The Animals I Can’t Live Without

Recently, I saw a question asked of a homesteader: What animal would you never be without?

Granted, we’ve only been doing this a relatively short amount of time, but having had several of your standard farm animals (and genuinely loving them all!), my answer to this would be chickens.  In my opinion, chickens are the easiest of all the farm animals to keep.  They require little space for sleeping, they forage well, they provide eggs and meat, and are easily supplemented with kitchen scraps.  If there were a feed shortage, your chickens would likely continue to thrive.  And while you might get tired of eating eggs, they would almost certainly continue to feed you.

If you get nothing from our experience, let me encourage you to do one thing, as long as you don’t have crazy laws/rules that prevent you from this: Get three or four chickens. You don’t need ANYTHING fancy (you can even transform an old plastic playhouse into a coop) and you can supplement their feed costs with all the scraps from your kitchen. 

Then you’ll KNOW what goes into your eggs and won’t have to worry whether or not the grocery store will have them. Or if you’ll be needing to sell off possessions to afford their cost. 

My only regret with chickens is not getting them earlier!

Most of our chickens molt once/year and we’ve kept them in sunflowers seeds and protein through the winter — so even when it’s been cold, they have been really good about their production. I’m thankful for that! A half dozen eggs isn’t bad for a winter’s day. 

But seriously, there are plenty of people out there who will hold your hand through the process (including myself!) — so make a plan to get you some chickens. You won’t regret it!