The Complete Guide to Small Scale Farming: Everything You Need to Know About Raising Beef Cattle, Rabbits, Ducks, and Other Small Animals (Back to Basics Farming)

By Melissa Nelson

Starting a small scale farm is the dream of Americans young and old, from those who watched the majesty of the great western farm in films during their youth to those who spent their childhood actually working on a farm. However, for many of these individuals it is a matter of logistics and cost that keeps them from realizing their dreams. Raising beef cattle, ducks, rabbits, and any other small animals such as sheep, goats, or chickens takes not only a decent amount of money to get started, but know how that doesn't come in textbooks while in school.

This book was written with the intent of providing anyone who has ever wanted to start their own small scale farm the necessary resources and information needed to start raising small animals and cattle. You will learn everything you need to know to raise a wide variety of small animals. You will learn how to care for chickens, from choosing the right breed to raising them for egg production. You will learn how to handle geese and ducks, choosing the correct breeds, feeding, housing, breeding, and selecting the right ones for egg production. You will also learn about egg incubation, maintaining poultry health, and how raise them for meat. Other animals you will learn how to care for include rabbits, goats, sheep, dairy cows, and beef cattle.

Small farmers and animal experts have been interviewed in detail and their responses added to this book to provide additional insight into every aspect of raising farm animals. This includes details about how to purchase, house, feed, breed, record, and butcher animals of all types as well as how to gather milk, use goats and cows for maintaining your fields, and even keeping records of births and selling babies. Everything you might need to know about raising small animals for your farm is included in this guide to provide you the first steps to raising domesticated poultry and livestock.

Atlantic Publishing is a small, independent publishing company based in Ocala, Florida. Founded over twenty years ago in the company president’s garage, Atlantic Publishing has grown to become a renowned resource for non-fiction books. Today, over 450 titles are in print covering subjects such as small business, healthy living, management, finance, careers, and real estate. Atlantic Publishing prides itself on producing award winning, high-quality manuals that give readers up-to-date, pertinent information, real-world examples, and case studies with expert advice. Every book has resources, contact information, and web sites of the products or companies discussed.

This Atlantic Publishing eBook was professionally written, edited, fact checked, proofed and designed. The print version of this book is 288 pages and you receive exactly the same content. Over the years our books have won dozens of book awards for content, cover design and interior design including the prestigious Benjamin Franklin award for excellence in publishing. We are proud of the high quality of our books and hope you will enjoy this eBook version.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Atlantic Publishing Group Inc.
• Release date: Feb 22, 2010
• ISBN: 9781601386458

Melissa Nelson

Roger Nelson started skydiving when he was sixteen. By the time he died at age forty-seven in a skydiving accident, he had amassed more than 10,000 hours as a pilot; 9,000 parachute jumps; 100 hours of freefall time; multiple instructor ratings; national skydiving championships; and skydiving world records. Melissa Nelson, Roger’s oldest child and only daughter, made her first parachute jump with her father when she was five years old. She earned her pilot’s license in 2012 and currently lives in Moab, Utah, where she runs a retail store for BASE jumpers and lives her own “other life” as a BASE jumper, slackliner, and yoga practitioner.

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The Complete Guide to

Small-Scale Farming

Everything You Need to Know About Raising Beef and Dairy Cattle, Rabbits, Ducks, and Other Small Animals

By Melissa G. Nelson, D.V.M.

The Complete Guide to Small-Scale Farming: Everything You Need to Know About Raising Beef and Dairy Cattle, Rabbits, Ducks, and Other Small Animals

Copyright © 2012 Atlantic Publishing Group, Inc.

1210 SW 23rd Place • Ocala, Florida 34471 • Phone [phone] • Fax [phone]

Website: www.atlantic-pub.com • E-mail: [e-mail]

SAN Number: 268-1250

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of the Publisher. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be sent to Atlantic Publishing Group, Inc., 1210 SW 23rd Place, Ocala, Florida 34471.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Nelson, Melissa G. (Melissa Gwyn), 1969-

The complete guide to small-scale farming : everything you need to know about raising beef and dairy cattle, rabbits, ducks, and other small animals / by Melissa G. Nelson.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-13: 978-1-60138-375-4 (alk. paper)

ISBN-10: 1-60138-375-4 (alk. paper)

1. Livestock. 2. Small animal culture. I. Title.

SF61.N35 2010

636--dc22

2009052488

LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY: The publisher and the author make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work and specifically disclaim all warranties, including without limitation warranties of fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales or promotional materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for every situation. This work is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional services. If professional assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom. The fact that an organization or Web site is referred to in this work as a citation and/or a potential source of further information does not mean that the author or the publisher endorses the information the organization or Web site may provide or recommendations it may make. Further, readers should be aware that Internet Web sites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read.

