If you can do it, a diary cow should be the first animal, she can feed everyone(people, animals, plants) with milk and poop.
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I just started researching buckwheat for a cover crop because they say it fixes nitrogen in the soil, but it is also a pseudo grain that can be used as a cereal and even flour for bread.
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One thing that it seems that all governments have done is take a way the freedom to live off the land in the way of wild game meats. You have to pay out a lot of monies to hunt and only by their ways. They have made it sport hunting and fishing now with seasons and days to hunt on and only in certain land or water areas. It is not survial hunting or fish to live by any more. They have protect some animals where they a over running the towns where people live. Deer is one of the animals. Some countries you have no rights to hunt or fish.
Bob
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A great discussion and exchange of ideas.
Iâve mentioned before potatoes as a good feed for chickens and rabbits although they need a source of protein from animal carcass or meal worms etc. My grain bill dropped dramatically this winter from the addition of potatoes. I grew over 1200 lbs last season all by hand except for the initial tilling and most of the work was done early in the morning before I headed to work and again after work. It was a welcome task after a long day serving customers at the shop and was a good way to unwind.
Mangels are pretty easy to grow and store over winter and the hens love them.
I agree with Don that Buckwheat would be a good addition to feed the chickens and amend the soil. We plan on seeding a large part of our lawn into Buckwheat this Spring to bless the bees and when it goes to seed weâll turn the chickens loose and let them feast. Another popular food for them was Burdock leaves and I ended up having to go further to find them where they are usually a nuisance.
Al Frick, I know two young families near me that have purchased milk cows to feed them and their animals and I understand that was the norm up until the 1940âs. Our friend;s daughter wants a milk co for her 16th birthday-ya gotta love that!
Goats are something Iâd like to try but my wife isnât on board and until she is it wonât happen because she would end up with the lionâs share of the chores. Goats for power are apparently gaining on woodgas for alternative power for transportation?
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If you can do it⊠
If youâre going to start, it would be good, maybe important, to get a gentled, halter-broke cow. When we moved to Idaho, we rented out our pastures to a great guy who helped us get started with beef cattle. In Idaho, that means Angus. Itâs what everyone has. Itâs great fun to see cattle driven down the old railroad right-of-way that borders our place. So we had cattle, and cowboys to help with them, including my oldest son. Cowboys have moved, son hurt his back. We have horse facilities. Cattle have no trouble turning basically horse-proof gates into pretzels. Not guessing here We switched from Angus to Scottish Highland. Slightly better taste, slightly smaller, easier on fences. I think these are all true. The fence part is important because we (meaning me) have trouble keeping them in good shape. And itâs true, the âShaggiesâ are easier on fences. They go under them, over them, through them, and around them, but without doing much damage to the fence itself. Without cowboys around, itâs tough to keep them where they belong. We fully intended to make sure all the Shaggies were calmed and ready to lead. We made some progress in that direction, but life gets full, and animals donât wait around for you.
We will probably focus on goats, sheep, chickens, ducks, and geese. Each has advantages and disadvantages. At least your investment wanders off or dies $10 or $100 at a time, instead of by the $1000. And I can make any of those animals do what I want them to, by force if necessary. Without a horse (or equivalent) and rope, you better say âpleaseâ to the cows. The grain bucket is your friend, too. Weâre working on the grain, but not very fast.
The part about details is really important. What works for some may not for others, including you. We all make mistakes, so make them as fast as you can, and move on when youâve learned from them. As a former co-worker used to say, âItâs a great life, if you donât weaken.â In the city, it was funny. Out here, I can feel it
Kent
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March 25th and this is whats left from our winter veggie stash.
The turnips send out tender shoots, excelent winter sallad.
All this food from a plot maybee 100m2? And minimal equipment required
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That is so true, you donât need a huge amount of space to grow food for your family, when you start growing food for livestock/animals that cant forage for themselves for other reasons like predators and such then the area increases drastically.
Food producing trees and bushes is in my opinion a great place to start since trees takes time before producing and then with minimal efforts for many years after, then move to veggies for more immediate food supply. Animals is a different story, if you cant be there to tend to them and observe what they need/what needs to be done its probably not for you depending a bit on what animal it is. When you fence in an animal you basically made it dependant on you to feed it, water it and take care of it which means those animals are to a certain degree more important than yourself.
