butchering - easiest, best bang for the buck...

Here's a link to a website that sells DVD's on how to process different animals.

http://www.askthemeatman.com/meat_cutting_videos.htm

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The first time I plucked a chicken- it took less than a minute per bird. It isn't that hard or time consuming. We dipped them in scalding water first - then the feathers pretty much just came right out.

I have raised all of the most common meat animals. For the money, the two animals that return the most meat for the dollar spent is rabbit and hog. Both have the best rate of gain, that being the most weight gained per pound of feed in over the shortest time. Years of 4H records concur. As for butchering, except for hogs, we always do our own, from slaughter to cut and wrap. We have collected the equipment over time, good processing knives and a power meat saw, grinder and as of last fall, a smoke house!

As for chickens... a long time ago, I stopped plucking and started skinning. We don't eat the skin anyway, so we just pull it all off in once piece. Slit up the breast and peel it off. I can't believe how easy it is.

Can't beat wild hogs. No input costs. No emotional attachments. Pure porcine profit.

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Amen to wild Pig. Next are rabbits/chickens/sheep/goats. Steers are much more trouble to fence and vet. Vet costs are outlandish.

My list would be rabbits, chickens, goats, venison

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We don't have enough land for beef cattle and aren't allowed to keep a pig, so for us, sheep is our best meat animal. They gain on grass + browse; we don't grain feed - just hay in the winter, even the pregnant ewes. The wool is an added benefit. We prefer the taste of lamb to goat, but goats might be better for people who like dairy.

We keep chickens, but do have to purchase feed for them. It's worth it to us for the eggs and meat.

Yea I was just thinking Wild Game and Fish just takes a Little Lead

Truth thats why I quit raising so much and was talking with my wife we have plenty of meat need to put Ground towards Fruits and Vegetables more than anything.

big rockpile

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Anything you have to over winter or buy feed for is a loser unless you're breeding. A steer doesn't need much pasture and you can buy one in the spring and butcher in the fall if you buy a decent sized one. Yields a lot more meat and is easy.

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Imho, if your buying all the feed for an animal, the cost/benefits calculus is almost always in favor of just buying the meat.

I know it's always best to know what's 'in your meat'... but if you buy feed, do you 'know' whats 'in your feed?'

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wild fish ,by far

Good for you!! I am thinking the same way and really leaning toward rabbits seeing as how we have the chicken thing down pat I wish I had the guts to do pigs. And I would love a trout pond. And wild game (wild pigs? you lucky dogs) altho we do have deer and turkey.

I think we all know that buying the finished product could be cheaper, but how does that fit into working toward more self-sufficiency which is the OP's main purpose in this post?

Been thinking on this one for a bit as I've had mixed results on about everything I've raised at some point or another... Anything you can free range properly is going to do well for you, if raised 100% on purchased feed you are going to be lower ROI.

My list would be:
Wild game drawn to an area via feeders/feed plots
Rabbits -little care easy to clean
Hog - pasture raised and used as garbage disposals they are amazingly cheap to about 160-180lbs
Chickens - free ranged they are a real productive kick in the pants to the budget but I've never found a way to get around pellets and have limited experiences w/ them.
Beef - if you have large pasture areas they are reasonable, over wintered they can rack up some cost fast.

While I love lamb and goat, my family doesn't care for it so there is no reason for me to raise them as a source of food. If you won't eat it in good times it serves no purpose in the freezer. The best way I can come up with to get the biggest bang for your buck is to raise what best suits your property and trade finished product with someone else. I.E. if you are set up to raise hogs and know someone who raises cattle, raise an extra pig and trade for say half a side of beef.

Does 75 pounds of meat per person per year sound about right?

Not even close in my house. Assuming a 4oz serving (very light for most US families these days) 2 meals a day x 365 days would be a minimum of 182.5lbs of meat a year. That doesn't count holidays or any bonuses at harvest or what not but also doesn't account for garden days where there is no meat served.

Variety is the spice of life and there are ways to offset the totals with wild game, reduced protein cooking like stir frys, and what not but for good variety it'd be hard to raise 100% of ones meat IMHO.

We raise rabbits & love the meat, I don't raise chickens though but use the rabbit just like I would chicken. It's like SWEET Chicken.
They are not all that economical to raise though if you feed commercial pellets. If you go with rabbits try & get some that have fast grow out weights so you can feed them the minimal amount of time. They are very easy to process though.

When/if we have a goat to butcher we take it to the butcher that does our deer, he does an excellent job & very reasonably priced. He also raises his own beef & sell's it so that's where we get our beef & pork already cut, wrapped & froze. Beef is $1.60 a pound & I can't raise it for that & have it butchered too, too much for 2 people to do a cow.