TRADEMARK DISCLAIMER: All trademarks, trade names, or logos mentioned or used are the property of their respective owners and are used only to directly describe the products being provided. Every effort has been made to properly capitalize, punctuate, identify, and attribute trademarks and trade names to their respective owners, including the use of ® and ™ wherever possible and practical. Atlantic Publishing Group, Inc. is not a partner, affiliate, or licensee with the holders of said trademarks.

A few years back we lost our beloved pet dog Bear, who was not only our best and dearest friend but also the Vice President of Sunshine here at Atlantic Publishing. He did not receive a salary but worked tirelessly 24 hours a day to please his parents.

Bear was a rescue dog who turned around and showered myself, my wife, Sherri, his grandparents Jean, Bob, and Nancy, and every person and animal he met (well, maybe not rabbits) with friendship and love. He made a lot of people smile every day.

We wanted you to know a portion of the profits of this book will be donated in Bear’s memory to local animal shelters, parks, conservation organizations, and other individuals and nonprofit organizations in need of assistance.

– Douglas and Sherri Brown

PS: We have since adopted two more rescue dogs: first Scout, and the following year, Ginger. They were both mixed golden retrievers who needed a home.

Want to help animals and the world? Here are a dozen easy suggestions you and your family can implement today:

Adopt and rescue a pet from a local shelter.

Support local and no-kill animal shelters.

Plant a tree to honor someone you love.

Be a developer — put up some birdhouses.

Buy live, potted Christmas trees and replant them.

Make sure you spend time with your animals each day.

Save natural resources by recycling and buying recycled products.

Drink tap water, or filter your own water at home.

Whenever possible, limit your use of or do not use pesticides.

If you eat seafood, make sustainable choices.

Support your local farmers market.

Get outside. Visit a park, volunteer, walk your dog, or ride your bike.

Five years ago, Atlantic Publishing signed the Green Press Initiative. These guidelines promote environmentally friendly practices, such as using recycled stock and vegetable-based inks, avoiding waste, choosing energy-efficient resources, and promoting a no-pulping policy. We now use 100-percent recycled stock on all our books. The results: in one year, switching to post-consumer recycled stock saved 24 mature trees, 5,000 gallons of water, the equivalent of the total energy used for one home in a year, and the equivalent of the greenhouse gases from one car driven for a year.

Dedication and Acknowledgments

Dedication: To my parents, Henry and Suzanne Nelson, who instilled in me a healthy respect and love of all creatures great and small.

Acknowledgements: Writing a book is usually considered a lonely process, as the writer spends much time alone researching material and writing text. But no writer is an island, and during the creative process many people contribute to make a book successful. First, I’d like to thank those friends and family who supported and encouraged my decision to strike out in writing. Particularly, I’d like to thank Karen Hipple-Perez, who always had a ready ear to listen to my ideas and to help sort through things; Jennifer Hipple, a fellow writer; my sister, Rosanna Callahan; and my brother, Terry Nelson.

I would also like to thank the participants in my case studies who really made the book with their real life experiences. They were all very open and willing to share their experiences.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: Down on the Farm

Chapter 2: Starting Small with Chickens

Chapter 3: The World of Waterfowl

Chapter 4: Keeping Turkeys and Game Birds

Chapter 5: Rearing Rabbits

Chapter 6: The Curious Goat

Chapter 7: The Serene Sheep

Chapter 8: Pigs: The Mortgage Lifters

Chapter 9: Your Beef Cattle Operation

Chapter 10: Caring for Dairy Cattle

Chapter 11: Medicating Your Livestock

Chapter 12: Butchering Livestock

Conclusion

Appendix A

Resources

Bibliography

Author Biography

Introduction

Farming is one of the oldest professions. Planting crops and raising livestock has been part of every culture from ancient times up to the present day. Even though very few people raise livestock or plant crops, every person is affected by agriculture. While modern day agricultural policies have made small-scale commodity crop raising (soybeans, wheat, and corn) cost prohibitive, many small-scale livestock farms thrive as a viable source of side income or family food source with a minimal outlay of cash. Livestock ownership has been closely related to individual wealth and societal advancement. Farm animals have also been mentioned frequently in literature and art: Shepherds are prominent figures in the Bible, and Egyptian carvings depict oxen pulling plows.

