What is the best homestead animal for meat. The wife has sheep and I have had cows but don't have the acreage anymore for them. Apparently alpacas make excellent pepperettes and eat basically nothing.
Not getting goats

Quail are awesome!! They grow really fast and lay eggs real quick unlike chickens. Male quail get butchered for meat while keeping the females to continue laying eggs. Get an incubator and keep hatching.

I'd think chickens or some kind of fowl. Eggs and meat. Never heard much about anyone eating alpacas though I'm sure u could. They are slow growing. Things get tough chickens are pretty good at foraging for themselves.

Are they a tough bird ? Like hardy I mean

Yeah and alpacas also have a 11 month gestation period where sheep are like 4 and they throw twins or sometimes tripplets. So maybe more sheep lol

Chickens. I get tired of cows and tell them some day I'm replacing them with goats. Often.

Coturnix quail are very hardy. Most common poultry diseases and parasites have minimal effect on them.

There are a fair number of threads on quail on Trapperman.

https://trapperman.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/7629350/1

https://trapperman.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/7234889/1

Quail Convention 2023 is in Miamisburg, Ohio on September 2nd and 3rd. It's a large, international convention on all aspects of raising, processing and selling Coturnix quail. Farm business start ups, marketing and homesteading topics are covered too. I am a paid expert and presenter at it again this year.

https://myshirefarm.com/product/quail-convention-tickets/

Zack, from Myshire, has many good videos on quail on Youtube and does live podcasts on Sundays.

https://youtube.com/@MyshireFarm

Keith

Can you let quail free range like chickens?

Domestic coturnix would die of predation and or leave, if allowed to free range. They've been in captivity longer than chickens and have very little intelligence and survival skills. I believe I have hatched over a million of them since 1996. I sell 60,000 plus coturnix quail some years.

Keith

Pigs would be my choice if you have the place to raise them, really hardy will eat just about anything.

Y'all should all eat a quail my wife can overcook. She can ruin them.

Almost all my quail survived the winter with only a heat lamp. They were kept in a plywood box on the ground outside with no insulation. My chickens would have died. The box had chicken wire walls on 1/3 of an end.
So, very open. Tough SOB’s.

Another vote for pigs. They grow quickly.

Rabbits

rabbits are good. you can feed them hay. clover like alfalfa is real good. spring summer and fall you can put them in a tractor and let them feed theirselves. they need a little salt but salt is cheap.they breed like rabbits

Whatever animal is most "weather / season changing" tolerant. Produces the best continuing food supply for your needs / wants, and are relatively easy to maintain, and cost effective for your financial situation. :-)

I’ll vote pigs or chickens. Our chickens completely free ranged for about 3 months before I got the spring garden planted. They found plenty of food and the only thing I gave was carcasses of skinned animals. Chickens you (in my opinion) are going to have to compromise between eggs or meat if you’re used to grocery store chicken. We raise both, but the Cornish cross aren’t sustainable cause you would have to develop your own lines of them. Pigs seem a little more sustainable and you can make all kinds of stuff out of them. You can also put them to work for you if need be

The ultimate homestead animal? Like a grid down, anarchy, you're on your own type of deal? Rabbits. You probably won't have refrigeration and salt/sugar might be hard to come by. Smaller portioned animals will have less waste. They breed easy and aren't hard to feed. It's also easier to selectively feed them. In severe drought or other hard times you could theoretically feed some select breeders and let the surplus go. That's hard to do with pastured animals.

If we're just talking growing your own food and enjoying living off the land, not "prepper lifestyle". Then I'd do either pigs or sheep. Pork has lots of utility. Breakfast meats, cured hams, pork chops, ect. Sheep are just easier to keep in my view. Assuming you stay ahead of parasites. They're fairly docile and peaceful to be around. I grew up with lots of sheep around so I'm pretty comfortable and confident raising them so that's probably what I'd pick.

Pigs

Sheep and chickens....

An acre for sheep....and you won’t end up with a mud pit....like other critters.

Just feed them good hay...and some grain...not much.