@KristijanL its a great thought to get the stalks that grow during wintermonths as greens too, I never thought about that. Thanks for the tip.
@SteveUnruh nice collection of books, I saw some Joel Salatin, Eliot Coleman and even John Seymore in there if Iâm not mistaken, it was a bit hard to see. I also saw other books that I never heard of of course which I will look into.
I bought an All-American canner a few years back and bought jars last year but so far pressure canning has not been tried by us yet, too convenient to use a freezer I guess, but we will hopefulle dip our toes into that this year, waterbath canning those low pH things is being done though.
We cut down our farm last year due to time issues and to focus more on our own life only selling a bit of surplus. Weâll see if we become small-time producers again, we have built up a bit of a name for ourselves as only doing nutrient-dense andhigh-quality food without pesticides or anything other than natural actually, completly ecological but names are easily forgotten if youâre not around for a few years. We havenât made up our minds yet, too many projects as I imagine a lot of you know how it is 
Sorry, this turned out to be a longer text than I thought to begin with, apparently words are just blurbing out on a nice cold sunny sunday morning like this 
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We started raising cattle forty years ago, Angus, Herefords, Holstein, Jerseys. Not any problems once we learned that training, and not keeping more than your land can handle. Our first milk cow was a older Jersey culled from a dairy farm. Some of these can be had for not much more than a dairy goat nowadays. We now have Dexterâs, they are trained to one strand of poly wire, and to come to a bucket of alfalfa pellets.
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So many depends depends depends as Steve said. We now house searching without a piece of dirt are utilizing every assest possible for food stores coming into the growing season with no where to plant.
A widely abused system here in the states is food banks. Lots of food is given away, and much of it goes to waste. My step father takes home weekly a full 4x4x4â pallet crate of apples he feeds to the deer and elk. Wife and i have been putting away and storing the goods from local food banks nonone else will take.
Last weekend was 15lbs of green beans blanch and frozen, canned and some eaten right their. 20lbs of pears dehydrated down with the big cabelas brand machine of my late mothers.
Tried dehydrated oranges they did not turn out very palatable unfortunately. 50lb bag of onions half sliced have diced bagged and frozen. Mushrooms the same, celery and bell peppers.
We do have several pressure canners, all american gifted from my mother and now have hers as well, pots to water bath in, more jars and lids then we could ever use thanks to what my mother left to us
Sure makes it quick and easy to cook breakfast bag of onions bag of peppers bag of mushrooms cube some potatoes onto the griddle. Top with a fried egg near zero prep, just cook time. Propane griddle as of right now, maybe when the house comes along wood fired option would be nice
Today about 30 lbs of apples me peeling, syllus coring, wife dicing. 2 batches of apple sauce, much frozen, batch in the dehydrator for apple chips and making Dutch baby apple pancakes for dinner tonight.
The special treat for me, wife made applesauce puffs, like a cupcake scattered with sugar on top, delicious
Planted several bags of potatoes with the kids yesterday, more from the food bank not taken home by anyone. Reds and russets that were forming good eyes. We have buckets of them put away in the garage already
All food that would have gone to waste, as no one it seems that goes to the food bank is willing to do the prep work of preserving which i find to be a down right shame and lazy. They might grab a bag of carrots a bag of celery if they need it immediately but pallets upon pallets of it goes to local pig farmers as waste. And the big box stores get a big tax break for the donations to the food bank weither it is used or not. Some people are to proud to go to a food bank, i make enough of a wage to not need it. But i feel shame to see the food going to waste.
Just because i dont have a piece of dirt to be farming my own food on does not mean i am not concerned about world conditions and have preps in place to keep my family fed. And i really need to acknowledge my wifes effort going into all of this which very much excites me she is on the same page and putting in extra work to have all this in place
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You are doing great with your obtainium Marcus. One of my beliefs is that people have to develop a new food paradigm. Everywhere I look there is a place perfect for growing food. Even on a trailer or push cart. Many of us have locked into the idea that a garden is a plot of land with dirt and rows, tillers, plows, I plant traditional as well, except in raised beds but also in paint cans, food containers, buckets, so many buckets, this year Iâm doing grow bags as well. A plant in soil puts out many and deep roots because it needs them to get to a stable water supply and a fairly weak nutrient supply but it is happy with much less root area if it doesnât have to look for nutrients and they are concentrated right at the base of the plant. As I said, I have much to say about this but if a garden area is say 60 sq feet on the flat then there is at least that much vertical and even overhead horizontal. We just are not used to thinking in those terms.
