Food Self-Sufficiency Contest

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From May to September—when the garden is in full production—our family becomes vegetarians. During the vegetable patch's off-season, however, we eat about 2-1/2 pounds of meat a day. This broke down, for the current year, to: 300 pounds of pork (two 150-pound hogs), 110 pounds of rabbit (54 fryers averaging 2-1/2 pounds each), 100 pounds of Muscovy duck (25 4-pounders), 60 pounds of Bantam chickens (60 1-pound fryers), 24 pounds of Khaki-Campbell ducks (8, weighing 3 pounds each), and 20 pounds of wild squirrels, rabbits, and groundhogs. Grand total: 614 pounds of meat for the four of us.

We keep two sows to raise feeder pigs for market and to produce pork for our homestead use. The feeder pig business is very labor intensive and we had to study a lot to learn the ropes of the game. When the market is reasonable, however, the sale of feeder pigs can substantially boost a small farm's income . . . even when it's necessary to buy feed to carry the animals to market.

In 1975, our total income from the sale of feeder pigs was $1,575 and our total expenses for the hog operation that year came to $954. This left us a gross profit of $621 . . . plus the two fat hogs we butchered for our own use.

Rabbits are an indispensable source of meat for the small homestead . . . if the inexperienced bunny raiser is willing to spend some time studying the animals and giving them regular and adequate care. (We've seen too many people buy rabbits on impulse, leave them to shift for themselves in the most unsatisfactory hutches . . . and then declare that "rabbits aren't worth it".)

Rabbits are "worth it", many times over. When properly housed, a trio of two does and a buck requires only a few minutes of care a day, yet—in an average year—will produce 110 pounds of meat for the table.

We got our start in poultry by purchasing day-old baby chicks from a hatchery. We ordered 25 Light Brahmas, 24 Araucanas, and 10 Bantams. We regret the Brahmas and Araucanas. They eat a lot and lay a little (too damn little) most of the year . . . then, in late winter and early spring, they try to bury us in eggs.

The Bantams, however, were not a mistake. They lay reasonably well, they're excellent setters and mothers, and they forage for most of their food. We plan to butcher everything but the Bantams, add a good laying breed—such as White Leghorns—to our flock, and then set both Bantam and White Leghorn eggs under our Bantam mothers.

We got into the geese business on a small scale by setting two Toulouse eggs under our hens. The chickens didn't mind incubating the large eggs . . . but they refused to raise the ugly goslings. So we brooded the two birds (luckily, one is a goose and the other a gander) in the house and they quickly became pets.

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