The Backyard Homestead Guide to Raising Farm Animals: Choose the Best Breeds for Small-Space Farming, Produce Your Own Grass-Fed Meat, Gather Fresh ... Rabbits, Goats, Sheep, Pigs, Cattle, & Bees Author: Gail Damerow | Language: English | ISBN:
1603429697 | Format: EPUB
The Backyard Homestead Guide to Raising Farm Animals: Choose the Best Breeds for Small-Space Farming, Produce Your Own Grass-Fed Meat, Gather Fresh ... Rabbits, Goats, Sheep, Pigs, Cattle, & Bees Description
From the Back Cover
The Best Breakfast You'll Ever Eat, Courtesy of Your Backyard Animals:
Gather fresh eggs for fluffy omelets.Stuff homemade sausages with meat.Fill your omelet with tangy, creamy cheese.Stir sweet honey into tea or coffee.Fry a steak or bacon as a savory side.Top off your meal with a cold glass of milk. Breakfast isn't the only meal you'll enjoy from your backyard farm...
Imagine the satisfaction of feeding your family wholesome eggs, milk, meat, and honey produced by animals raised organically and humanely in your backyard. On as little land as one-tenth of an acre, you can raise healthy, productive barnyard animals and take a big step toward food independence.
Learn how to:
- Raise chickens in brooder boxes
- Determine the freshness of eggs hidden in the backyard
- Roast a duck or goose to perfection
- Make goat-milk yogurt
- Interpret everyday sheep behavior
- Harvest honey
- Raise your own Thanksgiving turkey
- Manage your beef cattle to produce the best-tasting meat
Includes Full-Color at-a-Glance Breed Guide
The animal-raising companion to
The Backyard Homestead.About the Author
Gail Damerow and her husband operate a family farm in Tennessee where they keep poultry and dairy goats, tend a sizable garden, and maintain a small orchard. They grow and preserve much of their own food, make their own yogurt and ice cream from fresh goat milk, and bake their own bread. Gail has written extensively on raising chickens and other livestock, growing fruits and vegetables, and related rural skills. She shares her experience and knowledge as a regular contributor to Backyard Poultry magazine and as the author or contributor to more than a dozen country skills how-to books.
- Paperback: 360 pages
- Publisher: Storey Publishing, LLC; 1 edition (March 23, 2011)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1603429697
- ISBN-13: 978-1603429696
- Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.5 x 0.9 inches
- Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
I am a big supporter of buying local, and while I do not live in an area where I can own most of these animals (except bees, currently), I found this resource to be comprehensive for someone either researching or getting started in small-scale farm animal raising.
Gail Damerow puts together a well-researched book on various farm animals that could be owned by people looking to find raise animals for food, but who do not necessarily have the space for a full farm. Each chapter takes a different animal and discusses what you may want to look for in breeds, housing, feed and basic health care for them. For instance, in the chapter on chickens there is a section on different breeds, how to collect eggs and check if they are good for eating, feeding, watering and housing your chickens, handling chickens in the coop and transporting them, and general health concerns. Additional chapters on other poultry such as turkeys and ducks follow.
Poultry isn't the only meat souce in this book. It includes from the smaller "keep a couple in your garage" rabbits to pigs to cows. Sections on the various cuts from the animals are listed, but no need to worry about the details of butchering. Those are recommended to be left to actual processors or other books. The chapters on milk providers, goats and cows, give general descriptions on breeding and milking the animals.
Beyond the individual animal chapters, I like the extras that are included. Similar to its predecessor, The Backyard Homestead, there are illustrations in the front showing how much you can actually support on one-tenth, one-fourth, or one-half an acre of land.
The Backyard Homestead is probably the best book available for those who'd like to become more self-sufficient when it comes to food. As you can see from my review of the book (here), most of that volume is dedicated to growing vegetables; there is far less information on raising livestock. However, the same publisher recently released The Backyard Homestead Guide to Raising Farm Animals; this is unquestionably the best book on the market for those in the suburbs or country who like the idea of raising animals for eggs, milk, and meat, but aren't sure where to start.
The Backyard Homestead Guide to Raising Farm Animals consists of one chapter each covering the topic of chickens, turkeys, ducks and geese, rabbits, bees, goats, sheep, pigs, and cows. Each chapter lays out the basics of how to raise the animal, including housing and feeding requirements, and how to keep the critters healthy. There are also tips on choosing an appropriate breed, keeping predators at bay, and general ideas on whether or not you're likely to save money raising your own.
The editor, Gail Damerow, also offers a visual on how much room is needed to raise certain animals through three drawings at the front of the book. Each offers an idea of how a homestead could proceed, showing how properties (each with a typical house and a veggie garden) could be laid out. For example, on the smallest property (1/10th of an acre), bees, rabbits, and chickens are shown. On the largest property (1/2 an acre), bees, rabbits, pigs, waterfowl, poultry, and 1 cow or 2 steers and either 2 goats or 2 lambs, are suggested.
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