Feeding a Family From a Garden

[ducks4you]

Steve, this is a very interesting thread. I can't tell you HOW many times I've heard (or read on a forum) that a horseperson is buying a place in the country to keep them in the back yard AND garden to feed their families. Most are like me and drive to an office to work M-F. I cannot keep up with all of my garden goals. Even my Amish farrier and his wife and children don't grow or raise everything for their needs. His cousin butchers the chicken that they eat, he buys his tack from other Amish, and he doesn't own any meat or milk cows. He and his family do garden and put up a lot of their food, but they have more time at home to do this than I do.
I am certainly glad that I can buy the extra food I want. I don't even have time to make home made bread as much as I'd like. If you haven't made bread from scratch, the actual working time is minimal, but you must have hours in between the kneading and the baking takes at least 35 minutes, thus you would HAVE to be at home to do so. Bread is a staple. Rice can't be made super quick, either, but a frozen pizza takes about 15 minutes in the oven.
Still, I put up more than enough pickled beets from my beet bed this year. I am moving my onions to under a group of 7 pine trees which had their crowns raised (by me) several years ago. I know that anything with a bulb does well there and it keeps down the weeds, and I don't have to babysit them. I guess I want my crops to behave like my dogs---SIT, STAY!!
I DO know that during the Great Depression my mother's father fed his family from HIS garden in Cleveland, OH and the garden plot was about 15' x 20'. He also hunted on adjoining vacant lots and some of the extended family raised rabbits for meat, too. I think the address was on 22nd street, very close to downtown.
I guess if we just keep reaching towards our goals and not get bummed out when we don't meet all of them, we are doing well.

 

[Jared77]

If I was trying to take on a venture like this a few things come to mind but the biggest thing is flexibility. To me that means succession plantings, so I'm producing & harvesting throughout the growing season compared to waiting & getting a glut at the end of the season that I'm scrambling to preserve before it goes bad. Workloads still the same but it's spread out so I'm not committed to something major. Same with some of the 90+ day tomatoes. That's a LONG time for something to wrong.

Just like if your raising a cow. You have to feed it a long time to get it to a reasonable size to slaughter. I'd rather have dairy goats & breed them to a meat buck & eat the kids regardless of gender. Less time to get them to slaughtering size, & you have more meat than a dairy x dairy breeding would produce. Your milking the mom so why not get the most meat you can out of the offspring produced? When it's time to replace a doe you just go back to a dairy buck to make your next milk source. The boys out of that breeding would still be slaughtered no point in wasting anything.

Plus who's bull or buck are we using? Are we trading for the service of the stud or are we housing the stud? That's one more mouth to feed if we house him. Male rabbit I can justify since he'll be used much more than a larger critter for stud services. I'd rather pay for stud service on my goats instead of housing them but that's just me.

And that's all based on IF you can house them on your property. Some places you need an exceptional amount of acreage to have hoof stock.

I'd have a couple of laying breed hens running around & a trio or more of rabbits to give me a quick reliable source of meat while waiting for the the goats to mature. Rabbits come up to size faster for their age & are a more nutrient dense meat than chicken. I just want a handful of fresh eggs.

You could cut down on some of your grain needs by growing more winter squash. Spaghetti squash is an alternative, plus more casserole dishes to offset the grain consumption.

All the manure goes into the compost pile to provide nutrients for a more intensive gardening style. I'd have a few perennials like rhubarb, asparagus, ever-bearing strawberries, and may or may not do berry bushes. We have some REALLY strong U-picks which make it tough to justify the space & care of having them on the property unless it's a long picking season like ever-bearing strawberries. I'd like a pair or trio of apple, peach, & pear trees.

I've been working hard at putting a dent in our grocery bills too with some reasonable results. Still working on varieties of greens we prefer, GOING to do peas this year DANG IT (said that for the last 3 years now just hasn't happened. Something comes up & then I've missed the window to get them in), and going to try to take advantage of the root cellar we have also starting with carrots, onions, & potatoes in smaller batches so if it fails it's not that big a deal. That way we're not canning everything in order to store it.

It's do-able to an extent to reduce what you purchase but yon totally feed a family of 4? That's asking a lot even without having to have a paying job on top of all that. I think part of it is good use of left-overs. Making soup, stock, casseroles, out of things that are not finished. Getting more than just one meal out of things helps too so you get every last bit out of things instead of being such a disposable society.

 

[ducks4you]

We had no hatched eggs from last season with only one rooster. In 2012 I had to sell 15 pullets just about the lay bc we had eaten all of the young roosters and still had 30 birds to feed!
I had to order birds, which isn't cost effective. You have to raise roosters WITH each other and WITH the hens so that nobody fights and kills each other. I bought EE chicks in June and my 4 EE pullets started laying on Thanksgiving. In September, I bought 25 EE pullets and rooster chicks--McMurray sent me 27 and they've all survived--and they won't lay until February. You have to feed, water and clean up after these birds until they produce. I plan to keep 3 roosters to ensure fertility, bc that's how many roosters I had in 2012. I also plan to keep about 15 hens from the September batch of chicks. I kept one old layer and now get 3-5 eggs/day--hers is the olive/brownish egg.
Despite what you hear about chickens living ten years I have been keeping them for almost 7 years and I have had 3 birds that died under 2yo. One day they looked healthy, then one week later they were gone. So...you should replace your layers every year and send them to "freezer camp." (Go over to BYC to find out where this is.)
Still, chickens are a very good source of meat bc once the laying begins you only get an egg drought during a mass molting or Fall/Winter change of seasons. I stocked up on 4 dozen eggs this year, so I never had to buy any at the store. Last summer it was routine to get 13 eggs/day from 15 layers. I even found someone who was happy to take eggs and then buy me a 50 lb bag of chicken feed! At ~$13.00/50 pounds that was VERY helpful. She's getting my next dozen, which are robin's egg blue. Right now I am going through 50 pounds of feed every 6 days.
I keep learning that there are more and more things I can feed my chickens. They LOVE fresh grass--they eat it like spaghetti noodles. Pretty much any vegetation that my horses eat can be fed to my chickens, so I hand pull a lot of grass and weeds for them, and they love dandelion leaves. They get any not-so-nice tomatoes, sweet peppers and beet tops. They get all of my stale bread, and every time I cut up a sweet pepper, they get the top and seeds. Even if I feed them something from the garden that they don't want, it eventually makes it into the compost that I clean up later on for my garden beds.
If you haven't ever tried it, their meat is exotic and slightly gamey and wonderful. It tastes NOTHING like store bought birds. It is leaner but still plenty for a meal.
Hands down, chickens are a good deal.

