Which Animals To Keep:
The feed to production ratio value of your animals is basically like this. Poultry good, Pigs & Sheep medium, Cattle poor.
Poultry eat a mainly grain diet so that is expensive but this can be supplemented with natural feed when free ranging. Any switch from high value grain to natural feed will lower the feed to meat and egg production ratio, but the switch to a varied natural feed can produce a higher quality product.
Pigs also eat a grain diet but this can be supplemented quite well with waste fruit and vegetables, and also natural feed when free ranging. Any switch from high value grain to waste fruit and vegetables or natural feed will lower the feed to meat production ratio, but the switch to a varied natural feed can produce a higher quality product.
Sheep eat mainly grass but if producing black faced hardy sheep, these will eat almost all kinds of vegetation from the poorest of land, so even though their feed costs are low they still put weight on slower than more expensively reared quality grass sheep.
Cattle require expensive quality grass to produce anything and will also require expensive winter feed and purpose built winter housing, producing anything from cattle take many months and masses of expense and time.
Livestock Keeping Costs:
So keeping and rearing the animals yourself is going to work out cheaper for you?
A farmer has to rear animals as efficiently as possible otherwise he will earn little or no profit or most possibly be out of business. So how can you rear the same animals cheaper?
The farmer will buy all of his feedstuffs in bulk so getting them at a reduced rate. How can you do this without having the storage facilities and they all cost money which has to be taken in to account in the animal rearing operation.
The farmer will most likely get discounted other goods and facilities because he will be spending large amounts of money with these other businesses. How will you avail of the same discounts when you are just rearing a few animals, so why would any business give you a discount?
All expenditure for tools, equipment, fencing, animal housing, machinery, storage facilities have to be added to the cost of rearing animals. It is not just simply feed costs.
The farmer can offset any expenditure and VAT against his business. You cannot do this unless you also become a business.
OK you say .... "but i can still produce the meat or produce cheaper than what it costs me to buy in the shops" ........ Possibly yes. But it is very doubtful as the farmers margins per animal are so small and the shops profits because of these recession days so small that any savings you could possibly make if any would be tiny. Together with all the equipment you would need to buy beforehand and during this venture, it could be one of the most expensive follies you may undertake. To give an example some chicken farmers are reported to make less than 0.50 cents per bird, and some shops sell large free range chicken for under 7.00 euro. You have got to purchase the fencing, feed, housing and all other things needed to get any where near these prices ..... Is it worth it?
Some people say that you can produce meat and other livestock products far cheaper than shop prices. Well maybe you can or maybe you can't. This is actually a complete distortion of the truth as they most probably have based their findings on feed costs only, and haven't taken into account capital expenditure, labour and other costs which are involved in the keeping of livestock.
Hidden costing's example, if your electric fence set up cost you 500.00 euro and it lasted 5 years without anymore expenditure needed to maintain it, then this electric fence set up has to be added to the costs of your livestock products which work out at approximately 1.93 euro every week for 5 years, and this is just one item and you also have to add on housing costs, bedding, equipment, tools, nails/screws, electricity and any additional expenditure and then your animal cost and your animal feed costs.
If you try to skimp on the essentials like fencing and housing, well internet forums are full of people who have lost their animals to predators and thieves because they didn't have the correct requirements in place. They have now lost money because they didn't put in the proper safeguards to protect their investments. So what do you think the correct procedure should be?
So if you were killing and eating or selling one chicken per week, all these hidden costing's have to be added on to the actual costs of producing your own meat or eggs or whatever.
Other livestock such as pigs require even more expenditure from field to plate. But also with the larger animals you are going to get cuts of meat which you may not like to eat. These unwanted cuts of meat cost you money to produce. Meat processors turn this meat in to other salable products. You can also but this is even more expense and time.
Your freezer will be largely taken up by the butchering and keeping of one large animal like a pig or lamb. No doubt you will need to purchase a second freezer just for your home grown meat? A medium sized freezer will cost around 250.00 euro and last say 10 years, so that's 25.00 euro per year plus approximately another 100.00 euro per year to run with electricity costs. So here is another approximately 125.00 euro per year of hidden costs which have to be divided and added to your home grown meat. Keep and eat 2 pigs per year, then you will have to add another 60.00 plus euro to the production costs of each pig.
If you intend not to start a part time business and to off set these costing's when bartering for other products, then you will need to include all of these hidden costing's into your final bartering price otherwise you will simply be out of pocket and at a loss and giving your product away below it's real value, and only a fool does that even though we all get caught from time to time.
The point of all this is not to put you off keeping livestock, but to make you aware of what is possible and maybe you have to decide that you may have to keep extra animals which are for sale to offset the costs of rearing your own animals for your own meat.
Share the costs. Get together with other like minded people so any animals reared are shared out between you when butchered, so then you do not need an extra freezer, and all other capital costs such as housing, fencing etc are shared between you so relieving the burden of many hundreds or thousands of euros. Do this correctly and if the people who have joined you are like minded, then you could be producing your own meat and animal products at well below shop prices.
