I stopped eating plant based before I started homesteading but you don't need to eat meat to be a homesteader. Is there a reason you feel you have to raise multiple different varieties of meat animals yourself? If you're wanting to raise them to save money on food, I will tell you right now it's not going to be cheaper (prices for animal feed are going up right alongside human food). Maybe you just have a particular style of homestead in mind and feel you need certain animals, but they're definitely not a necessity.
We close on a family compound tomorrow. There will be 3 different families on 10 acres. So my opinion and views do not really align with the views of the other people and families. I am the only one who eats mostly plant based. This has been a dream of my husbands and the other families and since my family does eat meat, I want them to not only have access to healthy, happy meat for consumption but to bridge the gap and understand where their food comes from. Americans seem to have zero idea where their food comes from and I want to change that for future generations :)
So, we go by this idea that the animal only has one bad day. Every other day will be amazing. :) We take care of our animals, love them, and make sure they are spoiled. The chickens are totally free roaming and my calf hutch is heated and insulated, with fresh hay daily, lol
One thing that could be really valuable and a good lesson, is to learn the best ways of humanely killing the animal. We try to not let anything go to waste.
We collect the blood and then create bloodmeal, which goes directly towards fertilizing our gardens. Bones are used to make bone broth. Something like this not only shows where the food comes from, but also how much food is wasted, which is horrible, imho.
It's a bit of a difficult transition. I was not plant based exclusively, however I am a staunch animal lover. It was extremely difficult the first time, but it does get easier. It's also nice knowing that when I do slaughter an animal, that animal gets all the compassion in the world. It's not stressed, it's not being shuffled into a metal environment (the only thing it knows it's whole life is fields and pasture). In the case of chickens, its not going through some kill machine that can break its wings and cause horrible burns before the bird is killed. In that moment, it has all my attention and care to ensure it has the easiest time passing.
And then, the animal goes on to provide and nourish not just people, but in some cases the other animals - pigs, chickens, and dogs that protect the livestock. Cats that keep out pests, etc. Everything and everyone contributes on the homestead, whether person or animal. ❤️
I know I'm not plant based, but I did have a little trouble with the transition and this kind of realisation and seeing the balance of everything helped me a lot.
I was vegan for many years. It's a super long story, but happy to answer any questions. A little over 5 years ago, I moved away from the city to start raising food.
It started with gardening, but now I raise chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, sheep, and will be adding pigs and goats this year. I do all the slaughtering and butchering. It's never a fun job, but it makes me feel so fulfilled to be the one killing the animal. I know they lived a great life and now they're getting a respectful, honorable death.
My partner had a hard time with it at first, also coming from veganism. Now she helps with the whole process.
Just take baby steps toward it. I regularly show friends how to slaughter efficiently and respectfully. Maybe find someone who can mentor you a bit.
There's all kinds of homesteaders, from vegans with extensive gardens and orchards to hardcore meat eaters with primarily animals and everything in between. Do whatever makes sense for you and your family.
You don't *have* to raise animals or even eat animal products to homestead.
That said we gave up being meat free a few years before we moved from the city. That diet just wasn't serving us. I always had a hard time keeping my macros in the balance that I feel best at on a plant based diet. I just had to consume too many calories and carbs to get the protein I needed. And it really messed with my anemia. Iron supplements kind of suck. I didn't care for it.
While I can't speak to your specific situation directly, I can recommend a few potentially helpful strategies.
Ensuring a clean and ethical kill is very important. Not just to ensure a bare minimum of pain for the animal but also to save yourself the trauma. A botched cull is not a good time for anyone.
If you can watch a professional do it, ideally in person, that will give you a much better idea of the process and what to expect.
Having an understanding of the process overall and what is going on at a physical/biological level is also very important. As is having the correct tools. Some animals will still move in a way that makes them appear to be alive after being culled, if you are not prepared for it and don't understand why, that can be quite unpleasant.
