1 Choose
Which animals are worth it
Animals turn grass, scraps, weeds and insects into eggs, milk, meat and fat, and their manure feeds the garden. They also need feed, water, shelter and care every single day. Start small and learn with chickens.
| Animal | Gives | Needs | Feed | Start with |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chickens | Eggs, meat, manure, eat pests and scraps | Fox-proof coop, small run | ~120 g grain/scraps per bird per day, ~45 kg a year | 4–6 hens for 2–4 people |
| Ducks | Eggs, meat, fat, slug control | Coop, a tub of water to dunk their heads | Like chickens, forage more | 3–5, hardier than chickens |
| Rabbits | Lean meat fast, fur, excellent manure | Hutches or colony pen, shade | Hay, grass, weeds, greens; little grain | 2–3 does + 1 buck |
| Goats | Milk, cheese, meat, leather, brush clearing | Very good fence, dry shelter, a companion | Browse and pasture, 300–500 kg hay per goat per winter | 2 does (never one alone) |
| Bees | Honey (sugar), wax, pollination | A sunny corner, protective gear, skill | Flowers; sugar syrup in bad years | 2 hives |
| Pigs | Meat, lard, dig and clear ground | Strong fence, mud wallow, shade | ~300 kg of feed to raise one to 100 kg; scraps, potatoes, acorns, whey | 2 weaners in spring, slaughter in autumn |
| Sheep | Meat, fat, wool, milk | Grass, fence, shearing, foot care | Grass and hay only | 3+ (flock animals) |
Every animal eats food or land. Grass and browse animals (goats, sheep, rabbits) and scavengers (chickens, pigs on scraps) make the most sense when grain is scarce. Plan feed for winter first: hay, grain, fodder beets, dried leaves. Grow extra in the garden.
2 Eggs
Chickens: the first animal to get
Cheap, small, quick to learn. A good hen lays 150–300 eggs a year, best in the first two years. Laying slows in winter (under 14 hours of daylight) and during the autumn moult.
Feed without a shop
Kitchen scraps, cooked potatoes, grain, sprouted grain, garden weeds, worms, slugs, insects. Let them range after harvest or move them over beds in a mobile pen ("chicken tractor"). Always give grit (small stones) and calcium (crushed, baked eggshells or shells): without it they lay soft eggs. Not: mouldy food, raw dry beans, avocado, very salty food.
Water
0.3–0.5 L per bird per day, double in heat. Clean daily. A hen without water stops laying for days.
Predators
Foxes, martens, mink, rats, hawks, dogs. Use welded mesh with holes under 2 cm (hexagonal chicken wire keeps chickens in but not foxes out). Bury it 30 cm or lay a 50 cm apron outward on the ground. Martens pass through 5 cm gaps.
Breeding
One rooster for 8–12 hens gives fertile eggs. A broody hen sits on 10–12 eggs for 21 days. Choose dual-purpose breeds (Sussex, Plymouth Rock, Orpington, Wyandotte, local breeds) that lay, go broody and give a decent carcass. Surplus cockerels are eaten at 16–20 weeks.
Health
Dry deep litter (wood shavings, straw, leaves) topped up and cleared twice a year into compost. A dust bath of dry soil, sand and wood ash controls lice. Check under perches at night with a torch for red mite. Hens past laying at 3–4 years go into the stock pot.
Daily chicken routine
Unwashed eggs keep 2–3 weeks at room temperature, 2 months cool. Test: in a glass of water a fresh egg lies flat, an older one stands up, a bad one floats. For months of storage, water-glass them.
3 Meat
Rabbits: meat from grass
Quiet, small, fed mostly on hay and weeds. Three does and one buck can give over 100 kg of meat a year.
| Fact | Number |
|---|---|
| Breeding age | Does 5–6 months, bucks 6 months |
| Pregnancy | 31 days (28–33); add a nest box with hay on day 27 |
| Litter | 6–10 kits |
| Weaning | 6–8 weeks; rebreed doe 4–6 weeks after kindling (4–5 litters a year) |
| Slaughter | 10–12 weeks, 2–2.5 kg live, about 55 % carcass |
| Space | At least 0.7 m² per adult, raised off the ground or on mesh-floored pen |
Breeding: always take the doe to the buck's cage, never the reverse (she defends her territory). Separate young bucks at 3 months or they fight. Choose meat breeds (New Zealand, Californian, Rex or large crosses).
