Mini Animals

tnokie · #1 05/27/10, 08:35 AM

I am trying to decide what kind of mini animals to start raising. I love the donkeys,and the fainter goats and nigerian goats,and also the small pigs like the Guniea hogs. I have all of these available locally. My thought is start with the hogs first because they produce faster,then use the money from them to further the other interest. Anyone have experiences with any of these?

tinknal · #2 05/27/10, 09:10 AM

Marketing the critters can be trickier than you think. I would choose something that has "eating them" as a default option.

Patt · #3 05/27/10, 09:35 AM

From what I have seen people with a few miniatures wind up with a ton of them because they don't sell well. Make sure you have a market before you start if you need to make money off of them.

Timberline · #4 05/27/10, 09:45 AM

I had Nigerian Dwarfs. Fun little goats, and did ok on the milk stanchion, but no market for them here. I am currently milking a mini-Nubian and an Oberhasli. For the amount of feed, housing, care etc, that was saved by having the Nigerians, it didn't pay off when I consider how much more milk my other goats give.

I've never raised smaller breeds of hogs but have seriously considered it. We ended up with Durocs and Hampshires. I'm glad we did, could sell them easily and only have to butcher one big pig to meet our pork needs for the year.

I wouldn't own another donkey of any size. The last one I had killed a Hereford heifer. I know many horror stories of donkeys killing calves and foals.

If your interest lies in novelty animals or rare breeds conservation, that's a different story. I guess it all comes down to what animals you enjoy and what sort of market you have for sales.

PulpFaction · #5 05/27/10, 02:53 PM

I second the recommendation to make sure it's something you can eat! Lately, I've been really appreciating the benefits of smaller meat animals. We just don't have the storage room for a whole, or even a half of an animal, be it pork or beef or goat or lamb. BUT, we'd have the space for a half of a mini pig or lamb at a time.

I think that's a good marketing angle, too. Remember, not everyone keeps a deep freeze to accomodate their gourmet eating habits. Smaller meat animals make a lot of sense to some people, even if the feed conversion isn't as good, etc.

I think the guinea hogs are a good idea as a place to start. I've been eye-balling mini Zebu cattle, too. (Also supposedly do well in the heat and humidity and are good grazers.)

A good secondary market to look into for any of these is 4-Hers/Youth because they're a more manageable size.

Momto5 · #6 05/27/10, 06:07 PM

I would only recommend that you take it slow. We have mini donks...we love them, they are excellent with our kiddos , everyone from 50 miles around comes to see them, hug them, love them, our biggest guy gives the little kids donkey rides. We are bringing home fainting goats Saturday June 5, our first goats.
We hobby farm (we also have horses and black angus). We dont eat anything we raise, but we do trade cows and bulls for hay, sileage, etc.....our animals are our pets, nothing more, nothing less. We are thinking about sometime down the road getting 2 female mini donks (have 4 males) and breeding and then selling. In our area they are hard to come by and bring in a nice chunk of change.
I guess it all depends on what your long term goals are. Good luck.

chewie · #7 05/28/10, 12:26 AM

i could be very wrong, but i was under the thought that those types of hog are more fat/grease than meat? one hog for you, one for selling. a few chickens, some rabbits. those are even smaller with a great return on your effort. if you have the market for selling 'cute' pets, great. if not, you had better be sure those things can pay you back in either meat or profits. if they are only for pets for you, that's great too, not everything on our place makes us money, but some make up for it in pleasure.