Kings and royalty throughout history have laid claim to large tracts of land worked by servants, slaves, and serfs. American plantation owners did the same in the United States, and large bonanza farms grew wheat and cattle in the Great Plains. Today, most chickens, turkeys, and pigs are grown by or under contract to multinational corporations in confinement buildings. Large dairies comprising thousands of cows have rapidly replaced the small dairy farms of yesteryear. Most beef cattle are fed up to slaughter weight in huge commercial feedlots.

Throughout history, most of the world’s population engaged in farming; there have always been small farmers who claimed a plot of land and planted crops. If they had the means, they would also keep livestock. The bounty from the farm would primarily be used for family consumption with small amounts left over to trade or sell for items the family could not produce on the farm. This way of farming has been the backbone of American agriculture up until the end of World War II. Since then, the landscape of farming changed dramatically. The Green Revolution, the introduction of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides, and powerful machinery capable of tilling hundreds of acres in a day prompted the demise of the small-family farm and ushered in the era of big farms. One person now did the work formerly done by 20 farmers.

This change brought with it an exodus of people from the farms and the rural communities that served them. For the past few decades, many towns and villages in rural America have become virtual ghost towns. Young adults have flocked to the larger cities where well-paying jobs are less physically intense and more pleasant than mucking out a pig stall or stacking hay in hot weather. The health benefits, working conditions, and steady paycheck offer more than the uncertainty surrounding farming. Larger farms produced surpluses of grain and livestock, lowering the grocery bill for the average consumer. This savings created a larger disposable income — or so the thought went.

There have always been stalwart small-scale farmers. They have hovered on the edges of the march of modernization, at times vilified as roadblocks on the way to progress or as environmental zealots. There was no room allowed for these backward-thinking people at the modern agriculture feed trough. However, the tide is changing, creating a paradigm shift from the thought that the top food priorities should be a cheap food supply and it should be available in large quantities. While we always will want plenty of food, people are taking a closer look at the true cost of our cheap food. Transporting food hundreds of miles from where it is produced is looked upon as a waste of costly fuel. Blanketing millions of acres of crops with expensive pesticides and chemical fertilizers has raised the issue of contaminated land and water. Raising livestock from hatching or birth until slaughter day in total confinement raises questions surrounding animal welfare. Losing the collective knowledge of how food is produced — no, milk is not made in the grocery store — has left the last few generations clueless on how to plant a garden, much less how to raise a chicken.

People are trickling back to the country, returning to their roots, or establishing new roots in the land. Many are former professionals who are tired of the corporate battles. Others have become fed up with the hassles of city living. Still others come seeking a healthier way of raising their children. Whatever the reason, these folks are creating a ripple in the rural landscape, reviving communities and reshaping agriculture. Optimists say this ripple may turn into a wave and could make small-scale sustainable agriculture the norm. While this may not happen, there is change happening as attested by the fact that universities and colleges are undertaking serious research in the sustainable agriculture field. Markets are opening, and merchants are anxious for milk, eggs, and meat produced using these practices.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture defines a farm as any operation that sells at least $1,000 of agricultural commodities, or that would have sold that amount of produce (livestock) under normal circumstances, according to its Web site, www.ers.usda.gov/data/farmincome/Sizedefinition.htm. Many small-scale farms can easily sell that amount of livestock or produce each year, so they are counted as a farm in official numbers. Regardless if you do meet the official definition of a farm, a few factors have remained constant in agriculture throughout the years. It is a tough business requiring physical labor, while working in a field of uncertainties due to weather, disease, and injuries. Market volatility is also a big uncertainty in agriculture. All these factors can combine in a disastrous way to drive a well-meaning farmer from their livelihood, or they can build a person’s character and resourcefulness in ways never thought possible.

This book will help you get off on the right foot in establishing a small-scale enterprise. You will learn how to prepare for newly hatched chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, quails, guinea fowl, and pheasants. You will learn how to choose healthy goats, sheep, cattle, and pigs before you bring them home to your farm. Once you have your livestock, you will learn how to recognize the signs of an ill animal or bird and how to treat a sick animal. In order to properly use your investment, you will learn how to harvest milk, handle eggs, breed birds and animals, market your livestock, and butcher your own meat. In a nutshell, you will learn the ins and outs of livestock farming from experts and pros in the business. But as with most things, you will learn best by doing. Most likely, you will experience a few setbacks your first year or two. With practice, research, and determination, your foray into small-scale farming will be a fun and rewarding experience for you and your family.

