homesteading...farming.....survival techniques

I don't have the kind of knowledge Utta has as far as survival techniques...but over the last few years I've learned a thing or two about homesteading as sustainable living....

Anyone else into homesteading....

As in...




or





or




So~ who are the homesteaders? Lets hear from y'all!

I'm guilty on all counts.

We have mini dexter cattle, kune kune pigs, delaware chickens, new zealand white rabbits, and obviously the rats! LOL.

We have six potato containers going all the time. We raise tomatoes, string beans, eggplants, green peppers, carrots, onions, zucchini, cucumbers, radishes, egg plant, leaf lettuce, and lots of other stuff in raised bed gardens.

We have permanent patches for sugar baby watermelons, cantaloupe, strawberries, and asparagus. We plant to sweet corn in the same place every year too so I guess you could call that a patch? LOL.

We cut hay USUALLY twice a year, and put up a few hundred bales for the animals in the winter. We also grow pumpkins to bolster the pigs feed.

We're also big on using natural food for our animals to cut costs. Our pigs eat A LOT of acorns every year LOL. We have seven GIGANTIC oaks on our property and I collect as many acorns as I can to put up for pig feed.

We have two apple trees, two pear trees, three walnut trees, and a wild cherry tree. We want to plant more fruit and nut trees, but they're pretty time consuming and not cheap.

We can a lot of food over the course of the year. My mother does all of the canning. I would never dream of asking the wife to do it. She is great at a lot of things, but neither one of us pretend that cooking is one of them.

In the future we hope to add a solar array to cover our electricity costs and we want to build a small pond for irrigation and raising catfish.

This is like my wet dream. Homesteading and herping collide! LOL.

Not a homesteadere here... But with a possible move in the next 6 months to a year. I plan to be.

I want chickens, pigs, goats, cows, the whole nine yards. I have alot to learn but very excited.

I think chickens will be the first things on the list to get

Guilty as charged.

Chickens, Turkeys, Rabbits, Ducks, Garden and small orchard.

One day! One, DAY!

I think my first step is either gonna be chickens or pigs, but I gotta move out of the city first.

Oh goody~ looks like lots of information potential here!

Chickens are where I started~ I use my old havobators to incubate eggs every spring. This year I might get a little more serious about my geese~ they've just been a gee whiz for a couple years now but 7 geese eat a lot so they need to start earning their keep this year~ I herded them up into the small pen last night so I could start collecting the eggs to incubate and sell gosling this year. Found the first goose egg this morning (I knew they were laying in that upper pasture somewhere!). I'll post up pics when I get the bators going in a couple weeks!

HA HA HA .. Cheryl.. you rock.. I like the order of photos.. LOL

*hugs*

We do not do that .. but we know folks who do, and we purchase from them when they have extra

Originally Posted by Cheryl Marchek AKA JM

Oh goody~ looks like lots of information potential here!

Chickens are where I started~ I use my old havobators to incubate eggs every spring. This year I might get a little more serious about my geese~ they've just been a gee whiz for a couple years now but 7 geese eat a lot so they need to start earning their keep this year~ I herded them up into the small pen last night so I could start collecting the eggs to incubate and sell gosling this year. Found the first goose egg this morning (I knew they were laying in that upper pasture somewhere!). I'll post up pics when I get the bators going in a couple weeks!

I have a couple of weeder geese as well. The female looks like a White Embden and the male a Tufted Roman. She gives one egg every other day like clockwork. I'm not to excited about trying to hatch any at this time.

I have hatched a lot of my Pekin Duck eggs and Jumbo Pekin. I find it interesting that a lot of people have emailed me stating that their ducks only lay in the spring. Wondering how my ducks are laying now. Mine started laying in November and haven't stopped. Everyday I have 100% collection from each female.

100% Collection rate since last November! Ok~ I was outraged until I saw your in Sunny California~ now I'm jealous (grew up in Central and Southern Ca)~ but still~ 100%! Are your chickens doing that well? What percent protien feed are you using?

My chicken flock is going on 3 years old this year. They are completely free range in the summer with just kitchen scraps and occasionally some scratch grain, and whatever they can hussle in the pastures. Very few of the original chickens are left ~ last year I hatched a lot of eggs~ sold the older hens and processed the roos to freezer camp~ still my hens started slowing down production last September~ by Decemeber/January I was down to ONE egg a day if I was lucky. I didn't supplement their light at all and while I was feeding them for winter I was using a 12% protein all stock so I expected a slow down....but I have a LOT of hens out there (no clue how many)~ I didn't expect it to get down to NO eggs somedays!. I finally popped up to a 22% protein feed about a month ago and I'm up to 2 dozen or more eggs a day. I think I'll up the winter protein earlier next year and see how it does.

The geese~ mine are African greys. I don't know if you recall~ in early 08 I hatched an emu. I bought the first geese to keep the emu company. The emu died and I gave the geese to my neighbor. The neighbors dog killed several of them~ I rescued one from that dog in 09' and she is a crippled pet here now, then last spring the last two survivors at the neighbors house came back to my house on their own and made pests of themselves until I let them in the pen they used to live in. Neighbor said he didn't care....and I was frankly kind of mad he took such poor care of them...I wouldn't have minded if he processed them to eat but I was kind of insulted that he neglected them till most were dead and the last two came home! So I let them stay here and last summer I fed most of the goose eggs to the pigs~ but a guinea sat a clutch ~funniest thing ever to watch her when the hatched! The geese then adopted the goslings~ poor guinea it was kind of sad watching her try to sneak into the goose pack with her goslings!

So now....I have 7 geese. I'm sure my LGDs have been eating any eggs they were laying....but it occured to me I can probably get $5 or $6 a gosling...so I put them in a smaller pen for the spring and I'm gonna collect the eggs and incubate them. BTW~ I don't have ducks but as far as I can tell Geese only lay in the spring/Summer. Or at least mine do~

100% Collection rate since last November! Ok~ I was outraged until I saw your in Sunny California~ now I'm jealous (grew up in Central and Southern Ca)~ but still~ 100%! Are your chickens doing that well? What percent protien feed are you using?

Nope. Chickens went down to a trickle even on layer pellets. The ducks and geese feed off both the chicken pellets and the turkey feed some times. Along with free range of abundance of grass, insects, worms. When ducklings they were very stubborn and would only eat grower pellets for the longest time. I spoiled them too much. Now I'm paying for it when they see me. "Hey there is the guy! Feed me! Feed me!"