Sustainable meat production when the merde hits the ventilator.. (pic heavy)

[goatlady]

I have about 1 acre of really good grass pasture but the goats prefer the woods area as they are browsers and grass is their last choice of food, so they are easy to sustain in the mostly wooded area I have. The sheep rotate between the grass pasture and then down the side yard to the pond, but only for the spring and summer. No "acerage" needed for chickens, they go everywhere except the garden which is all raised beds and fenced so that takes hardly any room at all. Strawberries and grapes in the garden area. Orchard is not totally in yet, but will be/is scattered around the yard and pasture area so IF you plan/design things you can get by with 1-3 acres. I happen to have 20, but about 17 of that is heavy trees and extremely rough, basically all wood lot, no flat areas at all, which is perfect for the goats and I could also "pasture" a few piggies out there to clean up all the acorns and stuff. Lots of brambles and brush out there. See if you can find a copy of John Seymore's book, Self-Sufficient Gardener" and check out his layouts for a 1-acre and 5-acre set up. Excellent use of available space and he actually did it and worked it the way he wrote it. The "trick" to self-reliance on small acerage is having to change methods and no longer use 100' row growing areas, switch to wide rows or raised beds using intensive interplanting methods and pasture rotation of animals. For example, it's not a good practice to run goats and sheep on the same area so for my purposes the grass pasture is reserved for the sheep, geese, and chickens and the "woods" pastures are for the goats, chickens and geese. Works for me and my area.

[Matt In Oklahoma]

Got a rooster. Didnt really want a rooster. I was trying to please someone and thought I could find it a home with the neighbor who has a bunch of livestock and chickens. She shot me down stating she had 6 already and didnt want it. Called several other friends and they didnt want it so i let him out in the yard to see what would happen. I had hauled him in a dog cage which he has decided is home when it's nap time and at night. I'm not even convinced that he knows he's a rooster. So I guess "Noodles" is either gonna get fat and eaten or get him a few girlfriends. I'm not permanent here at my place so I'm not sure which way to go just yet.

[Bearman202]

Here's something that showed up on SurvivalBlog. I thought it was really interesting. For space considerations, it might be worth looking into.

Raising Guinea Pigs as a Survival Food, by Lisa F.
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A range of considerations come into play when selecting food to cache at your retreat for survival post-TEOTWAWKI: caloric load, shelf life, storage space required, price, ease of preparation, etc. This article will deal with a topic I hold dear to my heart: fresh meat. Depending upon where your retreat is located, hunting may or may not be a viable option; space, facilities, and season impact animal husbandry choices as well. While pork and beef are preferred sources of meat for many Americans, there is no argument against the fact that pigs and, even more so, cattle require a fair amount of room and feed to thrive. That is why guinea pigs make an excellent survival food, whether your Bug Out Location is rural or urban, temperate or alpine.

Guinea pigs were domesticated by the Incas about 7,000 years ago in what is now Peru; people there eat around 65 million guinea pigs a year – over fifty percent of Peru’s animal protein, according to veterinarian and food expert Calvin Schwabe, author of the book Unmentionable Cuisine. Vegetarian mammals, they can be fed for little or no money, depending upon your access to grass. Guinea pigs are quiet, which provides an advantage if your retreat must be hidden or appear unoccupied, and they are highly portable. They reproduce quickly, due to a short gestational cycle, and reach sexual maturity (important for a breeding herd) at a young age. Guinea pigs do not usually cannibalize one another, and people living in an area served by Craigslist or near a guinea pig rescue organization can often find free guinea pigs. While their skins are small, they produce supple leather that would be well-suited for clothing items. In addition to their short gestational cycle and early age of sexual maturity, guinea pigs are advantageous for a post-disaster environment compared to other livestock because their feeding efficiency is high:

4:1 ratio of forage/food to growth weight for guinea pigs
8:1 ratio for cattle or sheep