Before you embark on a small-scale enterprise, do your research. Research the breeds available, the equipment needed, the physical labor requirements, and — equally important — the markets available to sell the products your livestock produce. You will have to ask yourself some tough questions. To begin, do you have the resources to finance a poultry or livestock enterprise? Can you physically handle the species you would like to raise? Is there a reliable source of feed near your farm? Is there an available, nearby market for your product, or do you have to create a market? This book can help answer these questions and more. These are just a few of the many questions you need to seriously contemplate before you make a single purchase related to small-scale farming. Instead of jumping into a larger-scale poultry or livestock operation, you might want to start with a small flock of chickens or a pair of breeding rabbits to make sure you enjoy working with animals or birds daily. Do not invest a lot of money until you are absolutely certain this is something you would like to do as a business or to provide your family with milk or meat.

However, do not let these precautions dissuade you from attempting to raise poultry or livestock on your farm. As long as you go in clear-eyed and levelheaded with reasonable expectations, you just might find raising a few birds, rabbits, sheep, or cows will suit you just fine. As you will see from some of the case studies in this book, farming is a family affair, and children can become just as invested as adults in rearing animals.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Down on the Farm

Terms to Know:

Cooperative extension: A nationwide educational service staffed by experts who provide information to farmers, children, small-business owners, and others in rural and urban communities.

Forage: Food eaten by browsing or grazing animals. Generally understood to mean leaves, grasses, or leguminous plants. Also known as the act of searching for and procuring food.

Pasture: Land used for grazing animals.

Unpalatable: Distasteful or not agreeable.

Webster’s Dictionary defines livestock as animals kept or raised for use or pleasure; especially farm animals kept for use and profit. This includes common farm animals such as poultry, rabbits, sheep, goats, pigs, and cattle. If you are considering raising livestock to provide food for your family or to supplement an off-farm income, there are some issues to consider before purchasing any animals.

You will need to have some land to raise your livestock. Although a small flock of chickens, or a few ducks or geese, can easily be raised on a small lot, with larger animals you will need land to provide pasture for food, exercise, and manure disposal. Even with poultry, if you choose to let them roam outside an enclosed shelter during good weather, they will tend to forage a fair distance away from the shelter for food.

If you already own some acreage, you will want to determine if your land is zoned for agricultural use. Land that is surrounded by crop fields and other livestock farm most likely is zoned for agriculture, but if you are near a body of water or close to a town or city, you will want to check with the county or parish zoning office to make certain. Some land, while zoned for agriculture, might restrict the number of animals permitted, especially if you are near houses or a body of water. If this is the case, you might encounter the term animal unit equivalent (AUE). This measurement is defined as a 1,000-pound animal (the average weight of a mature beef cow) and is used to determine stocking densities of feedlots and pastures. It helps to estimate the amount of pasture forage an animal will consume and the amount of manure produced per animal. From the table below, you can see that five sheep or goats can use the same amount of pasture as one beef cow.

All pastureland is not equal in nutritional value. Generally, the more average rainfall a given locality receives per year, the more forage produced per acre. In the United States the Great Plains region will support fewer animals per acre than an acre in the Midwest. If you are unfamiliar with the particular environment of your region, the local county extension agent can help you determine your land’s pasture potential.

Another consideration is to determine if you should purchase land or rent land. Agricultural land, including pastureland, can be expensive; prices generally influence the purchase price of farmland, which can range from under $1,000 an acre up to $5,000 an acre. (The region of the country influences the price along with competition from crop farmers for land, and a real estate agent can help you determine the price of an average acre of land.) Small-scale farmers can generally get away with purchasing small tracts of land (10 to 40 acres). If you plan on renting your land, you can expect to pay from $80 an acre to more than $200 per acre, where region, competition, and productivity influence the rental price. If you do find a rent that agrees with your pocketbook, entering into a long-term contract with the landlord will help even out any future fluctuations in rent.

Outside Help

Once you have settled on the land, you need to determine if you and your family have the time to devote to properly care for livestock. Each species has its own particular needs regarding housing, feeding, and general care. Smaller and young livestock will need shelter from predators and poor weather, while more mature and larger animals will be able to stand poor weather and protect themselves. It is difficult to give a particular amount of time needed to care for your animals, but generally plan to commit 10 hours a week to direct and indirect care of your animal(s). This includes building shelters, pens, and fences; maintaining buildings, equipment, and fences; feeding and watering; collecting eggs or milking the animals; cleaning pens and disposing of manure; procuring feed, hay, and bedding; plus the numerous small chores that crop up. If you have dairy animals, you will probably spend more than 10 hours a week on dairy chores, including cleaning