 

[bj taylor]

love this thread. I just discovered it & have read through it. I am reaching toward being able to feed my family if need be without the grocery store. I've gotten pretty good at raising the chickens & getting the eggs - not so good at killing the chickens or selling the eggs. I've also gotten fair at raising goats (meat goats). this winter, I'm spending money feeding the livestock & not getting a return. that makes me mad - that is not what I had in mind. after Christmas, I'm selling half the goats (I think they may be able to be more self sufficient then). if the forage is still too depleted, i'll keep selling until I find that balance.
I think I can raise two pigs at a time. I'm more interested in pork than goat meat. lots more meat per animal for about the same effort & money. I want to try rabbits too. I need someone nearby to do the killing part of my livestock program. that's fair isn't it? I do the raising, they do the killing, and I help with the processing and we find a fair sharing. that's what I want.
I've got three big raised beds that can produce a lot of food, but I haven't figured out how much of each crop is the smartest. I've been spending way too much space on tomatoes & not enough on beans. I also want to learn to grow fodder and grains for the livestock.
I would love to have a dairy source, but I'm not willing to milk every morning/night. if I had a cow, it would be jersey or guernsey. I want the butterfat. goat milk would be great too. I would learn how to make cheese.
in a perfect world, my pasture would be well fenced & I would raise a few longhorns for meat (and because they are just the most beautiful of animals).
one of the problems I find here in Texas is there isn't a mindset of collaboration. Texans are an independent bunch & collaborating on projects is an alien concept around here.

 

[baymule]

BJ, I wouldn't wish a Texas Longhorn off on you. I think they are cool too and I love to look at them--in SOMEBODY ELSE'S pasture!! You think Texans are an independent bunch?? Compared to Longhorns, we are a bunch of epic failures at independence. If you want meat, raise a nice blocky Angus or Hereford steer, then off to the butcher! Longhorns have not ever been known to collaborate on anything.

Playing with your garden, figuring out what grows best and how much of what to plant, is an on-going process. Gardens evolve and we grow as our garden does. I am having fun planting different varieties to see which one or two grows best and tastes bets. Even total wipe out failures are a learning experience.........as in I'll never do THAT again!

 

[897tgigvib]

Bay, you are absolutely right about Longhorns!


Here's a reality check concerning Longhorns:

If you know a ranching family with a large ranch, and there are several generations of BULL RIDING RODEO STARS who own said ranch, take a look at their herd. (Rooster Reynold's ranch...)

You will see all color variations of bovines out there, with long wide horns. Nary a single one will be near the fence, mostly widely dispersed.

And yet, all the other cattle ranches nearby will have nice gentle faced Herefords, or white faces, or red angus, or black angus, or even mixes of the above, but in those herds of gentle herdable bovines, you will not a see single longhorn.

Longhorns are for bull riding and getting broken bones trying to ride. Sometimes they even cross them with exotic Brahmas.

 

[seedcorn]

In Indiana become used to treating pink eye if you have long horns.

 

[MontyJ]

I don't know what longhorns you have been around Marshall, but they are actually a very docile breed. They are easily trained and usually pretty calm and quiet. They are good eating, but don't have much fat in the meat. As far as bull riding, brahmas are king. I went to a lot of rodeos and never saw a longhorn in the bull riding competition. They were used for training mostly. Heck, I even seen a few with saddles on them. As a kid in Zapata, I worked a couple of ranches. I didn't work directly with the cattle, but dealt with them on occasion. Both had longhorns. I never had any bad run-ins with one, even the bulls (which can be very expensive). They mostly just stood around and stared at me.

 

[canesisters]

I just HAD to toss these out

Training 'baby horn'

Riding with friends once he's grown

 

[bobm]

Most of the rodeo bulls are the Brahmas or a few Brahma x Hereford /or Angus. While the Longhorns are pretty docile, try having a small herd running through your back fence , then stampeding over your pasture and freaking out your foals followed by their moms, and then have those Longhorns crashing through your 6 ft. tall Cyclone fence and running down the country road 1 mile and onto a State Highway, with a neighbor and I trying to divert them at the Highway . They caused 3 cars on the highway to crash through a neighbor's fence. It took 7 people plus 3 Highway patrolmen with their cars and about 5 hours to finally herd them back through my gate near the crumbled fence to contain them so that the Longhorn owner could get them . 2 days after he picked up the Longhorns , he took all of them to auction. Yea, the owner's farm insurance paid for my fence repairs and for the damaged cars and drivers / passengers injuries.