The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Introduce yourself => Topic started by: Earl on March 18, 2020, 09:55:50 am
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This Virus thing has made me revisit the idea of self sufficiency. Popping down to the super market may not always be an option. Having to think te unthinkable-rippinf up some lawn fir potatoes - coop for chickens- still for antiseptic and self medication. We are all coffin dodgers now. Oh yea and hello everyone :)
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Hi Earl :wave:
Yes, we are all very lucky to have at least some food production on our own places :relief:
Where I am, we are probably going to restock with chickens as we had planned to do this year, but perhaps work on a more "completely free range, just a handful of wheat at bedtime" basis, with automatic pophole closers, so we don't run into problems if animal feed gets to be in short supply.
The herbivores can all look after themselves for a couple of weeks if they have to - grass under their feet and water on tap, the dairy cow has a calf at foot, and so on.
I am still in several minds about pigs. They make meat out of dairy and veg plot waste, so are an important ingredient in our semi-sufficiency here... but they cannot manage without humans helping and feeding them, and what if we are all sick at once? Not to mention we would need to be able to get bought-in feed for them (and we only want to feed GM-free preferably non-soya...) So at the mo we have not bought any weaners this year.