What animals would you start with?

yeah, those little banties are great mama's. my mom's even raised 2 geese last year. they were almost as big as her when they were born, but she raised them both. (2 goose eggs is all that would fit under her). i skipped a lot of the discussion above, but we've got some all purpose breed chickens-black austrolorps, barred rocks, aracaunas, and buff orpingtons. they lay plenty for us, and i can sell 6 -8 dozen a week, and still have plenty for us-we've got about 30 hens. look at the breeds you enjoy looking at-no sense getting something you're going to hate looking at just b/c it's a good layer or meat bird. it needs to be something you will enjoy.

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Let a smile be your umbrella against the thunderstorms of life.
have a great day.
when i call on Jesus, all things are possible.

I've farmed pretty much my whole life, kept cattle goats rabbits chickens horses and sheep. The only animal that ever taight me anything about animal husbandry were the sheep. If you can keep sheep EVERYTHING else is easy. Not that sheep are impossible, just they challenge you to learn. I kept cattle for 15 years, If I'd had sheep first I would have avoided every mistake I made with cows, that made them at best a break even proposition.

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Do not meddle in the affairs of Dragons, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup........

I didn't say anything about adapted. I was speaking only of cost. Also if you put a dairy breed on pasture only she won't make as much milk as if she was on a grain ration. But it will be more milk than an expensive little jersey could ever produce.

As for forage I have 6 redX egg layers. they spend all day out. Their house has a feed bowl, But it's rarily used they eat less than 1 cup a week And give a jumbo every day. I mean huge they don't fit in the egg container. We also have 1 chicken that lays the green ish/ blue eggs. She eats about the same but lays about 5 a week. P.S. those redx's started in Jan. and havn't let up.
The redX can be found at Moyer's Hatchery. They are located here in PA.

Here is the perfect example. Her chickens cost her more to buy at best the same to feed. But she gets about half production.
With 30 chickens of a commercial breed you would get about 210 a week (thats 1 a day) this time of year and it will drop to 80% of that over winter or 168. So thats an average of 17.5 dozen large/jumbo now and 14 dozen in the winter.

Commercial chickens like white leggorns and such would not last a month on free range predators would get them and they are probably to dumb to come back in at night if you want them to come home to roost and shut them up at night, Bet they dont make very good foragers either. Those old breeds and banties can forage a lot of their food in the summer if you have a good sized yard/pasture.

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marching to the beat of a different drummer

Dual purpose chickens (eggs and meat), wool sheep (fiber and meat), a pig for the freezer. Two milk goat does for dairy.