The Everything Guide to Living Off the Grid (20 page)

Gathering Honey

It’s best to harvest your honey on a sunny, windless day, since bees are calmest then. Remove the bees from the hive by blowing smoke into the hive opening. After a few minutes, pry the outer cover loose and lift it off. Blow more smoke through the hole in the inner cover. Now you can remove the inner cover. After the inner cover is removed, once again blow smoke into the hive to finally drive the bees downward and out of the way.

Remove the super and pry the frames loose with the hive tool. Be careful not to crush any bees. A crushed bee releases a scent that stimulates other bees to attack. Gently brush off any bees that are clinging to the frames. A comb that is ready to be harvested should be about 80 percent sealed over.

Uncap the combs in a bee-proof location, like a tightly screened room. Bees will want to take the honey, if they can get to it. Slice off the comb tops with a sharp knife warmed in hot water. A heavy kitchen knife is fine. It’s best to use two knives, cutting with one while the other is heating. Once the honey is extracted, return the emptied combs to the hive for the bees to clean and use again. With care, combs can be recycled for twenty years or more.

Legal Requirements

All states have laws that pertain to keeping bees and registering hives. You need to understand the laws of your state before you begin beekeeping. Now, because of parasitic bee mites and the Africanized honeybee, some states have even more stringent laws. For specific legal information, you can contact your county Extension agent or your state department of agriculture.

CHAPTER 13
Raising Your Own

Raising your own livestock can be a wonderful experience. You can delight in the daily gathering of fresh brown eggs or frothy goat’s milk. The meat and poultry on your table will never taste better. You will know, with certainty, what went into the food you are eating. And you will learn to respect not only the process of raising your own, but also the animals that provided it for you.

Can You Afford It?

The late Carla Emery, author of
The Encyclopedia of Country Living
, wrote that animals had four basic rights—treatment when injured or diseased, freedom from extreme physical discomfort, sufficient and nourishing food and water, and care that minimizes fear and stress. If you meet those needs, you will have success in raising livestock.

However, you also need to be sure that your own needs are going to be met as you consider raising livestock. These are the areas you need to think about:

• Your lifestyle
  
• Your location
  
• Your return on investment
  
• Your livestock options
  
• Your shelter options
  
• Your animal husbandry experience
  

Once you’ve looked through these initial considerations, you can decide on the kind of livestock you want for your sustainable lifestyle. This chapter gives you an overview of your options; you will still need to learn more about the requirements of your specific animal.

Your Lifestyle

A dairy farmer gets up every morning at 4 A.M. and goes out to the barn to start his milking process. He can’t sleep in because the cows are used to getting milked at a certain time every day. If he is late the cows can develop mastitis, a disease that blocks the teat and can eventually cause infection and death. Once the cows are milked in the morning, he does the other chores throughout his day and returns to his herd in the afternoon to repeat the process. Dairy farmers don’t take vacation days. They don’t skip milking for the holidays. They are tied to their farms.

As an owner of livestock, you will not be able to take a vacation or an overnight trip without considering the needs of your animals. If you have dairy cows or goats, you have an every-day, year-round responsibility. If you have chickens that are egg layers, you have a little more flexibility. You can
stay away from them for a few days, as long as you have seen to their needs before you leave. However, if you are raising meat chickens, they need daily tending. Some people have been lucky enough to work out arrangements with friends in similar circumstances, and they take turns tending each other’s livestock. Just remember, as you consider the kind of animals you want to raise and the size of your herd, that these animals depend on you every day.

Your Location

Your location will determine the kind of animals you decide to purchase. Check with your local zoning laws to be sure you can keep animals on your site. (If you are living in the country, this shouldn’t be an issue. But it never hurts to check.) Find out what was raised on your acreage before you purchased it. There are some diseases that cross from one type of animal to another through soil contamination. (Talk to your veterinarian about how to vaccinate against the possibility of exposure.) Size matters! When an animal is raised in conditions that don’t allow enough space to graze and move around, it becomes stressed. Stressed animals are more susceptible to disease.

Diseases like tetanus, botulism, and blackleg are caused by the family of bacteria known as
Clostridia
. These bacteria can remain viable in the soil for years. They are resistant to heat, cold, drought, ultraviolet radiation, and chemical disinfectants.

