Meet the Livestock at our Homestead!

It hasn’t been yet a year since our move and our homestead has been growing and has more growth on the way.  Coming into this, we had very little (ok, none whatsoever) experience with livestock. First we just had our chickens. You can meet the flock here. Right off the bat we saw how each of them was different in personality. Flora (our 8 year old), quickly corrected me to say they do not have personalities, they have CHICKENalities. Clever girl. The rooster from that original flock fell ill and didn’t survive, it was our first homestead fatality. The hens however have been laying faithfully, survived the long winter, and took kindly to our replacement Rooster – Alabaster.

Last fall we also brought home 2 pigs. The pigs have given us many exciting, humorous and frustrating times.  Just click here for Nat’s explaination of his recent escape.  In months where there is no snow cover, our pigs are pastured, eating a natural diet and tilling up our soil for future crop planting. In winter, we cleaned up the pen daily and kept them happy with fresh bedding. Our first agenda with these pigs is to breed them and sell the piglets as feeder pigs. All signs show that our female, Frannie, is pregnant and due in mid-June. Time will tell what our long range plan for keeping pigs will be, but they have been very enjoyable to have around! They are living happy lives, I mean, c’mon….just see here:

Our newest edition was an ask from Flora. She even paid for 2 of her own! DUCKS! Yes, they have duckinalities… 😉 The kids are adoring on them. The goal is to keep the females from each breed and 1 male from each breed. Perhaps in the future we can allow them to raise some young to have more ducks for eggs and/or meat. Any extra males will make a meal that we will be so very thankful for. The ducklings are currently 1 week old. We have 2 Cayuga’s (black ducks) and 6 Swedish Blue (Yellow ducks). They live inside until it’s warm enough and they develop their feathers.  Then they will go out and till up our garden for us. Major AWWWWW-factor here:

In May and June our livestock population should grow.  First, chickens. We will be working on having one of our chickens “go broody” and sit on eggs from our flock.  If we can grow our own flock, it’s a sustainable way of providing more food (eggs) for our family.  If all goes smoothly, we should have chicks in late May.  In mid-June if our calculation for Frannie’s due date is correct, we should have piglets!  As someone who is new at all this, I’m hoping for a successful delivery for her, and a small litter.  Time will tell!

The animals have really made the homestead complete. While there were some cold, winter snowy days that I dreaded animal chores, I am so happy they were out there giving me reason to get out, get fresh air, and get moving. The little extra effort is well worth the reward.

What should be next?  Comment on what type of livestock we should consider for our homestead and why!