Feed: unlimited hay and fresh water always, plus grass, dandelion, plantain, clover, dock, carrot tops, tree branches (apple, willow, hazel) to chew. Introduce new greens slowly. A little grain or pellets for nursing does. Wet or frosted grass and lots of lettuce cause bloat and diarrhoea.
Heat kills rabbits faster than cold: above 28 °C give shade, airflow, a frozen water bottle to lie against. Myxomatosis and RHD (viral haemorrhagic disease) are spread by insects and wild rabbits: vaccinate while you can, use fly screens.
Rabbit meat is extremely lean. People who eat almost nothing but lean meat get sick within days to weeks (nausea, diarrhoea, weakness: "protein poisoning"). Eat it with fat (lard, butter, nuts, oily fish) and carbohydrates (potatoes, grain).
4 Milk
Goats: milk and cheese
A good dairy doe gives 2–4 litres a day at peak, less later, for about ten months after kidding. She must kid each year to keep milking well.
Basics
- Always at least two: a lone goat screams and escapes.
- Dairy breeds: Saanen, Alpine, Nubian, local mountain breeds. Dwarf breeds need less feed but give less.
- Pregnancy about 150 days. Does come into heat every 21 days, mostly September to January.
- Stop milking ("dry off") 2 months before kidding.
Housing and fence
Goats climb, jump, squeeze and chew. Fence 1.2–1.5 m of sturdy stock mesh or electric wires. Shelter dry and out of the wind; they hate rain. Raised sleeping platforms.
Feed
They are browsers: brambles, branches, weeds, hedges, as well as grass. Winter hay 2–3 kg per day each. Salt and a goat mineral lick (with copper; sheep minerals lack it). Trim hooves every 6–8 weeks.
Poisonous to goats
Yew, rhododendron, azalea, cherry laurel, oleander, bracken, ragwort, wilted cherry and plum leaves, foxglove. Lush clover and sudden grain cause bloat: swollen left side, distress. Walk the goat, massage the flank, drench with 100 ml cooking oil. Grain always introduced slowly.
Clean
Tie or feed the goat on a stand. Wash udder and teats with warm water, dry, wash your hands. Squirt the first two jets from each teat on the ground (highest bacteria).
Milk
Close thumb and forefinger at the top of the teat to trap milk, then squeeze with the other fingers in order from top to bottom. Release, let it refill, repeat. Twice a day at the same times.
Strain and chill
Through a clean cloth into a clean jar, cool quickly in cold water. Taste goes "goaty" when milk cools slowly or a buck lives next to the does.
Pasteurise
Unless you know the herd is free of TB, brucellosis and Q fever: heat to 72 °C for 15 s or 63 °C for 30 min, stirring, then cool fast. Essential for children, pregnant women, elderly.
Heat 2 L of milk to nearly boiling, stir in 60 ml of vinegar or lemon juice. Curds separate within a minute. Pour into a cloth, hang for an hour, salt: fresh cheese (paneer). Keep the whey for bread, pigs or chickens. Hard, long-keeping cheese needs rennet (from calf stomach or plants like cardoon) and practice.
5 Sugar
Bees: honey, wax, pollination
Honey is the only sweetener you can produce without much land. A strong hive gives 10–30 kg of surplus a year and doubles the yield of fruit trees and beans around it.
Equipment: a hive (standard framed hives let you inspect and move combs; a top-bar hive can be built from scrap wood), veil and gloves, a smoker (smouldering dry grass, rotten wood, cardboard), a hive tool. Learn with a local beekeeper for one season if you possibly can.
Getting bees: in May and June colonies swarm: a cluster of thousands of bees hanging from a branch. Swarming bees are full of honey and gentle. Put a box under, shake the branch hard, close the box at dusk with the queen inside, and put them in a hive. Bait hives (an empty hive with an old comb and a drop of lemongrass oil) attract swarms.
Harvest: only frames at least 80 % capped with wax (uncapped honey is too wet and ferments). Take from the top boxes, leave the colony 15–20 kg for winter in temperate Europe. Cut or crush the comb, let it drip through a cloth for a day.
Wax: melt leftover comb in water, let it set, scrape off the dirt from the bottom of the cake. Candles, waterproofing, wood polish, ointments, lubricant for tools.
