For many preppers, livestock forms a key part of their long-term survival plans.
Shelves of canned food and a stash of home-made jerky will be a big help in getting through the weeks and months after a crisis hits, but in the longer term if you want fresh meat you’re either going to have to hunt for it or rear it yourself.
For other things – milk and eggs, for example, or wool if you plan on making your own yarn – keeping livestock is the only real option.
Of course, just a couple of generations ago a lot of our ancestors didn’t see livestock as an emergency resource; it was part of their daily lives. My own grandparents went through wartime rationing in the UK, and that was tough.
Meat, particularly, was tightly rationed. The weekly ration per person during WWII included one shilling and two pence worth of meat, which usually worked out to about a pound and a quarter, plus four ounces of bacon or ham.
Some meats, like sausages or offal, weren’t rationed; they were just almost impossible to find, because supply never came close to keeping up with demand.
Meanwhile if you got one egg a week you were lucky, except children and pregnant women who got three. Cheese? You could have two ounces a week, and another two ounces of butter.
Most people couldn’t keep a cow, or spend the time to make their own cheese and butter, but with meat and eggs in such short supply there were many who saw the value of having some livestock.
Related: How to Make Clarified Butter With 12-Month Shelf Life
Not all of them were rural people either; in fact millions of homes in British towns and cities boosted their rations by keeping some animals. Obviously if you did live in a rural area, and had more space available, you had more options – but even in a city apartment it was possible to raise some meat.
Chickens
One of my great-grandparents was a chicken farmer, but that was on an industrial scale; he had row after row of sheds, containing thousands of birds.
My grandparents’ generation went in for chickens in a much smaller way. A few chickens didn’t take much time or effort but made a real difference to their diet.
Nowadays, chickens mostly eat food pellets – but the truth is they’ll eat almost anything. If they can wander in a yard, they’ll peck at the ground looking for insects and worms.
They’ll eat seeds, small plants and even small animals. You can feed them most kitchen scraps. They do need grains in their diets to stay healthy, but feeding them isn’t a big expense – and they’ll more than repay it.
When eggs were rationed to one a week at most (in 1944 the average British civilian got about 30 eggs on the ration through the whole year) having chickens at home made a huge difference.
Depending on breed, diet, and season, a hen can lay anywhere from one or two eggs a week to 300 a year – almost one every day. A single chicken could provide ten times the egg ration. If they fed the chickens this plant, it made them lay at least twice as many eggs as usual. And of course, when a chicken stopped laying, it would be killed for meat.
Rabbits
Rabbit meat has gone out of fashion in the US, but some people still eat it – and a couple of generations ago many more did. During WWII there was a surge in rabbit-keeping in the UK.
Even chickens need at least a small yard, but apartment residents would often mount rabbit hutches outside their windows.
Like chickens, rabbits are cheap to feed. They’ll eat kitchen scraps like vegetable peelings, and their diet could be bulked out with pretty much any leafy greenery.
Some foraging for weeds in the local park, or even around bombed-out buildings, would provide plenty food for a few rabbits, and they’re fast-growing.
A baby rabbit will grow to maturity in as little as six to eight months for a meat-producing breed. Another benefit of rabbits as livestock is that they’re notoriously efficient at reproducing, so if you start off with two of them you’ll have a more or less endless supply of rabbit meat.
Pigeons
If you see a pigeon shed in someone’s yard you’re likely to assume they breed racing pigeons – but they might actually be raising them for meat and eggs.
They don’t produce anywhere near as many eggs as chickens do (usually two at a time, up to eight times a year) but they’re an efficient way to produce cheap meat.
Related: An Ingenious Way to Catch Pigeons and Other Birds in Your Own Backyard
Pigeons can be allowed out to forage during the day, and they’ll return to their shed or loft at night; they’re basically self-feeding, which takes away one of the big expenses of most livestock.
Baby pigeons, called “squabs”, will grow as big as their parents in just two months and are a great source of tender fresh meat.
Pigs
Pigs are a little harder to raise than chickens, rabbits or pigeons.
You’re definitely not going to keep one in an apartment. Unlike smaller animals, it needs a yard with enough space to roam free.
They’re amazingly efficient at converting kitchen scraps into protein.
If you have enough land to let them forage, they’ll happily eat grass, other plants, worms and small animals.
Pigs are omnivores and need a balanced diet, but you can feed them quite cheaply; in return you’ll get a lot of meat.
Slaughtering and processing a pig can be a big job, though. However, you can learn here the simplest method for butchering and preserving a pig for a whole year without refrigeration, just as my grandparents used to do.
