Posts Tagged ‘chickens’

Self Sufficiency List

Sunday, July 5th, 2009

If you are thinking of self-sufficiency and being self reliant then the list below will be of special interest to you.

This list does not mean that you have to have absolutely every item on it in order to survive if the worst would ever happen. It is simply a list of items that will help you to be able to survive in times of disaster or economic struggle. The more items that you have, thus the better prepared you are to face adversity and the easier it will be for you and your family to get through tough times.

If you are well prepared then it won’t matter if there is a storm, an earthquake, loss of a job, illness-whatever happens you WILL get through it.

There is no better insurance than to know that no matter what happens that your family is prepared.

You may already have health insurance and life insurance so why not add your own brand of survival insurance?

Okay, Josh & I have researched and talked about it and here are the items that we want to have in order to be self sufficient.

 

An alternative heat source

 

-wood

-corn

-pellet

-solar

-wind

-generator

For the best protection it is a good idea to have 2-3 extra alternative heat sources

Alternative energy source

 

-solar

-wind power

-generator

Alternative water source

 

-hand water pump

-water barrels

-cistern

Storm shelter/root cellar

 

-protection from storms

-storage for canned food

-storage for garden produce

-area to grow mushrooms

Greenhouse

 

-to extend growing season for months

-when attached to your home could provide extra heat during winter months

Garden

 

-provide food during the growing season

-grow enough to feed your family during Winter months

-control over how fresh your food is

-control over whether your food is organic or use of less pesticides

Fruit trees, shrubs or bushes

 

-grow a wide variety of fruits

-use for fresh eating; can or dehydrate for use later

Nuts

 

-growing your own nuts can save you LOTS of money, provide protein and good nutrition

-good for snacking, make nut butters (like peanut butter) and add flavor & crunch to dishes

With nuts costing $8 and more per pound it won’t take long for a nut tree or shrub to pay for itself

 

 

Once you know that you have food, water, heat & lights no matter what happens you will have peace of mind.

Other items to help you to be more self sufficient:

 

A means of protection to keep your family safe is another good idea

Pay down your debt and try to be debt free

If you can then try to get your home & your car paid for asap. This could mean buying a little older model vehicle or a less expensive home.

When you are debt free and have food put aside as well as alternative heat, lights, etc. then if you would lose your job or have an illness in the family you can get by on little money but still be able to eat well and stay warm

If you can, it is nice to have a bit of property so as to raise your own chickens for fresh eggs and meat or to raise other animals and to grow your own food.

If you don’t have much property then you can still grow at least some of your own food. Plant a fruit tree or two & maybe a nut tree. You can grow a nice amount of vegetables by growing upward. Grow beans, squash, cucumbers & such on fences and you will be able to grow a LOT in small spaces.

You can also tuck vegetables into your flower bed, plant a strip of vegetables next to the garage. Every spot that you can grow something will help you to be more self sufficient. AND home grown foods will help you to be healthier too

Mushrooms are another crop that you can grow. These can be grown either in your basement or root cellar. They can also be grown outside in a shady area

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Want to be Self-Sufficient?

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

If you really want to be self sufficient or if you just want to keep your right to be self sufficientthen you need to sign this petition RIGHT NOW!

Big companies are trying to take away our rights to be able to raise animals and grow our own meat, dairy and eggs.

How?

They want to force us to have to tag every single animal under the premise that this is for our own good to stop the spread of disease.

The fact is that dieases are more apt to be found in animals being raised by big corporations than what they are when the animals are raised by small farmers or families trying to be self sufficient.

This is all a ruse to make it imposible for us to raise animals ourselves so that the big companies have control over our meat and dairy products. This way they can charge whatever they want to and there will be nothing that we can do about it.

If you have 12 chickens you will have to have 12 seperate tags.

The big corporations buy 100,000 chickens at once. They consider this 1 unit so they only have to have 1 tag.

Is this fair???

If your child has a rabbit that they want to take to the 4H fair to exhibit they will have to submit a report to the government before they will be able to do so.

Want to have a chicken for supper? You will have 48 hours to submit a rteport or you will be penalized. There is nothing definite on what the punichment will be but there are talks of fines and seizure of property.

You can read more about this in the current issue of Back Woods Home Magainve.

Mother Earth News has also been talking about this too.

Please help me to spread the word about this petition so that we can all put a stop to this NOW!

Do NOT let big companies or the government take away our basic human right to raise animals for food or pets.

Stop NAIS! Sign the petition and then tell every one you know

Thanks! :0)

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Meat-Lower Cost, Better Taste & Healthier

Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

As food prices soar, and especially the cost of meat, many are finding it to more economical to grow your own.

