Livestock in the Homestead
*Table of Contents for Livestock Section is at bottom of this page.*
The goal of this website is to foster a vision of the homestead or small farm as holistic pattern rather than aggregate of separate parts. It is about the creation of—or more accurately, cooperation with—a synergistic whole greater than the sum of the individual elements. Just as we see such synergies in the interactions of animals and plants in nature, ideally the homestead should be a community of both plant and animal as well. If at all possible, the homestead should include livestock.
I write a great deal about poultry—you will find lots of material in that section. I have made a small beginning on the family dairy cow. Also included in this section is a little about nurturing the pasture on the homestead, should you be so lucky as to have some. The section concludes with a Guest Article by Michael Rininger, “Getting Started with Beekeeping”.
In the future, I hope to add subsections as well on goats, sheep, rabbits, and pigs. ~Harvey, March, 2009
Table of Contents for Livestock Section
- Poultry in the Homestead
- Poultry Overview
- “The Home Flock for Beginners”
- “Poultry 101: Starting a Small Flock of Chickens”
- “Poultry Husbandry in a Changed Energy Future”
- “The Homestead Flock: Pets or Partners?”
- “Moral Puzzles in the Backyard”
- Feeding the Homestead Flock
- “Feeding the Homestead Flock: It Ain't Rocket Science!”
- “Making Your Own Poultry Feeds”
- “Feeding the Flock from the Homestead's Own Resources”
- “Alternatives to Soy”
- “Sprouting to Enhance Poultry Feeds”
- “Current Feeding Practice”
- “The Challenge of High Feed Costs”
- “Raising Earthworms to Feed the Flock”
- “Protein from Thin Air: Breeding fly maggots for poultry feed”
- “Cultivating Soldier Grubs to Feed the Flock”
- “Feeding the Flock from Home Resources”
- Housing the Flock
- Pasturing the Flock
- “Managing Poultry on Pasture with Electronet”
- “Designing a Pasture Shelter”
- “Building a Pasture Shelter”
- “Going Mobile at the Small End of the Scale”
- “Mobile Shelter: The Classic Polyface Model”
- “Chicken Tractor: A Tribute to Andy Lee”
- “Pasture Shelters for Market Layer Flocks”
- “A Drown-Proof Waterer”
- Waterfowl
- Breeding the Homestead Poultry Flock
- Dealing with Poultry Predators
- Butchering Poultry
- Producing for Small Markets
- “Stepping Up to Production for a Small Broiler Market”
- “Serving a Small Broiler Market: Three Examples”
- “The Cornish Cross: What is wrong with this picture?!”
- “Alternatives to the Cornish Cross”
- “Caponizing: Reviving a Lost Art”
- “Serving a Niche Market for Started Birds”
- “Game Birds: A Niche Market Opportunity”
- Poultry Miscellaneous
- The Homestead Dairy Cow
- Pasture, the Heart of the Homestead
- Bees