Keeping Livestock:
Whatever kind of livestock you keep which means any animals that you keep, will mean that there will be rules and regulations applied to the housing for the animals, land where animals are kept, food that animals are fed, waste from animals, products produced from animals etc. etc. etc. the list is endless. Most people overlook all this when they decide or think of keeping animals for either their meat or products. There is a fashionable trend to have a go at what is called "backyard animal keeping". There are extensive regulations in force by the government of this country and the EU with regard to the animals well being and public health where the penalties of falling foul of these regulations can be very severe. Do not get carried away by a trendy fad, understand exactly what you are getting in to when embarking on livestock rearing, it is totally different than growing your own spuds.
Smell .... Noise .... Vermin .... Flies .... Waste excrement .... Waste feed wrapping .... Feed storage .... Security .... Just few things to start with that you ought to think about before you attempt the latest "fad". There is only one way to rear livestock and that is the correct way.
Livestock housing has to be constructed properly and to any regulations which may apply either for the animals well being or for your neighbours concerns.
All livestock housing will have to be cleaned at least weekly to destroy any parasites and also to apply any vermin control from which the livestock have attracted. When cleaning this housing your animals will have to be elsewhere whilst this procedure is carried out. Also all livestock housing will have to be large enough for the animals which you are keeping and if it is not, you could you fall foul of any regulations that apply.
For these simple and basic reasons the only animals you can keep in your backyard would be just a few chickens and even then you could really upset your neighbours. Any other animal is not suitable at all for keeping in your backyard.
For keeping all animals including poultry you will need a set amount of space for each animal, but as a rule of thumb you will need probably three times the amount of space needed for those animals, because you will have to rotate the land that they are kept on to reduce any problem with parasites and vermin accumulating on the land. The land that the animals are kept on can become 'sick'. This means that the land can accumulate not only parasites or vermin but can become impregnated with bacteria and viruses from the animals and this would just make this land totally unusable for keeping animals on, so that is why I suggest that you will need at least three times the land that is required so you can rotate the animals and rest other parts of the land to allow any problems to naturally disperse.
Besides land for keeping your animals you will need areas to store animal waste and of course animal food and equipment. These will also have to comply with any relevant regulations supplied to storing animal food and waste.
Keeping livestock will also require thousands of gallons of clean fresh water that is available 100% of the time for your animals, so in most cases a mains water supply or a 24 hour 365 day of the year stream is an essential requirement for keeping any animals. If you are using a mains water supply the water scheme that you are connected to may have to be notified that you are using the water for the keeping of livestock as extra water charges may have to be applied.
Fencing and good fencing is of the utmost when you keep animals on land, not only for the obvious reasons of your animals escaping, but also so you do not end up being prosecuted or sued because your animals have caused an accident or damage to somebody else's property. No matter who always was responsible for the boundary fencing between you and your neighbours, when you keep livestock that job now falls down to you. Because if you keep livestock it is YOUR responsibility that your livestock cannot get out, so the fencing has to be in order and maintained by YOU. A good reason why keeping anything other than a few chickens in your garden is not really suitable unless it extends to a few acres.
Water courses such as streams and rivers running through your property will have to be protected from your animals waste products entering them and causing pollution which could also result in legal problems if this is not adhered to.
Insurance for your animals is also essential not only incase of loss of them but also in case of any damage they do to any third party or their property. This is available from most insurance companies that deal with farm insurance.
Sick and dying animals these can require expensive veterinary fees. If your animals get sick you cannot give them a headache tablet and expect them to get better, sick animals could have something very contagious or a notifiable disease which means not only vet bills but also notifying the relevant authorities. Any animals that die on your land, then you are responsible for them and also their disposal. There are extensive rules and regulations on this and you simply cannot throw them on the compost heap or stick them in the dustbin, or dig a hole and bury them. You will have to pay for them to be properly disposed of by licensed contractors. You cannot bury them as there are rules and regulations about burying dead animals even on your own land.
So taking all these details into account and more it is not going to be cheap and could work out quite expensive if you are starting from scratch to try and provide food products from livestock. It is not a venture that you can start and not finish because this could lead to a complete financial disaster, so you will have to decide is it best for me to keep my own livestock or would it be better to produce vegetables or fruit on the same land and trade those products for any animal produce that I may require.
Very Important:
It is criminal to take the life of an animal and waste it. If you keep animals for food and then after slaughtering it you decide you cant eat it and end up throwing it away, then you have wasted that animals life and killed it for no reason other than some half baked idea that you could be self sufficient or rear your own food. This does happen to some people who then rush down to the supermarket for a pound of sausages. If you find you have become attached to your animals which happens quite a lot, then don't kill them, keep them as pets which they most probably will have become. Best thing to do is work out exactly what you think you can achieve and stick to it and not get carried away by popular fads. Either do it or stick to growing vegetables and let someone else produce the meat. Growing fruit and vegetables is always going to be cheaper, simpler, easier and a lot less hassle than trying to produce your own meat.
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