Nothing will come close to chickens. Eggs and meat, free range well and will replenish the flock if you have broody varieties. Nothing else even comes close to chickens.

Spot on imo.

Depends on your specific situation, but I think for most it would be chickens or pigs. chickens are easier to handle but more prone to predators. Pigs are easy, fast growing, not very susceptible to predators and also produces the ultimate meat BACON.

Some of you must have had some mutton or really bad lamb, I really like it but as far as production pigs will far out produce them and can be pasture raised with enough rings in their nose and have a really good electric fence so they don’t try and dig under.

Don't know if it's been addressed before, but if you can protect, and let rabbits free range on a small pasture, like a large fenced yard, and let them do their thing, I don't think you could possibly make meat any cheaper.

I may have to experiment.....

You will draw coyotes, foxes and bobcats for miles. You'll be a rich rabbit farmer!

our sheep are super easy keepers and easy lambing . . katahdin sheep

pigs are easy to train to a hot wire, will eat about anything and produce great yields

those are my votes

Whitetail deer. Shoot them when you need one 😉

Ultimate homestead animal? A wife

I have raised hogs for yrs. You get out what you put into them. I only feed good Pig grow. Would buy feeders in April and by End of Oct they are 320 to 350 lbs. I like big hogs, the Pork chops have a inch of fat on them. Fat equals flavor. In Oct I would finish them out on sweet corn and plums and apples. I would rake up a 5 gallon pail of plums every other day. And every apple that fell of the trees went in pig pen. The big thing with hogs is they have a good supply of water. I had the hog waterers and always had a good water supply. And they need to get out into a pasture to get muscle tone.

Do not feed them table scrapes or dead stuff. Everything in the garden gets fed to them,

My vote is Guinea hens. They eat anything including ticks, bugs and snakes and are very easy to take care of. As a bonus they will let you know if ANYTHING moves in the yard. Mine go out of the coop in the morning, free range all day and come back to the coop at night.

Quail and goats would be my two. I had a Toggenburg-Nubian cross that produced 6 quarts of milk a day at peak cycle. Rabbits neither eggs nor milk as side products.

Originally Posted by gcs
Don't know if it's been addressed before, but if you can protect, and let rabbits free range on a small pasture, like a large fenced yard, and let them do their thing, I don't think you could possibly make meat any cheaper.

I may have to experiment.....

You will draw coyotes, foxes and bobcats for miles. You'll be a rich rabbit farmer! grin


No coyotes, bobcats, or chupacabras here, lol. Maybe an occasional owl or red tail, and this is a no coon zone......