I would check with some local places to see if you have any butchers or slaughter houses that raise or butcher meat & how much it's going to cost.

many do it all the time. we do. we did chickens, hogs, and round it out with deer. this year the hogs were going to cost too much, so I am putting in double garden and then getting an extra deer. the place we get our deer live off the feed piles where hubby works, so the deer running loose are eating exactly what the steers on the inside of the fence are eating!

DD14 can get youth tags at $5 each, up to 5 tags. we have equip to do our own processing, and it takes our family about half a day to do 2-3. we grind some, package some as roasts, stew, and loins. cheapest meat anywhere.

We raise (or catch) 100% of our meat. We raise poultry, ducks, geese, turkeys, chickens. Raise sheep and goats. Buy a weaner pig every year and raise it up to about 200 lbs, 6 months or so. Don't do beef, don't need to, get an elk and a couple black tail deer every year. We usually end up giving away meat.

I have been raising 100% of my own meat for a few years now on a tiny 3.5 acres. We have a ram and three ewes, the ewes lamb in January and I generally sell ewe lambs at a couple of months old which offsets expenses. We process any ram lambs in October/November when the grass is running out. They are pretty well grass fed in the summer and in winter the ewes get grass hay and a tiny bit of grain to keep them knowing who their food comes from... Lamb is probably the cheapest meat we raise because of the grass feeding. It is also definitely the easiest to raise. I have Katahdin or crosses thereof which are meat animals and do not require shearing. Butchering is pretty easy. I render the fat for cooking and soap making.

We have a buck and two does. They usually kid in February - I milk the does and make cheese, yogurt, kefir and soap from it (as well as drinking it) Any excess milk or byproduct goes to the pigs. Doe kids are sold at a couple of months of age and the bucklings butchered in fall. They eat grass, hay and browse most of the year. I grain feed the does on the milking stand, and they also get alfalfa hay while in the milking area. This doesn't make for the maximum amount of milk, but there is certainly sufficient for my needs and I don't see any sense in pushing for more. I put more dollars into the goats, but then I get more "stuff" out of them so they about make up for that. They are not easy keepers, and are hard on fences so they do have a nuisance value that is pretty high for me. Again - butchering isn't hard. There isn't usually enough fat to make it worth my while to render it.

I have usually bought two piglets in spring and raised them till fall - they get some store bought feed but they get kitchen waste/trimmings, garden waste, excess milk and eggs plus excess produce that my friend gets from a farm stand. This is my second cheapest and easiest meat to raise. This year I bought a Large Black boar and a cross bred gilt and will give raising my own a try. This is mostly because last year I couldn't find any young piglets for sale at a reasonable price, so I figured I had better secure my own bacon source
I find pigs one of the easier larger animals to butcher. I render the fat for cooking and soap making.

We have a tiny flock (10) of laying hens for eggs. We keep a couple of roos in there and sometimes we hatch a few eggs to replace the layers. I buy 25 frankenchickens in spring and butcher them 8 or so weeks later. That is sufficient chicken for us for a year. The layers are cheap to keep but the meat chickens are not - but then they have a lot more flavor than the store bought stuff so I do it anyway. I don't like all the messing around butchering chickens, so I had DH build me a chicken plucker which makes that part a lot easier. I also hate eviscerating them so I don't. I cut off the legs, breasts and wings and feed the carcasses to the LGDs. Win-win.

I have raised a Dexter steer and he was delicious but not actually cheap to raise. I don't have sufficient land to raise a steer on pasture alone, so he had to be fed hay and some range cubes as well. I am currently raising a dairy steer - a mistake I won't make again. He is huge, eats a LOT and is still all bones at 15 months. I will still raise Dexter or other beef steers because the difference in their meat to store bought is amazing. But I won't pretend that it is economical to do so, at least not under my circumstances. If only I had a few more acres... I didn't butcher the Dexter at home, I don't have the facilities for something that large. We had a local processor do the kill, skinning and hanging (21 days I think it was) and then section him into 2 fore quarters, 2 hind quarters and 4 midsections. My daughter and I then finished the cutting and packing. It was a learning experience and I actually enjoyed it if you ignore the sore muscles.

I did not enjoy raising rabbits, personally. It gets really hot here in OK, and I found that they were not at all productive in the heat. The manure was good for the garden, though.

I have raised ducks. I love the meat but it is rather difficult to keep their environment clean if you don't have a goodly sized pond for them.

I raise a couple of turkeys per year for Thanksgiving and Christmas. If I had more space I would raise several and sell them for the Holidays. They are not difficult to raise and the heritage breeds have a decent feed conversion and forage pretty well. Have the same "yuck" factor in processing, but profit margins would make that worth it.

Mary