Chickens
The entry level livestock for most small farmers. We started with a few birds from a friend, and then got ambitious about breeding. The chicken complex grew to three coops and 30 birds over the course of 4 years. We’ve bred them and hatched the babies, and we’ve lost more birds than we want to talk about to various carnivorous pests. But we hang on to them, for fresh eggs, for the “garbage disposal” feature where they eat tons of kitchen scraps, for the practice of caring for another that we can pass on to our children.
Pigs
I thought my husband was crazy. Raise pigs, he said. It’ll be fun, he said. And now having raised pigs for 3 summers for meat, I have grown to enjoy their presence on our property every summer, even if I am not always cut out for the hard work.
Sheep
My pet project, so to speak. I’m dreamt of having my own yarn source for years. Now I get to live out all of the hard labor that goes along with it. First the sheep raising. Feeding and watering regularly, planning for shearing and hoof trimming, and then the exciting part where all the wool needs to be cleaned and processed- first on the carder, and then to either the spinning wheel or somebody interested in working with roving.