- Varroa mites kill most untreated colonies within 2–3 years. Stock oxalic acid (treated in winter when there is no brood) and formic acid (late summer). Count mites on a sticky board under the hive.
- A sting: scrape the stinger out sideways quickly, cool. Swelling of the face, throat, lips, trouble breathing or collapse after a sting is anaphylaxis: adrenaline if available, lie flat with legs raised. See Medical. Anyone with a known severe allergy should not keep bees.
6 Wild protein
Fishing: passive beats active
Sitting with one rod is slow. Lines and traps that fish while you do other work bring in far more food.
Where and when
Dawn and dusk, before a storm, in cloudy weather. Deep pools, eddies behind rocks, under overhanging banks and trees, where streams enter lakes, along weed beds. In summer heat fish go deep; in cold water they are slow, fish slowly and deep.
Bait
Earthworms (the best all-round bait), maggots, insects, grubs, bread dough, sweetcorn, small fish, fish guts. Find worms under logs and stones, in compost, or by soaking the ground at night.
Improvised hooks
Bent safety pin or wire filed sharp; a thorn tied to a twig; a gorge hook: a sliver of bone or hard wood 3 cm long, sharp at both ends, tied at the middle and buried lengthwise in bait. The fish swallows it, the line pulls it crossways and it jams.
Set lines
A trotline: a strong main line across or along the water with 5–20 short dropper lines and baited hooks, weighted, set in the evening, checked at dawn. Or single baited lines tied to springy branches on the bank. Mark them, check them, remove them when done.
Clean a fish
Kill
A sharp blow on the top of the head just behind the eyes with a heavy stick. Then cut through the gills so it bleeds out in water: better taste, keeps longer.
Scale
Scrape with the back of a knife from tail to head (not needed for trout or for skinning).
Gut
Knife point in the vent, cut shallow up the belly to the gills. Pull out the guts, scrape out the dark blood line along the backbone with a thumbnail. Rinse.
Cook or preserve
Fish spoils within hours when warm. Keep it cold and wet, cook the same day, or salt and smoke it.
- Fresh fish: bright eyes, red gills, firm flesh, sea smell. Dull, sunken eyes, grey gills, soft flesh or ammonia smell: discard.
- Cook fish through (63 °C, flesh flakes). Raw fish only after freezing at −20 °C for 7 days (tapeworm, other parasites).
- Do not fish below sewage outfalls, industry, harbours, or in water with a scum of blue-green algae.
- Mussels and clams concentrate sewage bacteria and algal toxins that cooking does not destroy. Only from known clean water, never during a red or brown algal bloom. Discard any that are open before cooking or closed after.
- Nets, set lines and traps are regulated or illegal in most places in normal times. Know the local law.
7 Game
Trapping small game
Traps work day and night. Most wild meat in a long crisis comes from rabbits, hares, squirrels, pigeons and rats, not deer.
Snares and most traps are illegal or strictly licensed across most of Europe, and many birds and mammals are protected. They also catch pets and protected animals. Use them only when you truly depend on them, check every trap at least once a day (an animal must not suffer for days), and kill instantly.
Find the runs
Rabbits and hares use the same paths every night: narrow worn tracks through grass, holes under fences, gaps in hedges. Look for droppings, fur, flattened grass. Set traps where the path narrows, not at the burrow.
Snare
A free-running loop of thin wire or strong cord anchored to a stake. For rabbits: loop about fist-sized (10 cm), bottom edge a hand's width above the ground, across the run between two hop marks. Handle with gloves or rub with soil to hide your scent. Set many (10–20): expect one catch per 5–10 snares per night at best.
Kill traps and cages
Commercial rat traps catch squirrels and rats; body-grip traps and cage traps are more humane and selective than snares. A cage trap lets you release anything you do not want.
Rats
Edible when caught in clean places (grain stores, not sewers or dumps), cooked thoroughly. Never eat animals that may have been poisoned (rodenticide), or anything found dead.
8 Butchering
From animal to meat
Calm animal, quick kill, full bleed, clean gutting, fast cooling. Get these right and the meat is safe and keeps.
Processing a chicken
- No food for 12 hours before (empty gut, cleaner work). Hold the bird calmly, place it head down in a killing cone (a cut bucket or traffic cone nailed to a post) so the head hangs out below.
