Self-Sufficiency in Style
Animal farm
minimal system
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Self-Sufficiency in Style Animal farm minimal system |
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There are more interesting ways to burn money than a failing small business. |
With vegetables and fruit it is quite easy not to overproduce. Even if you
do, something just goes to seed, gets fed to the animals, added to the
compost heap or given away. With livestock, it is all too easy to produce
more than you can eat. Overproduction of meat, eggs and dairy produce
gives problems. It costs extra money in housing, veterinary bills, transport, killing, butchering and above all feeding. It also means a lot of hard work all through the year. You are also going to need a discussion with the tax man! What started as an attempt to provide the family with good food can quickly degenerate into a business: a business that loses money and exhausts the smallholder. |
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different. Fortunately, we were aware of the potential problem. We had kept a small flock of sheep for more than a decade, looking out of our drawing room window sometimes at more than a couple of dozen woolly backsides. We had sold the surplus lambs, but we knew it did not pay and were very aware of the work involved. Even then we made mistakes when we relocated to Hangman's Cottage, but made an effort to find solutions. It was an interesting and rewarding process. All the solutions took us back into old time husbandry. |
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Tough, tough? Wot me? |
The solution was there in
history: the subsistence farming so common to all the, inaccurately named,
temperate regions for most of history. Our forefathers were not so tough as we sometimes imagine, but a whole lot smarter. They didn't have rubber boots, indeed they probably did not have boots, they had no machinery to speak of, not much in the way of reliable preservation for meat, eggs and dairy produce and above all no really good source of light. You can't work well outdoors in the winter in most of Europe and North America. At midwinter, you can't even see for much of the day. So they didn't work for more than the absolute minimum either in or out. |
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hunker down and wait for spring. |
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Modern factory farming is a largely indoor occupation, whatever the
pictures on the packet show. Poultry and pigs are usually indoors. Cattle spend a lot of time off the land. Only sheep usually stay out all year. Smallholders who copy the big farmers and try to operate at full throttle with livestock all year, create a lot of problems for themselves. A minimal system has many advantages, some of which are not too obvious. |
From farm to fork - indoors all the way. |
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So, we don't fail to take advantage of modern heating, lighting and buildings But we do copy, in general terms, a much more ancient annual calendar and resulting way of life. |
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Do you really think
anyone enjoys lambing in this? |
The basis is very simple, even if its
application to different species varies. Our animals gave birth in the spring. The offspring, in most cases, were raised on fine grass, rather than hay and concentrates, and sent for slaughter before the really hard weather arrived. Only the mother was kept over the winter. |
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If you are not trying to catch a premium market, there is no point in having your spring lambs just after Christmas. If you only have three in the family, why do you want the biggest bullock in the parish for slaughter? You won't know what to do with the meat. Males are, with exceptions, not kept. What on earth does a self-sufficiency holding want with an animal only wanted once a year and that does its best to eliminate the children at every opportunity? Do you really want to spend the spring mucking out the winter quarters? So the basis of a minimal system is simple, even if its application needs time and thought... and then there are many attractive side benefits to enjoy. You can return to the Animal Farm introduction for the moment. In the coming weeks, animal by animal, we will be detailing a minimal system for all the usual livestock animals. The following are now available:
CHICKENS (for eggs) |
Some benefits are obvious. |
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...hunkering down for winter - at the original Hangman's Cottage, just to the south of Misery Corner. May,2005 |