Sheep
For country people with a bit of land, including my grandmother, sheep were an option.
Like pigeons they’re basically self-feeding.
Turn them loose on a big enough patch of grass and they’ll just wander around it all day grazing.
They’re hardy animals too, able to survive wet or cold weather thanks to their thick wool coats.
Outside of lambing season, all you have to do is protect them from predators and make sure their grazing land is enclosed so they don’t wander off or blunder into any hazards – they’re not the smartest of creatures, and have a knack for getting lost or stuck.
Every year a sheep will have one or two lambs, which can be slaughtered for meat when they’re three to four months old.
Keeping livestock doesn’t have to be time-consuming or expensive – and it doesn’t need a lot of land, either.
Our ancestors chose the animals that worked in their personal circumstances, whether that was a dozen sheep or a couple of rabbits in a cage. There’s nothing to stop modern preppers doing the same.
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The thing about raising rabbits is, you can collect clover and green grass in the summer months to feed them. They will eat lettuce from the garden, In the wintertime you can feed them alfalfa hay. Doing this and you only have to give them rabbit pellets as a supplement. Much cheaper this way.
You will own nothing? As the liberal Demoncrat blue sanctuary States try to cram everyone into little cubicle apartments with little space. The gated community rich people will have their freedom to come and go as they please.
Many prepping lifestyles of owning farm animals for eggs and meat will be made of dreams.
This 2024 presidential election is a vote for our own freedom. Not for the United Nations to dictate through vegans how to eat bugs. Politicians to fold against the will of the globalist pressured by China.
Nikki Haley is in the race as a RINO because the Demoncrats are backing her by their votes. Whether Biden, Michelle Obama, CA gov Newsom or Nikki Haley as the next president will be the final straw that breaks America’s back.
You want to be free, brave and independent Americans, better vote in the right choice between the two evils.
Vegans, environmentalist and unions are part of the sellout of our country.
Are the modern preppers really prepared to live without livestock as the evil vegans get their way to eliminate all forms of animal ownership in America?
We got these same nutcases trying to remove dams for power generation and reservoirs for water storage in many States of our nation.
We got illegals taking over abandoned homes to plan their terrorist activities coming soon.
now you know the rest of the story.
God rest Toby Keith he was a patriot that cared for our fellow American veterans. That the USA government has abandoned for the care of illegals who broke our immigration laws getting free American citizen rights and benefits to foriegn freeloaders.
God bless America’s freedom fighters!
Negative thumbs down are the RINO’S & DINO’S and illegals hating the truth said here. Go back home, deport, deport!
We Americans have a long history of doing the right thing regardless of the naysayers who want to destroy our choice of freedoms we have.
Farm animals are a good choice for backyards in the suburban neighborhoods too, just need to be more attentive to their are and the next door neighbors. A couple eggs given will keep the peace among the skeptics.
We are Americans not wussy pussy indoctrinated Marxist we see in our nation today.
Correction; attentive to their care. Not their are.
Thank you.
The thumbs down are for preppers who are tired of seeing people bitch and complain on unrelated posts ALL the time. Let me give you guys a tip – if someone comes here, you’re only preaching to the choir, and being annoying. Go find another forum to release your depression and anxiety on – people and preppers are here to L E A R N
To Justin B,
The Americans were duped by liberals. No real American taxpayer ever voted to have their Demoncratic run state turned into a Blue Sanctuary State of hell.
The liberals say we welcome all the illegals here but not in our gated communities.
Well Martha’s Vineyard had yard signs virtue signaling they cared for illegals as long as it was NIMBY, just in your own yards.
So being a sanctuary island of the rich, wealthy, famous people got a taste of their own snake oil medicine.
Getting a small plane load of illegals the Martha’s Vineyard residents got rid of their illegals by deporting them to other crappy locations.
The rich got the military to transport the illegals of the island area.
No different then the San Francisco Demoncrats having residents tell the city council to clean up the poop filthy streets, they said NO!
But the China president Xi visiting San Fransicko the city cleaned up the poop streets and sidewalks to bow down to their real leader.
Americans like sensitive Gen Z’ers need to have repeated bitch and complaining messages to see reality of loosing our America!
Excellent comment. You see things clearly. When I see these megalithic structures going up, cramming people in boxes, I am grim. Lacking sufficient space to do more than merely exist, any spark of innovation and invention is muted. Microsoft, Apple, and so many other major contributors to our society and civilization were started in sheds, garages and the like. Without some working space, even the most creative and talanted people’s effort is discouraged.