Your Return On Investment

It will generally cost you more to raise your own meat and dairy than it would to go to the nearest grocery store and purchase it. However, the meat, eggs, and milk you grow will more than likely taste better and be healthier. The cost of raising animals includes the initial purchase price, their feed, their shelter, equipment needed to raise them, any vet fees, and slaughtering fees (unless you are going to process them yourself; see Chapter 15). If
you can grow your own feed, then you’ve cut down your costs considerably. Remember, animals that graze won’t have access to their pasture through winter and spring in many areas. Also, even grass-fed animals need grain supplements. Equipment can be used year after year, so in the long run your equipment costs will be negligible.

As you add up the cost for raising your animal, don’t forget that what you see “on the hoof” is not what you will get in your freezer. For a typical steer you can estimate that half of its live weight will be lost during the initial slaughtering process. Then, when the butcher processes it into various cuts, you will lose another one-third of the weight. In other words, with a 1,200-pound steer, you will end up with approximately 400 pounds of meat.

Processors charge a “kill,” or “slaughter,” fee and charge a price-per-pound processing fee on the dressed weight, or hanging weight, of the animal. For example, if the kill fee is $40, the processing fee is .65/pound, and you have a 1,200-pound steer, your processing cost would be 600 (approximate dressed weight in pounds) x .65 = $390 + $40 (kill fee) = $430.

Your Livestock Options

Depending on the kind of animal you raise and your long-term goal, the cost of an animal can vary greatly. A purebred bull can cost over $10,000, depending on the breed and lineage, but you can also purchase a sale barn steer for $25. If your goal is to create a herd that can be sold for breeding purposes, a purebred bull is the way to go. If you are only thinking about filling your freezer in eighteen months, the sale barn steer will do the trick. As you consider your livestock options, take into account your geographic location and the hardiness of the varieties you choose. You will also want to research the length of time to slaughter. For example, it only takes meat chickens about eight weeks to be ready for slaughter. This amount of time gives you chickens that are dressed out (ready for consumption) and weigh about 4 pounds. Turkeys take much longer before they can be processed, about twenty weeks, and they will, therefore, consume more food. But you
will also end up with about five times more meat. Your local Extension agent will be able to give you information about the varieties that thrive in your particular area.

Your Shelter Options

Good shelter from weather and predators is essential for raising any kind of livestock. Lambs and calves can die from exposure. Chickens are easy prey to foxes, raccoons, coyotes, and the neighbors’ dogs. You need to protect your investment with a shelter that is secure and clean. You can be creative with recycled building materials to create the right shelter for your livestock, but keep two things in mind as you draw up the design—manure removal and animal control. A clean shelter is essential for healthy animals, and efficient manure removal will make the chore much easier. Animal control encompasses being able to move your livestock from one area to another with the least amount of trouble and getting access to the animal when you need it. This might seem insignificant, but when you are trying to give a 1,500-pound steer a shot of antibiotics, for example, you will be glad that you built a small holding pen in your barn.

Where can I go for more information about building a barn or shelter?
The books:
Building Small Barns, Sheds & Shelters
by Monte Burch;
Practical Pole Building Construction: With Plans for Barns, Cabins, & Outbuildings
by Leigh Seddon; and
Low-Cost Pole Building Construction: The Complete How-To Book
by Ralph Wolfe.

Good fences are essential for raising any kind of livestock. You have probably seen photos of chickens wandering loose all around the barnyard. But what those photos don’t show you are the chickens devouring every last grape on the vine just before you were going to pick them for grape juice. You will also find that larger animals, like steers and goats, will be very willing to take advantage of any weaknesses in your fencing. There are also livestock, like pigs, who root underneath a fence and will need a fence line that is planted at least several inches below the ground.

Your Animal Husbandry Experience

Raising animals on a farm is vastly different from owning a dog or a cat in the city. You might never consider giving your pet vaccinations on your own, but on the farm it is common practice to give your animals shots. Although you can order your vaccines in bulk by mail or online, buying through your local veterinarian has the added benefit of the vet’s free advice. Most farmers also keep antibiotics on hand for common maladies, but if you are inexperienced, the safest route is to call the veterinarian and allow her to diagnose the problem.

Other routine animal husbandry procedures are:

• Dehorning:
  removing the horn button on young animals so a horn does not grow
  
• Castrating:
  removing an animal’s testicles when he is young
  
• Hoof trimming:
  removing part of the “toenail” of the animal to prevent foot problems
  
• Shearing:
  removing the fleece of an animal
  
• Livestock reproduction:
  everything from artificial insemination to helping with birthing
  

The sooner you master these tasks, the better. Books like
The Encyclopedia of Country Living
can give you a lot of good information, but the best way to learn is through experience. Volunteer to help a livestock-raising neighbor with these tasks in order to get some on-the-job training.