Selfsufficientish.com

Hi,

I will soon have access to a fenced off area of about an acre.
I have stables/stys etc. I am wondering what are the best animals
to get for meat and how many?

I am going to get chickens for the farm yard either way.
I am thinking of red meats.


I am in Ireland if that makes a difference re regs.

Mark.

Hi Mark,for value for money Id suggest pigs,well a couple lets not go mad! The old saying about only losing the squeak is about right,of course that would depend on how much you like pork and how much time you could spend preparing bacon,sausages ect (or how friendly you are with the butcher). Once Im caught up with the garden/renovations ect,Im thinking of having a couple a year,as my sister in law does,although I am a stay at home mum so usually have the time to spend sorting out the cuts in the kitchen. How lovely to have the choice of stock though!

Hi Mark

Nice to meet you.

we had sheep - and they were fab. Easy to keep and great fun too. I really miss them and hope that it isn't too long before we can have some more.

One that we hand reared thought she was a dog and had great fun running around the fields with our black lab.

Hi,

thanks for replies..

I must say im not a big fan of meat as a rule but im hoping to only
eat what i have grown on myself.

I usually avoid pork like the plague..something about them eating out of the others back sides that doesnt seem right.

however, i will have a bash.

Someone told me sheep are trouble to keep as they get foot infections a lot? not sure if anyone else knows that? the person that told me was a real farmer so i assume hes not wrong.

Pigs seem less hassle but i would liek to know if they do smell?

they would be 100% free range.

living on my own i would not make enough food waste to feed them on so what else can i give them? thats cheap...

Are snails regarded as red or white meat?

Nev

Pigs smell! Or rather, a pig sty will smell but the pigs themselves are clean animals. They only poo in one corner not all over the place like a chicken! Anyway as yours are going to be free range it shouldn't be a problem.

Yep, I think the way you keep your animals influences smells and other problems massively... If you only have half a dozen (or fewer) sheep, and make sure you buy some initially that have no foot problems, you should be ok. Just need to check them regularly and make sure any problem is nipped in the bud.
The same with worms: Sheep flocks are wormed regularly, but if you have only a few, and keep them on clean grass, avoid infection coming in from outside, you might get away without worming. I have two goats and have never had to worm them - but then they live in my garden, which has never had a "wormy" animal in it. Same with foot problems - my goats have never had any (although I've only trimmed their feet once a year).

Ah! I was going to suggest goats but soe people are still funny about eating goat meat! Ive neer found it to be much different from lamb but prehaps Ive just been lucky and have missed the "goaty" taste? Incedentially,I never found goats milk to be much different either,or cheese but recently my neighbour gae me some goats cheese and it was awful! Really goaty which suprised me as it came from the supermarket and so Id assumed the hygene standard wouldve have been quite high and the goaty taste wouldnt hae come from bad hygene,would that be right Ina?

Goodlife1970 wrote:Ah! I was going to suggest goats but soe people are still funny about eating goat meat! Ive neer found it to be much different from lamb but prehaps Ive just been lucky and have missed the "goaty" taste? Incedentially,I never found goats milk to be much different either,or cheese but recently my neighbour gae me some goats cheese and it was awful! Really goaty which suprised me as it came from the supermarket and so Id assumed the hygene standard wouldve have been quite high and the goaty taste wouldnt hae come from bad hygene,would that be right Ina?

I wouldn,t swear to it as I,ve never made it myself, but I think avoiding the 'goaty' taste and smell in cheese, relies on it being used as soon as poss after milking. Hygene is important too though.
Maybe they have it hanging around for a while before use?

That's right. I knew a goats-cheese-maker once who worked to a very high standard of hygiene, automatic more or less everything, and who said that he had to leave the milk in an open vat in the goat shed for a few hours, because otherwise his customers complained that the cheese didn't taste of goat at all, and they suspected him to be using the cheaper cows' milk! Bad hygiene wouldn't really make the cheese taste of goat, it just makes it go off. If you use the goats' milk immediately after milking, and then maybe even milking in a closed system, where it doesn't come into contact with open air at all, you can hardly taste the difference.

I can,t wait for the day when I get to make cheese from my own goats( sighs while dreaming of own smallholding)
I won,t care how strong, stinky or just plain old goaty it tastes!

We got commercial goats milk to give it a go and it tasted OK to us!

Nev

Hi Ireland-or-bust

You have a lot of choices as regards meat.

Pigs are wonderful creatures and if kept free rang they will taste just wonderful you will get more meat than from any other animal you could keep on an acre. You will have to keep two, as one on its own will get bored and wreck your fencing and look to escape, the downside is you will have to supplement their feed as they will not thrive on grass alone, ground barley will do the job for you. Pigs will only eat faeces if they are suffering from sort of deficiency minerals or vitamins this will not happen if they have access to soil.

Sheep will keep them selves fed on grass alone so there is an advantage in keeping them you could feed at least 3 on a poor acre and 5 on a good acre. The skins are another advantage as you could have a coat or some real nice rugs as a bonus for keeping sheep.

Goats will not thrive on grass alone and need a hedge to brows or other marginal plants to keep them truly happy, or you will have to supplement their food.

All of the above are difficult to kill and butcher in descending order they are big animals and will require a great deal of effort to kill and butcher and with sheep and goats skin.

The next idea is rabbits they will thrive on grass alone without supplement but will need worming from time to time, they will bread like rabbits and keep you in good quality meat for the rest of your life. They are easy to kill skin and butcher without help or expense, and you can still have that coat.

I keep and have eaten all of these and would recommend any of them, cows are great too, but not on an acre, unless you have the means to cut half or it for hay.

thanks for all the info.

i wonder , if i had say 2 pigs on the land would i need to clean up the
pig muck, or would it be so little that it would go into the earth ?

I would be interested to know about regulations (ireland) on keeping these animals. do they have to be registered? i know cows do.

i have a choice of many slaughter houses so no problem there for the larger animals.


mark

I don’t know the specifics of registration requirements for Ireland, but as your part of Europe I would think they are the same as England and France, phone your equivalent of “DEFRAâ€Â