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I had a friend years ago that had a full blown hydroponics greenhouse setup that was 16âx8â built to exact dimension of his car trailer. He rented and wanted his food growing operation completeley mobile so it moved with him got lifted off the trailer and plumbed on the spot with coy fish. Time to move jack it up trailer goes under set it down and away he went, very nomadic and a slick setup. He grew his own greens year round. There was a chicken coop that quick attached to the side of the green house as well and it was all on solar power, a small battery bank ran the pumps and fans
We decided to add strawberrys to one and see how that goes. Other then eggs (from my dads chickens) milk and nutmeg pretty much all would have been waste. Now its a healthy meal
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I bought a All American canner several years ago but never tried it until 2021 because I thought it was very involved then watched a really good youtube and gave it ago and our family liked the results(taste) and the convenience. Since then we have taken it to friendâs houses and helped them to see how well it works and they are now looking to buy one and will show others. Community like this and DOW is the way forward.
This year in our shop during the winter we built a no-till drill to use behind a BCS tractor using parts from lawn mowers and a coulter from a worn out 14" diamond wheel. The wheel cuts through the sod and grass flattened by winter. The coulter cuts in an inch or more and it also drives the belt for the seeder which is from a small Earthway seeder. The place to stand at the back was a frame from a discarded air compressor. Obtanium is wonderful.
Weâve tried it in the still damp ground and are encouraged to use it once it is warm enough to plant peas and beans between last years corn patch.
I made Carla a couple raised beds using worn out rubber tracks from our mini excavator where she grows her kitchen herbs. That soil is already good to plant again.
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Do you cook the potatoes for the chickens, and what are mangels?
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Hi Jan, Mangel Wurzels are a large fodder beet you can feed raw to livestock, our chickens love them. We have eaten them cooked. We boil the potatoes for the chickens in a 10 litre pot on the woodstove
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Ok, I have a few hundred kilos of potatoes left, will have to try if I can get my wife to cook some for the chickens.
Mangels, do the chickens eat them raw?
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Yes the chickens like the Mangels raw
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That is good info, I never heard of chickens eating those roots. Cows, sheep and horses eat them but I never thought about chickens eating them, weâll sure try that this year. Thank you.
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We used to boil bad potatoes for our chickens when i was a kid, we used one of them wood-fired laundry-boilers, (pannmur, base), they are also good to cook roots/potatoes for pigs.
Better is them low pressure steam boilers, if there are any left that donât rusted away (Osbypanna, Ă„ngbase) im on the hunt for one of these myself, can be good to have.
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About six years ago I added vermiculture to my food growing regimen. Easily the most bang for the buck you can get. Of course there are about a million videos on the subject, and as usual most of them just repeat the same stuff. No real effort involved unless you plan to make a business of it. Otherwise maybe an hour a week. I just use 27 gallon black plastic totes to grow them in. I end up with about 20 gallons of pure worm castings per year. Thatâs enough for what I need. The winter of 20-21 we got hit with the bio-weapon and the heaters in the root cellar where I keep them went out without me being able to keep an eye on things and I froze near all my original worms. Ordered a couple thousand new ones and pretty much started over. We are back to normal now. So if you are looking the best soil amendment I know of get you some worms. I get them from this place.
Probably other good suppliers but these people have worked for me.
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Paul this looks really neat. Iâve been watching for something to plant through mulch, that doesnât require a 400hp tractor. How much mulch do you think this will punch through?
No-till reminds me of a âsystemâ that I like, even if I canât seem to do it. Warning: it is openly Christian (ummm, so am I ), since they want to deal will more problems than just food supply. They have a number of downloadable âResourcesâ that seem useful:
https://www.farming-gods-way.org/
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