- Hold the head, cut deep on both sides of the neck just behind the jaw with a razor-sharp knife to sever the arteries. It loses consciousness within seconds; wing flapping afterwards is reflex. Let it bleed out fully. (Alternative: a sharp stretch and twist to dislocate the neck, then cut to bleed.)
- Dunk and swirl it in water at 60–65 °C for 30–60 seconds, until a wing feather pulls out easily. Too hot and the skin tears.
- Pluck quickly, pulling feathers in the direction opposite to how they grow. Cut off head and feet at the joint.
- Cut around the vent without piercing the intestine, reach in along the breastbone, pull out everything in one go. Keep heart, liver (cut away the green gall bladder without bursting it) and gizzard (split, peel off the inner lining). Remove the crop and windpipe from the neck end. Rinse inside and out.
- Chill in ice water or cold running water within 2 hours to below 4 °C. Rest in a cool place for a day so rigor passes and the meat is tender.
Rabbit
Kill with a sharp blow to the back of the head or neck dislocation. Hang by a hind leg, cut the skin around the ankles and down the inside of the legs, peel it off towards the head like a sweater. Open the belly skin-deep only, remove guts, keep liver, heart, kidneys. Check the liver (see safety).
Goat, sheep, deer, pig
Bleed immediately. Gut within an hour: cut around the anus and tie it off, open the belly skin and membrane from pelvis to ribs with two fingers guiding the blade so you never cut stomach or intestines. Hang, prop the chest open to cool. Skin while warm. Age hung at 1–4 °C for 2–7 days in fly-proof cloth.
Use everything
Fat into lard, bones and feet into stock, blood cooked into sausage or pudding (same day, cooked), hides into leather or rawhide, feathers into bedding, sinew into cord, offal to eat or to feed chickens and pigs (cooked), and the rest to compost or bury.
9 Safety
Meat safety and disease
Home-killed and wild meat has no inspection. Look at every carcass, cook everything through, and wash hands.
| Meat | Cook to (centre) | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Poultry, rabbit | 74 °C | Salmonella, Campylobacter, tularaemia |
| Wild boar, home-killed pig, bear, badger, fox | 71 °C, no pink | Trichinella worms (freezing does not reliably kill them in wild game) |
| Minced meat, sausages | 71 °C | Bacteria mixed through |
| Whole cuts of goat, sheep, deer | 63 °C + 3 min rest | Toxoplasma, surface bacteria |
| Fish | 63 °C | Parasites |
- Any animal that acted strangely, was sluggish, easy to catch or found dead.
- Rabbits or hares whose liver has white spots (tularaemia): bury the carcass, wash well. Wear gloves when handling wild rabbits and hares.
- Organs with abscesses (pus pockets), large swollen glands, many cysts or worms, or a strong foul smell.
- Meat around lead shot: cut out a generous area around each pellet track.
- Animals behaving aggressively or oddly, foxes, bats and dogs that bite: rabies risk. Wash any bite 15 minutes with soap and water and seek help. See Medical.
- Sick or dead wild birds: bird flu. Do not handle bare-handed.
10 Care
Keeping animals healthy
No vet means prevention is everything. Most losses come from dirty water, wet bedding, parasites and newcomers bringing disease.
Look every day
A sick animal stands apart, hunches, has dull eyes, stops eating, has diarrhoea or drops in eggs or milk. Act the same day.
Isolate
Move a sick animal away from the others at once. Quarantine new animals for 2–4 weeks before they join.
Clean water and dry bedding
Wash waterers daily. Wet, dirty bedding causes foot rot, respiratory disease and parasites.
Worms
Goats and sheep: pull down the lower eyelid; pink-red is healthy, pale white means anaemia from blood-sucking worms. Rotate pasture every few weeks so the worm cycle breaks. Keep dewormers while they are available.
Cull, don't nurse endlessly
An animal that keeps getting sick spreads disease and eats feed. Butcher it if the meat is safe, otherwise kill humanely.
Dispose of carcasses
Bury dead animals at least 1 m deep and 30 m from any well or stream, or burn them. Never leave them for rats and foxes.
Salmonella from chickens, Q fever from birthing goats and sheep, ringworm, tapeworm. Wash hands after every animal job, keep animals out of the kitchen, wear gloves for births, and keep manure away from salad crops and water.