Establishing a breeding group of guinea pigs

Female guinea pigs are fertile one month after birth; breeding females are called “sows”, and the males are “boars.” The gestational cycle, including estrus, averages 80 days; females can bear up to five litters a year. Each litter averages four pups, though established pet breeders in the United States have achieved much higher litter size. Stillbirths are fairly common, so you will need to plan to breed more guinea pigs than you expect to keep or eat. Research supported in the book Microlivestock: Little-Known Small Animals with a Promising Economic Future indicates that a herd of 20 females and 2 males will produce enough meat annually for a family of six. Depending upon the size of your retreat and the number of people in your survival group, you might select one of the following models for your breeding herd:

Model A
1 boar and 2 sows bred over a 5-month period with no harvests:
2 sows x 2 litters yield an average 16 pups
8 pups from first litter (assume 4 females/litter) bred 1x during initial 5-month period yield an another 32 pups
At end of initial 5-month period, herd is likely to = 48 guinea pigs
This model is good for short-term food production but unsustainable for long-term breeding because it will promote the appearance of recessive genetic traits.

Model B
2 boars and 3 sows bred over a 5-month period with no harvests:
3 sows x 2 litters yield an average 24 pups
12 pups from first litter (assume 6 females/litter) bred 1x during initial 5-month period yield another 48 pups
At end of initial 5-month period, herd is likely to = 72 guinea pigs
This model is better for both long-term food and breeding.

The more boars you have in your initial breeding group, the more genetic diversity you can create in your herd. Make sure to select the larger guinea pigs for breeding. If your food needs are not urgent are expected to exist long-term, rotate/rest your breeding females to promote greater likelihood of full-litter delivery.

Tips for herd management:

Guinea pigs are social animals and mix well in a herd, though an all-male group may incite aggression. Boars do well together if they are pairs that have been brought up together. Cull boars from your herd for eating to keep space/management needs low.
Use spray paint or Sharpie markers to identify lineage; this enables you to maximize genetic diversity in your herd. Colored markings on the guinea pigs conserves space better than creating segregated pens.
You will want to segregate by sex if you are establishing breeding lines or trying to control the rates at which litters are produced.
Pregnant females should be housed alone when possible to minimize stress. Keeping the mother and babies separate from the herd until the babies are weaned is a good precaution.
Sex the guinea pigs early (you will need to examine the genital area closely to do this; females will have a Y-shaped opening under a flap, and males’ *****es will appear if you press above the genital area.) Knowing the sexes of your herd will allow you to control breeding rates.
Harvest your guinea pigs before the age of 3 years; the strain of breeding shortens their life expectancy (by contrast, pet guinea pigs commonly live to be as old as eight years.)
Females must be bred for the first time when they are between four and seven months old.

Feeding Your Herd of Guinea Pigs
If you have a yard or outdoor space with grass available, your guinea pigs can subsist totally on grass and vegetable scraps leftover from your kitchen garden. If your post- TEOTWAWKI retreat is an apartment or bunker and you do not expect to have access to vegetables and fresh plants, you will want to store baled alfalfa or pellets; you will likely also have a smaller herd than makes sense for someone with a rural retreat or city house with a yard. Guinea pigs must have green food to eat, as they are susceptible to scurvy. Grass or the ends of your vegetables are fine. They are selective eaters and will not eat once they are full, so if you add fresh food to a bowl or cage and they have leftovers, the leftovers will not get eaten; make sure they finish what you’ve made available to them before providing more food. If possible, make hay and/or pellets available to them all the time and supplement with vegetable scraps. For indoor guinea pigs (think – urban stronghold), you should provide a small handful (1/8 to

[goatlady]

The closest I will get to eating rodents is rabbit!

[survive]

Pretty neat set up you have there. You will need to supplement your meat with something that has a little more fat on it too. Otherwise you can experience the effects of rabbit starvation.

We had rabbits growing up, I was quite young, but I remember the cages being a similar set up to yours, but in the summer there was not legs on the cages and the cage was just moved all over the lawn and they would eat all of the grass. It pokes through the holes of the cage. The rabbits were fat and happy with that arrangement.