There is an even darker side. Biden’s Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is pushing for the recycling of unused office space into residential units. I am writing a comment or essay about this. It will put people into even smaller spaces, usually in the core of cities. This will increase the burden on existing sanitation systems, water, and electricity. Of course they will not permit gas appliances. Moreover, in such habitats, there will be no space for more than a day or two of food-stuffs. It means that any emergency becomes a crisis with whole populations completely dependent on government “largesse.” The potential for societal collapse exists and will be magnified by such conversions, I truly believe.
Further, who will occupy the conversions? I suspect they will be illegals. And there is more. I assume the minimum habitable “apartment” size is 500 sq. ft., with perhaps another 100 sq. ft. as “common,” so figure 600 sq. ft. per unit in a typical building of 50,000 to 400,000 sq. ft. This sets the limit on the number of apartments that can be created from the unused office space. There is about 1 billion sq. ft. of unused office space in the US. If all of that space was used for dwellings, it would provide 1.7 million units. Figure two indifiduals per unit, so that would accommodate about 3.3 million people. Currently, we are told there are about 20 million illegals in the US. That means this gradiose plan to convert the unused office space to housing would accommodate only 17% of them!!!! Here in CA, there is a plan to float a $6.4 Billion bond issue for “mental health” with homeless housing. In other words, the state hopes to buy up motels, or construct new housing for druggies. Watch as the illegals would also be accommodated. Either way, the burden for housing for these individuals would fall on the remaining taxpayers. What a way to control the society.
It seems to me that if you have a broken water pipe and your basement is flooding, wouldn’t the first thing be to shut off the water? This administration appears to believe that the solution is to dig a deep hole to collect the water.
To JJ & Justin B; the predecessors of the prepper movement were the survivalist. The whole history of the two cultures or cultist thinking is these two are borne from the politics we Americans have seen.
The president Carter years and the president Biden years parallel us repeating history as we are with Bidenomics.
Politics an religion play an important part of prepping. If it were not for liberal mindset to control the public with stupid laws, regulations, lots of red tape bureaucracies of daily living. We all would not have to do prepping.
Please preppers do your discerning effort and research that we of the prepping community are not all of the same hive mindset.
So keep an open mind to the rest of us that do not always agree. We still have freedom of choice even with Biden in charge!
Some people think their vote does not count, well it can to over ride the illegal’s brought here to the 50 states to vote against Americans in 2024.
About the dams being removed in the NW US…they were unlawfully built on Native lands. Redirecting the river had negative ecological impacts clear up the food chain. No getting all climate changey here…but wasteful lifestyles SHOULD be punished. Good resource stewardship requires caring for the land so that it can care for people. Concrete monstrosities are ruining everything
Oh Moses smell the roses, every culture has stolen land from each other. Start studying world history for God’s sake!
What a liberal BS you are the indoctrinated useful idiots of the woke.
Grow up and get a job pay some taxes then you can bitch.
I don’t see how anyone could give a thumbs down. Must have been drinking the cool aid.
If you have not noticed
The Take down of Nations has been going on for about 40 years
UN is the head of it
Davos , WEF and WHO all in the New World order
and They are getting ready for agenda 2030
Depopulation, massive wars, Starvation , Total collapse so you will beg for help
This is agenda 2030 , Take what you have , give to who ever follows thier agenda and plays the game acording to the alagarky of filthy Rich, Godless, antichrist who love thier money and control measures
after polluting your s , they will retreat to thier private island, hole in the ground , bunker , place to hide and forget thier sins against humanity
Then , all hell will destroy 1/3 of humanity as predicted in the bible , a great falling away from Truth , God, Holiness and a deep state following of thier self given lust for pleasure
Just like the day s of noah , so shall it be , before the end , the judgement of mankind true heart , bent on distruction , hatred
Take a good look The food supply will be polluted , shots in the meat , gmo in the garden , experiments in the people to see what they can withstand
just like the Bible , Gods word of Truth , says mankind will do
just so they can get loved by each other , accepted by each other , clubbed by each other , in the club of acceptance and social likes
this is the education system being propagated by the elites
When reading , writing , Math is no longer the priority in school , this is what you get
Dumb, Stupid , Followers , who will accept the mark for thier desire and fulfilment
Good fellings, social acceptance and Everything anti God
Get Ready , Plan you food , your independence from the sociatal norm
Do the Math 5000 per entry pt times 365 x 10 in 50 countries , pest invasion to dumb down the mass’s
Mr. Biden tear down the UN, kick them totally out of America!
Mr. Xi take your Chinese nationals back too!
Vegans VS Meat eaters, start eating a balanced Mediterranean Diet of both meat and veggies get balanced again. In spirit and commonsense, time to take our public school education back from the Marxist teacher’s unions, defund the department of education in Washington DC.
