geting that. They give 4-10l of milk a day, still plenty for what we need.

Luckly, artificial insemenation is quite good and cheap here. Its not ideal but has its up sides. The down side to cows is they cant be home slaughtered. Is it the same in Sweden?

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Haha, this is probably why he is pictured with hooves and horns :joy:

Yes, it is the same here. But if you do it for your own family it is allowed, no selling, no giving away.
However there is a proposal since last year for the government here in Sweden (and since we’re all members of EU should there not be for all?) and I believe it is already allowed in Gemany that one should be able to slaughter up to 10 animal units at the farm where they are brought up (not sure about the number) legally and to be able to sell as well to reduce stress, animal welfare and have more small-scale income streams to farms.

Smaller heritage breeds are usually more hardy and less producing but that is a good thing for homesteads since they also then eat less food as well.

Manure is better if the animals spread it themselves as much as possible so another plus for rotational grazing, chickens are good to follow after cows to spread the manure, if you move the cows daily and have chickens there timed somewhere around 72-96 hours after the cows moved they eat the fly larvae for you so the cows and you are less bothered. As Joel Salatin does.

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in italy is not more allowed any home butchering, only rabbits and chicken are free yet…
a authorizised vehicle must come and make the transport to the big slaughtery…the transport home you can make by yourself…immagine the cost for a sheep or goat…
when keeping more than 9 chicken it must be declared…all laws of the globalists, when the animals are registered, you can expect earlier or later some GMO vaccines or medication, of course you are constricted to do this than and also pay it.
one must not believe the european union makes something for the benefit of small farmers…in opposite, they like to stop every self sufficiency.
here very effective with bringing back the wolves, nearly all sheep and goat keepers has stopped…every crop seeds without very good fencing is not possible more because of wild boar…there is a program behind, we should eat billy doors artivicial gen meat…
he has invested a lot in this industry…barack alabama has said 20 years ago that self sufficient is not good, all must come from big companies and “controlled”…
good apetite…
what belongs to butter, we use a kind of fresh goat cheese, called “quark”, and this is a perfect substitue for butter , with jam on the bread or meat…is better taste than butter…
delicious also mixed with herbs, garlic olive oil and rosemarin…

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Not even that here. The mad cow disease gave a great oppertunity to “temporairly” stop home slaughter. That temporairy thing still lasts…

And a calf has to be tagged as soon as its born. Non tagged animals get comfiscated plus fine. No room for “cheating”. But horses are in a grey zone, they need to be tagged at 7 months old, so many home slaughter foals at this age.

Giorgio, here its the same, officialy. Nothing may be slaughtered at home. But homeslaughter, specialy pigs, is such a strong tradition that l suspect the authoritys do know that here is a line they better not cross. Its technicly ilegal but never sanctioned, or even inspected. For now… but lm sure not giving food like this without a fight! Slaughtered yesterday, fresh… can yall smell the scent of crispy crackly pork skin? :wink:

I think l know what you talk about, the spreadable cottage chease. Good stuff. But unfortunaly it doesent substitute butter in our case as butter is one of the main sorces of fat in our cooking. We stoped using seed oils for cooking, so we rely on pig and beef fat, butter and olive oil. Pumpkin oil as salad seasoning.
The reason being that, while l alredy knew from learning in school the toxic process of producing seed oils (using solvents like benzene, bleaches etc), l recently found out that even the composition of seed oils is completely uncompatible with the human body. Forgot exactly whats the case but the fatty acids and their ratio is aparently completely wrong for us. This was the final nail to the coffin and we ditched the oils.

In just a couple of years the children will become teenagers. I remember all too well how my apetite was in those years, and my mother ranting as us 3 teenaged brothers emptyed the fridge a few minutes after she filled it :smile: so lm alredy preparing for when this time comes :smile:

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Is it olive oil or canola oil you mean, I didn’t understand? Then I don’t like when you show such pictures, I was drooling on the table.

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If you have to use oil then olive oil is preferred, cold pressed is best since they use less chemicals to extract the oil but there is no more cold pressed olive oil in the stores here since a few years back, they call it ’extracted through mechanical processes only’ to be able to use heat to extract more.
None or very little oil in our household.

Animal fat is best as Kristijan says, wheather it is butter through milk or melted fat or tallow.
I’d like to have a steady source of fat. Will check with our local slaughtery.

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Just a month ago our house made the switch from seed oils to tallow, found the local grocer sells bulk fat packs beef and pork and wife has been buying it up every time she sees it available. Butter is stockpiled for now and about a gallon of beef tallow frozen and another quart that stays in the fridge for daily cooking needs. We do keeo some olive oil around still, but finding i wish i had a diesel truck again for the seed oils i had stored up to be burned in

Pork fat has been for burger making with elk meat and soon beaver meat if time allows. Elk and deer season are still open as well, but time and daylight are in short supply for the hunt

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But if you have tagged animals that ”suddenly dies”, then the slaughteries won’t take them in and you can dispose some parts of said animal into your freezer. Especially if they want wolves and such around… what if it bit the head off and left the rest for example. Well, you get what I’m getting at. :smiley:

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I am so happy that so many know of the poison of seed oils. Absolutely the worst thing you can put in your body. Canola oil being the worst of the worst. I am a little surprised about the difficulty of getting true cold pressed olive oil. It’s just very expensive here.

There are very few politician made laws I pay attention to. So far so good. I do what I want and stay under the radar about it. If it gets to where I can no longer do that I will relocate farther into the woods.

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