As someone interested in becoming self-sufficient you can never be truly self-sufficient until you grow your own meat.

If raising your own meat is something that you do not think that you can do you can start small.

As a means of becoming more self sufficient Josh & I decided to start with chickens.

We weren’t sure if we would be able to raise, and then slaughter, the animals for meat. By choosing chickens we were able to get dual purpose chickens. This way, if we were unable to process the chickens for meat, we could still benefit from their eating bugs, producing fertilizer for our garden, producing eggs for us to eat and they are fun to watch as they are very entertaining

Raising chickens is so easy that nearly anyone can do so. Chickens also eat mosquitoes which are prevalent in our area.

With the diseases that are transferred by mosquitoes raising chickens is an important part in becoming self-sufficient and helping to keep your family safe from diseases such as West Nile and Malaria- among others.

Our first chickens were Barred Rocks as they are a great dual purpose chicken that are also pretty calm and friendly. They produce brown eggs

This Spring we decided to try raising a few meat chickens. They are growing well and if we had continued to feed them corn we could have harvested them at any time.

But, to save money, get rid of more mosquitoes and produce a grass fed meat, rather than grain fed, we have switched them over to ‘free range’. They have been allowed to run around outside before but we fed them corn until such time as they were big enough to be able to eat the grass, and bugs, to feed themselves.

They still get scraps such as potato peels, apple cores, etc. but for the most part are self-sufficient as far as feeding themselves.

Other than making sure that they are let out in the morning, closed in at night for their safety and giving them fresh water- they are not difficult to take care of.

We clean their area when necessary and gather the eggs.

You can buy layers which are hens old enough to be laying eggs. This is a bit more expensive than buying straight run chicks and raising them yourself but it can be a time saver. It could also be cheaper in the long run as they would be of an age that they could be more self sufficient with feeding themselves and they would produce eggs sooner.

BUT, you would also lose out on the joys of raising chicks. They are a bit more work but nothing that difficult and a true joy and learning experience.

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Gardening for Self Sufficiency

Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

Every year my son, Josh, and I try to grow a bigger and better garden.

This year is no different. We are in the process of enlarging the garden by cutting down some of the trees near the garden and adding on to, and moving where it is needed, our fence around the garden.

We would like to have that whole area that we are adding to the garden be filled with raised beds. We will do this as we are able but it will be a big job. It may be next year before we have them all done but we will work toward our goal and accomplish it.

Last year we planted more cabbage than ever before and it STILL was not enough. Course part of the reason was that our chickens got into the garden and made complete pigs out of themselves by eating numerous heads of cabbage as well as some other vegetables.

So, this year we decided to plant a LOT more cabbage as well as other crops.

We are hoping to have a root cellar/storm shelter ready before Fall in which to store as much of our garden produce as possible for eating throughout the Winter months.

I read recently that for every $60 spent on seed and plants that you can harvest as much as $2,000 worth of food.

THAT is incentive enough for everyone to plant and grow something for their family to eat. With food prices being about triple what they were just a few short years ago we all need to do what ever we can to save money.

Growing your own food also ensures that you and your family are getting the freshest, most nutrient dense food possible without the loss of nutrition that comes with long transportation, picking while green and covering with waxes like you find at the market.

This year Josh and I have been doing some studying to try to determine which crops produce more for the space they require & the time needed to grow.

 

 

Some Space Intensive crops include:

Beets & turnips-

as you can eat both tops and bottoms without a lot of waste

Radishes

- they are fast growing and fit in anywhere. They also make good markers of where you have planted other crops as they come up fast and mature fast so they will show you where you have already planted and yet they will be out of the way fast for the other crop to mature.

Pole beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, vine squash

- plant plenty and grow them up on to fences, fence panels or netting of some kind. The trick is to grow them up so you have room to plant a LOT more and harvest a LOT more

We also are looking at crops that are easy to store in a root cellar in order to cut down on any processing needed.

Our freezer went this year without warning and we had $1-2,000 worth of food put aside, in order to be stocked up for emergencies,. that was lost.

This was food that we have bought on sale, had given to us or grew ourselves. It didn’t cost us that much at the time but to replace it would. We cannot afford that so we want to use methods where we will not have to worry about that happening again.

Our top picks for storage will be dehydrating, canning and cold storage in a root cellar.

 

We hope to pick up another freezer if we can find a good deal but we don’t ever want to rely on just that 1 method of food storage again as the loss of all of that food hit us hard

Here are some of the crops that we have found to be good for storing in a root cellar

Root Cellar Storage Crops:

Cabbage

Onions

Garlic

Winter Squash

 
Go Green and SAVE at GreenGardenTools.com

Park Seed

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