What is the best Livestock animal to have on a small residential property?

rabbits.
they can eat almost anything organic.
They breed or reproduce rapidly n easily
they take up little space if kept in a pen
They are DELICIOUS.

Urban chickens are very popular here. Rabbits are great meat animals. Remember, if your goat is going to give milk you will sometimes have little goats, which will require more space and care.

[link to urbanchickens.org]

Goats are the *ssholes of the animal kingdom. They don't even like themselves. Sheep and chickens.

chickens-no roosters

Rabbits, good idea! If I keep them fenced my yorkies can't chase them.

What about climate? In Arizona, upper Sonoran desert so we do get very cold overnight winter, very hot days and cool nights in the summer, not as bad as the Phoenix heat.

Rabbits and chickens are your best choices. I advise reading up on their care and feeding first before committing.

Chickens rabbits and a couple of goats.

Rabbits do fine most anywhere, as long as they have proper shelter and sufficient water.

These guys have more useful info about rabbits than you can imagine-its aimed at pet owners, not rabbit eaters per se, but I figure if you can keep and breed them you can eat them, too:

[link to www.rabbit.org]

Geese

rabbits or guinea pigs

Chickens are a bit fickle. Good hens often lay an egg a day or an egg every other day.

So 6-12 hens should be good for 3-6 eggs a day once they start, weather and age and stuff has an effect on them though.

Sometimes its kind of a waste killing them for meat when they produce so many eggs.

You can always pickle the eggs you dont eat etc.

They will attract predators though such as foxes and im assuming coyotes and possibly cougars if you are in the US, you may want a dog and a .22 or a .223 rifle.

Thanks everyone! For my age and area, plus the dogs, sounds like rabbits are the way to go. I'll check out those websites and do my research. Might have to buy a hutch or get someone to build me one.

Wish me luck!

Everybody is right about meat rabbits, problem is they fucking suck for a balanced diet.

They are very lean and pretty much pure protein, if all you have to eat is rabbit you will still starve.

If you have the space though you should totally get some rabbits and a couple of goats to go with the hens.

Right on, lots of coyotes here, occasional big cats. Our entire area is well fenced so should do fine. My dogs might try to go after the chickens more than they would rabbits that can't try to fly and make too much noise. LOL

Given the choice between rabbits and hens id go hens.

You can eat eggs pretty much every day, fresh eggs are fucking awesome too, really dark and full of flavour, not like that shit you get in the supermarket.

Cool thread.

You can produce a lot of food with a dozen hens, some rabbits, a couple of goats and a few large polythene tunnel greenhouses.

Best thing to grow are potatoes, peppers/chillis, tomatoes, strawberries, black/raspberry, rhubarb.

Buy some apple trees too.

Lots of people grow things like cabbage and all that but it not my kind of thing.

If you get some jarring equipment, for sterilizing and lean how to jar purees and jams, with all the eggs and peppers/chillis you can pickle too you'll offset your food budget massively.

If you bulk buy raw ingredients and buy a couple of bread making machines or just use a double oven you can make a fuckton of food.

Have to swap and change seasonally with your greenhouses and stuff though, and depending on climate you may want gas heaters etc.

Aquaponics is an option but i have not tried that, you use fish to produce fertilizer for the plants, and you can feed stuff you grow to the fish.

Couple of thousand dollars and you would be able to get a really awesome setup going with hens and polythene greenhouses..

The hard part is time, and learning what works best.

Zebu cattle small .. hearty and edible if shtf

If you decide to get chickens, realize that in the winter you will have to provide them with shelter, heat and light!

Hens need 17 hours of light per day to lay eggs. In the winter, I would set up a timer to a 150 watt infrared bulb (for heat) and have the timer turn it on about 12:00 AM. Sunrise for me was at 7:00 AM and sundown at 5:00 PM.

I have chickens and rabbits, and neither is hard to keep. I only have hens, had a rooster but my poor Lucy died. He was a good rooster and was a lot more like a pet than some cats. Unless you want chicks you don't need a rooster, and if you do want a rooster stay away from Rhode island red rooster, they are mega assholes. Chickens can get lice, mine never have but I spread diatomaceous earth around their pen and house, along with the bunny area. Look into de, has a million uses.

The only thing you need is a water source (without it youare dead and donot need to worry about anything in regard to eating etc.):

then

at least one trained (broke) donkey for emergency fleeing into the mountains. [donkey is used for carrying heavy load, not riding, nor driving (pulling)]

Maybe then:

kitties for rodant control (Pneumonic/Bubonic Plague)

then

non-chicken-killing Dogs for alarm warning

then

laying hens

then

good, registerd dairy goats.

then

pigs

last but not least

roosters for day and night guard duty.

thatis all you need under the circumstances:

Breakfast

milk and butter (cooking fat)

and

Dinner (main/only meal [may be only few times a week.])

A baby pig will be a meal for a family.

A baby goat will be a meal for a family.

A chicken can be a meal for a family, but you need the eggs for a daily source of protein. You only eat the hens that arenot laying. Learn how to test for non-laying hens.

pound for pound go with rabbits.

Chickens 'sound' good, BUT ... DO you have coyotes there ? They will kill them all very quickly. BUT, if you have high fence, that is dug INTO the ground about 8 inches, it would stop the coyotes from jumping over/digging UNDER !

Just an old country boy, hunter, etc. who has lost two cats to coyotes already, that came up on my porch to kill/eat them. Saw one catch two squirrels out in the open; bite/kill one, then leap about two feet into the air, trying to grab the other that made it to a tree limb only five feet off the ground.

In the case of chickens, you WILL have to kill/eat all the roosters BEFORE they start crowing in the early AM, OR, you will have upset hubby and many angry neighbors who don't like to wake up at 4:30/ 5:00 AM, lol !

Eagle

Rabbits and quail or small breed chickens.

Rabbits are good for meat. Birds lay eggs and can also be good for meat.

LOL Rabbits and Chickens will sustain you. Need rooster so you can replace your hens when they mature.

Road Island Reds are hardy so who cares about attitude. Not all roosters are ass hats.

FEED FEED FEED FEED.

Stock up on food. Calculate how muh feed for a couple of years and get it in place BEFORE you get the animals.

Then research how to make food acquire food for them after the fact. Plantains. Duck Weed. Cat Tails. Horse Tails.
Better educate yourself or all your stock will starve and you will starve.

Its for the long run not the short term. Get It.

Gathering food after the fact will do you in. Smarten up people. Don't take NOTHING FOR GRANTED. NOTHING.

Japanese he s.
small, robust, self reliant, breed like rats, and tasty as hell. They don't make a mess like chickens. And they won't attract attention like them either.

I started out with R.Reds,and yes the rosters are mean as hell!Had more rosters than hens so had hubby off all of them bitches.

They tasted real good...

As for the lice on chickens use sulfur..

[link to www.backyardchickens.com]

put it in all areas where they are/go on ground and on the birds.

Eagle,

I have chickens/turkeys etc...along with them coyotes

What i do is let my dogs pee/poop all around the hen house and feild area,keeps them away really good.

too funny about the roosters!
I'm getting more info here than I thought, wow! I am not young, so need to keep things simple and manageable. I do garden, which can be a real challenge in this climate!!

Now I'm trying to figure out where to buy some rabbits and a good size hut, or someone who can build for me. Sigh...