We had always planned on getting a pig for our farmstead as to make the best use of our scraps and leftovers, but chickens were much cheaper to set up and easier to find. So we got them first and pushed procuring a hog farther down the list for the time being.
As it turns out, 2 things became apparent right from the get-go.
First, living this kind of life where you have to fight tooth and nail for every bean and potato, you dang sure make the very best of what you do get. We soon learned creative techniques for food preservation. Where as in the past we might be in the bad habit of tossing over done produce, now we find ourselves either overlooking or carefully removing any parts that may have spoiled as to make an attempt to salvage what we can.
Needless to say, if we were to get a hog at this point, it would either be a starved little emaciated thing spending the majority of its time plying us with carefully constructed arguments about food safety and how, for our own sake, we should raise our standards and abandon our frugal food practices; or... much more likely, we would have to buy feed for it. Which would defeat the purpose at least as I see it... On a one acre micro farm, assuming your looking to make a living solely from what you can raise and make on it as we are, there is no room for non profitability however small.
Secondly, it quickly became apparent to us that chickens, for all intents and purposes, are Pigs.
I kid you not, they will eat anything! And a good many things that they probably shouldn't.
We have 8 hens and between them they make quick work out of any and all scraps we're unfortunate enough to have leftover. One of our chickens' favorite things in the whole world ( as it would seem from observation) is the simple act of randomly plucking a handful of weeds and tossing them in the chicken run.
Any greens will do. They eat them all.
And more over, I believe chickens are of more use than pigs. You need not slaughter them to profit, unlike pigs, because they lay eggs and while not a high value crop or commodity they are absolutely indispensable to us.
We find ourselves more grateful every day for the guaranteed arrival of eggs each morning and have labored for more creative ways to incorporate them into our diet.
Our chickens are pigs and we love them for it!
P.S.. as a last resort, they can also be thrown in a pot!
-By, 'The Digger'
Yep chickens are little piggies, they will eat just about anything. I have seen mine eat lizards and one had a baby snake about 3 inches long it was tossing around! I am amused watching them chase each other around trying to steal their food treasures. Enjoyed your post🐓
Edit:OMG I accidentally upvoted my comment, meant to upvote yours, it's late and I need rest. Forgive me🙁🙁
Haha, that is fine. Yes, they definitely are fun to watch! The smallest things are the biggest rewards to them. :)
Our chickens are dirty at us because they now have to share their scraps with our pigs. They used to get everything to themselves. Enjoyed the read, thank you.
Glad you liked it. Thanks!
Awesome analogy! LOVE IT! Yes they are pigs! LOL But much easier to butcher than a pig! And after they've lived a full chicky life, they make some yummy supper! Upvoted & Resteemed!
You are absolutely right! Thanks!
What an awesome post! And so true... chickens ARE pigs! Very, very interesting and holy moly, what an egg! Congrats! Looking forward to your next post, upvoted and resteemed to share your blog with others.
Haha, its ginormous isn't it? Thanks.
You can't go wrong with chickens! They will eat most anything and be happy to have it. We currently have 55 hens that produce enough egg money to cover all our feed costs (what little we have as we raise our animals on pasture). Other pluses are chickens don't collect tics, they eat them. we have ours follow the cattle and eat the fly larva in the cow poop, then they spread is so we don't have any burn spots in the pasture..... I could go on and on. Good luck with your micro homestead / farm, keep the posts coming, very will done.
Thanks! It sounds like you have pretty much utilized everything you can with chickens. Great job! Hopefully someday we will be able to say the same thing. Just out of curiosity, where do you get most of your customers with eggs? I find that competition and obviously the prices of eggs at the grocery store make it difficult.
To be honest, Church.... Then the word spread from there. We started with education, always promoting the pasture raised and no antibiotics and meds. We talk about the egg itself promoting the additional nutrients in a pasture raised egg. Then there is the big one, our eggs are not subjected to radiation like the ones you buy at Walmart. We don't wash our eggs and promote the benefits of that. Best of luck to you, if we can be of any help please let us know!
Thanks! That's some great advice.
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My chickens are so skeptical of EVERYTHING we give them, except for their feed. Haha. The stupid ground squirrels got to their corn on the cob before they did! Cause they were too skeptical. Lmao. Untrusting turds. Haha. :)
Lol that's hilarious!
I always tell people that chickens turn my bad parenting choices into healthy organic eggs! Kids who refuse to eat bread crusts? Turn them into eggs! Apple cores? Turn them into eggs! Spoiled fruits? Eggs!!
Lol, that's a great way to look at it.
We call them Domesticated Vultures Lol
Haha, that's another good one.
Amazing one.
Thanks!
My mother told me that years ago. She had a lot of chicken stories to tell.
That's chickens for ya! She must have many. They are always surprising us!
Do your eggs taste better than store bought?
Heck yea! The yokes are a much more full flavor and have a dark orange color.
Interesting post @clarkfarmstead ! I liked it
Thanks!
Yup! bro agree with your opinion man :)
Thanks!
We've never planned on getting pigs, but now that I've owned chickens, I could never see a need for them. I find that whatever the chickens don't eat, the rabbits or ducks seem to enjoy!
When I lived in the city, I had a compost pile. Now that I'm on our land in the Ozarks, I wonder if I'll ever have enough waste to actually have one again! :)
We are right there with ya. It's a good problem to have though!
Great post 🐔🐷👍🏻
Thanks!
Found you through @svfarms, great article! Since we are in a neighborhood on only 1/2 acres, it took years of planning and preparing to finally get our chickens, which we did a few months ago. I love them more every day even though they are not yet laying. I see the precious fertilizer they give me while also being great living garbage disposals. I even got them to LOVE slugs, which is one of the biggest bane to our garden here on the very wet peninsula of WA state. Resteeming this!
That's a great idea with the slugs! When we got our first eggs, we were so excited. Now its a normal part of life. Good luck! :)
I'm glad your chickies are helping you with the scraps - it's so great not to let food go to waste, which happens far too often in my house and I'm trying to do something about it. I live on a small lot, but I just this week 'rented' 2 laying hens and their coop. Already I've seen the magic of these hens eating up all sorts of scraps from greens, mushy bananas, leftover seeds, and crumbs. And we get the bonus of fresh eggs and 'Chicken TV'.
I've never heard of renting chickens. That's neat. You won't have too much waste pretty soon. And your eggs will be all the more delicious.
I didn't even think that feeding them real food scraps would make for better tasting eggs! There are a few companies who do chicken rentals, but it certainly sounds silly doesn't it?
Honestly, I don't know what we'd do without our litter garburators...oh wait, we would still have a compost pile LOL!! S'all good, we can make compost from other things.
We would also love to get some pigs as well, and since we have a bit of forest on our land, we researched keeping pigs in the forest, with electric fencing, and funny enough, the pigs root for so much food in there, that they scoff at the feed tray. We're gonna try that next year. Do you have any forest on your microfarmstead?
We do have forest, but its being used for other things. we don't believe in useless land, merely opportunity to be creative!
Cool, what do you have going on in there if I may ask?
We have several rare and useful native woodland plants and most recently we have started inoculating logs with shiitake and chicken of the woods mushroom spores to farm.
That's beautiful, terrific work!! <3 <3 <3
animals is beuty of neture.cear of his kids