Bring back Home Economics and Shop classes to high schools. Reinvigorate the Trade School network nationwide.
The current colleges and universities teach Marxist garbage.
God Bless America!
You can’t grow a Mediterranean diet outside of zone 8. You’re not going to grow olive trees in Minnesota. It’s unwise to be making your standard diet one you could never grow or forage yourself.
It’s funny that the Roman empire STILL has a grip on the minds of people it conquered
Look up “Operation Garden Plot”
A PDF is at:
Operation Garden Plot
Wow!
That is reminiscent just a few years ago of Operation Jade Helm.
Your 2A rights are gone like what happen in the Katrina Hurricane, guns are confiscated. The residents got their dirty rusted damaged weapons back. While the gangs rapped and pillage residents as they gangs do now in big cities today.
We need an edit button to fix our spelling mistakes, thank you!
The generally well-respected Dennis Prager questioned Leftism, how it originated and where it leads. It is no mystery. It can be clarified: Leftism is but one layer in the “Dance of the Seven Veils.”
First is the veil of Liberalism. It appears chaste, friendly and pure, obscuring that which lies beneath. It bespeaks innocence and is charming in its naivety. The dancer sways and gestures gently, hypnotic in her grace. We are beguiled.
Then comes Leftism. It appears when the veil of Liberalism is plucked away. Leftism is the veil of cause. Its adherents focus upon specific threads, picking and pulling at them, emphasizing them even as the veil fabric is shredded. The dancer’s movements increase in intensity. We must react in beat with her rhythm.
The next veil is Socialism. It actually contains the remnants of the second veil, woven together and crudely mended with coarse threads of discontent, distractedness and jealousy. This veil is ragged with holes in its fabric. As the dancer whirls and gyrates, her observers occasionally glimpse what lies beneath. They grow flushed and salivate with eager anticipation of a more salacious view.
Soon both dancer and on-lookers are ensnared in the frenzy of the moment. When the dancer has flung off the most recent, provocative garment, she exposes the fiery veil of Marxism. It has no pretense of innocence. It is not chaste nor coy. The dancer, breathless and seductive, beckons willing observers and shames the unwilling.
But there is more. Anarchy, the next veil, is exposed in its boldness. The air is a-flame and one is feverishly impelled to join the dance or perish. The very floor upon which all now stomp and trample in their frenzy collapses to rubble. Those still nimble may yet escape, but most are bloodied, trapped and ground into dust.
Some grab at the dancer, raising her aloft so that all may see; her veil wrapped about her as a flag, fluttering in the winds of change. Those few who claim that this garment is but the thin gauze of Dictatorship are hooted into silent obscurity. All others blindly believe this veil to be transitory; that the dancer will shortly peel it away voluntarily so that they may vulgarly ogle her bosom. They have been promised that when the dancer has undone that final veil, her virginal beauty will satisfy their yearning for unbridled expression and equity, if not freedom and equality!
Alas, ’tis only the promises that be transitory! They vanish as does the morning dew in the unrelenting heat of day! The undergarment revealed is not a veil, but rather the stark, filthy cloak of Slavery. And it is not worn by the dancer, but by the people. It chafes and fits poorly. It is the robe of the chattel. There is no escape.
The “Dance of the Seven Veils” ends. The dancer is indeed naked, but the view is not pleasing. Those who were previously blind to her regain their sight, but it returns too late. They are aghast. The dance has been a masquerade from the start. No beauty is the dancer. Rather, she is exposed as the hideous, snarling, foul, and all-consuming beast of Communism. What that beast hath ruined cannot be rebuilt.
Spot on!
Very eloquent and memorable! Thank you fir sharing that
Quail weren’t mentioned. They’re very quiet and they start laying at 8 wks from hatching.
Quail eggs are VERY high in cholesterol, according to my doctor. Also, the eggs are way too small, as are the birds for food. If you are going to be using them for food, they cost too much in labor to be of economic benefit…chickens, ducks or larger birds are much better in the long run.
We aren’t going to be concerned about cholesterol. We are going to be concerned about safe to eat and calories. Lifespans will probably drop off precipitously anyway…Darwin factors.
