We had always planned on getting a pig for our farmstead as to make the best use of our scraps and leftovers, but chickens were much cheaper to set up and easier to find. So we got them first and pushed procuring a hog farther down the list for the time being.
First, living this kind of life where you have to fight tooth and nail for every bean and potato, you dang sure make the very best of what you do get. We soon learned creative techniques for food preservation. Where as in the past we might be in the bad habit of tossing over done produce, now we find ourselves either overlooking or carefully removing any parts that may have spoiled as to make an attempt to salvage what we can.
Needless to say, if we were to get a hog at this point, it would either be a starved little emaciated thing spending the majority of its time plying us with carefully constructed arguments about food safety and how, for our own sake, we should raise our standards and abandon our frugal food practices; or... much more likely, we would have to buy feed for it. Which would defeat the purpose at least as I see it... On a one acre micro farm, assuming your looking to make a living solely from what you can raise and make on it as we are, there is no room for non profitability however small.
Secondly, it quickly became apparent to us that chickens, for all intents and purposes, are Pigs.
I kid you not, they will eat anything! And a good many things that they probably shouldn't.
We have 8 hens and between them they make quick work out of any and all scraps we're unfortunate enough to have leftover. One of our chickens' favorite things in the whole world ( as it would seem from observation) is the simple act of randomly plucking a handful of weeds and tossing them in the chicken run.
And more over, I believe chickens are of more use than pigs. You need not slaughter them to profit, unlike pigs, because they lay eggs and while not a high value crop or commodity they are absolutely indispensable to us.
We find ourselves more grateful every day for the guaranteed arrival of eggs each morning and have labored for more creative ways to incorporate them into our diet.
P.S.. as a last resort, they can also be thrown in a pot!
-By, 'The Digger'