That whole high cholesterol thing is a total scam. Cut out seed oils and don’t worry about your cholesterol. Statins will kill you
The article talks about meat rabbits taking a year to reach full size. Technically that’s true but the vast majority are butchered no later than 12 wks
One of my grandparents was raised on rabbit during the Depression. They didn’t have their own land, their dad was a teacher and in those days the teacher’s housing was provided as part of the yearly contract so it could be a house, duplex, apt, etc. depending on where they were that year. Rabbits are clean and quiet and can be raised unnoticed even in tight quarters surrounded by neighbors. You do need a supplemental fat source as it’s extremely lean. Especially for growing kids to build the brain or to stave off dementia in elders
I do raise chickens. Thinking about getting a goose to serve as a predator alarm bird. Problem for me is that they are more like pets with benefits. They give us eggs, but as far as slaughtering them for food, that I don’t see myself doing. They all have names and come running when they see me. The same would be for rabbits.
Yes I have participated in butchering some farm animals like chickens and pigs. But I made a deal with the current chickens, you produce eggs and you can retire still producing good fertilizer after no more eggs.
Yeah I named my chickens too, we have in So Cal coyotes, raccoons and hawks, that once in a while get a chicken outside the fenced pen. We try to be careful, things do happen.
Maybe a couple of goose or geese would sound the alarm, but fending off a hungry coyote can be a pressing problem.
Next thing is how or where can one get a dog that won’t kill a chicken to be a livestock guardian. I have not yet found information on training a dog to be a livestock guardian for backyard chickens.
Has any prepper trained a guardian dog for protection?
If you get a livestock guardian breed, much of the protective nature is innate. You show you care about something and they learn quickly to leave it alone. Great Pyrenees are awesome.
What about goats? Goat milk is consumed by more people in the world than cow milk.
I have thought about a milking goat, but you need to be willing to milk the goat practically everyday. As a backyard goat the space available needs considering. People in smaller towns with bigger yards would have a better time. Also need a place to store their feed and housing needs depending on the climate region you are residing at. Depends on the city zoning laws too.
Sounds good.
I am right there with you, Rocky! I plan to get some goats this year. Goats don’t like to be solitary creatures so I plan to get three. One adult doe, one newly weaned doe, and one newly weaned buck (not fixed and not related to the two does). That way I can raise the young buck to breed with the does. Once he does his work, I’ll sell him so I don’t have to keep him over the winter.
I have done this before and it worked beautifully!
I grew up on a small farm. we had goats, chickens, rabbits , and pigs. a couple of times we had cattle. none of the livestock had names. they were not pets, they were food. that’s how you have to think about it. we did our own butchering and meat processing. sold some of it or bartered some of it. we had a 2 acre garden, with just about every vegetable known. sold some of it and bartered some of it. it was a great life. only time we went to the grocery store is when we absolutely had to. this administration is trying to destroy that lifestyle. with all the illegals coming into our country, our food sources will struggle to keep up. and with the intolerable regulations put on farmers limits what they can produce. other countries allowed to buy land, Bill Gates buying every piece of land he can, they will control our food supply. it is by design, bejing joey and the left wants us to be dependent on the government. plus God has been removed from most of our country. violence , crime, and absurdity is slowly taking over. call me crazy if you must. we must all be ready for what is to come.
When the time comes, I might need to visit a friend. If it was bad enough, I do believe I would consider eating a dog or horse, rather than letting starve to death or become unhealthy. I think a quick humane death for my pets would be preferable if it had no ability to hunt/feed itself. A horse could feed alot of dogs and people
Are you Asian? They eat dogs and cats, in China they eat everything even endangered animals, what a shame.
Owning land and having animals is fine, if you can keep them from being poached. There will be a lot of people starving and willing to do anything to survive (as would we all). So those animals will need 24 hour guards to ensure they are for your benefit and not someone else’s. People must be willing to kill others to protect them. This requires a small community of like minded individuals with a common goal of survival of their community above all else.
I keep all of these live stock but Pigeons. I also keep beef calves that are steers. They are in the chain of farm animals that make a farm complete.
Here in CHILE SOUTH AMERICA i find that the concept of prepping is what has always been before PREPPING because a buzz phrase.
There is no PREPPING because we are safe in Chile. Stop listening to the press in the former USA. THERE ARE SAFER, CLEANER, CHEAPER, places to raise a family than the former USA.
Here farm life is your existence, There are ways to become more efficient than other farms but I keep my production down to satisfy my needs and not the needs of the market around me. Why? Well I do not have to pay TAXES and other bills that you all have in the former USA. I have no power bill. I have no water or sewer bill. I live on less than I spent a year on lunch.
Change your perception of debt! Get rid of it instantly by getting out of their system.
Change your location.
Change your thinking .
Change your life.
Jim in Chile
You must be California liberal who voted for loony democrats. It got so bad you had to move away from the mess you were part of, don’t ever comeback.
Goats should’ve been mentioned, very hardy, eats anything and everything, milk the females, etc, etc. Awesome animals.