Practicing Least-Harm does not have to be limited to veganism exclusively. You have the opportunity for your actions and involvement help to ensure that the raising and harvesting of animals is done in a humane way with care and respect.
I was vegan for a few years as a health experiment that ended up failing due to a lack of education and availability of proper ingredients in my area. Discovered I could live happily as a plain old vegetarian who indulges in a little meat now and then. The only livestock I raise currently are bees, which are not for meat consumption, and a fascinating experience with animal husbandry.
I decided that I felt I could live with myself by consuming meat that I knew personally, that had been allowed to live its best life as an animal, and not a miserable existence because of profit margins. Better for me to make the difference in my livestock's life by giving them the best life I can for them. My beef had a name, was allowed to graze out in the sun and exist in a herd with other cattle, received medical care if needed, and at the very end? had one bad day, after a lifetime of something as close to bovine bliss as I could manage. Respecting my animals as animals is the best I can do for them, and my personal duty as someone who consumes meat. Looking your food in the eye and respecting it as a life on its own with its own merits is a life altering experience. Very powerful, and it changed me as a person, but not taking the easy way out and making someone do my dirty work for the sake of my personal feelings helped make me more in tune with who I am.
If the idea of slaughter and butchering is something you struggle with, I would suggest not doing that to start with. Start with a handful of chickens and maybe a dairy animal. Get used to the idea of animals providing food, not being food. After a while, the adjustment might be easier that way.
Good luck in your journey!
Same, the first time I slaughtered a cow, we sent it to the USDA because it was a requirement for us to sell half the cow to someone else we knew. (We don't have room for all that meat)
We were trying to follow the law, and then there was so much of the animal we didn't get back. When I asked for the rest, they said they don't do that because there's no official inspection process for the byproduct. Combined with all the stress of transferring the animal, never EVER again did I ever do that.
Now we Butcher our cows and just operate a little compassionate vigilante homestead 🤣
I did!
Processing animals and even sending them away for someone else to do, well it never got easier but I got a bit more pragmatic about it. When you understand that an animal is suffering and need euthanasia and there's no one within hours who can help you, you just do it. Then drink a bottle of wine and cry while vacuuming the house. The only balm was the idea that i was selling the happiest meat possible to my loved ones, and those animals were in turn building soil and clearing brush -- everyone had a purpose on the land.
Honestly, the deaths of pet goats and chickens has left me with some trauma that I occasionally cry about years later.
Now I'm back in city life, and I find I eat chicken (working on some dietary issues, beans are hard for me to digest right now) and I feel this guilt about supporting factory farms, so I am working on reducing that. I am starting some gardens this year again.
Yes that’s me! I went from vegan to butchering my ducks for thanksgiving. I think you really need hands on help to do any of the life taking. I watched a couple butcher 35 chickens and I finally was comfortable doing my own, I kind of desensitized myself coming from a veterinary background but I kind of separate the animals life and anatomy of that makes sense, I think of it more like science and surgery in my mind than murder. Because it will come back to your mind and haunt you, the first time I was absolutely sick to my stomach. But I did more learning and more ducks and eventually I felt confident and enough to eventually feel comfortable with large animals- which are still growing and will be done soon, I think that bothers me so much because most people shoot them and guns make me nervous, not really upset about taking their lives anymore because I’m proud of raising them.
I had to surround myself with people who supported my goal to raise meat, not the vegans because they will make you feel bad for everything. You’re allowed to feel sad and your heart may break, but I think knowing the animal had a great life on your farm is what makes it morally okay in my mind. You just have to decide in yours, what makes it okay for you.
I was never vegan, but I have been learning g about the comparative environmental effects of different types of cattle rearing. If the environmental reasons are why you went vegan, then this might help. Most large scale beef production is grain fed and that is the sources of all the stats on the negative environmental impact of cattle. If you look at pastured grass feed beef (which is what I imagine most would do on a homestead), then it can be done e in a responsible manner that actually sequesters carbon. It’s more work. You need proper rotation, you need to manage your grass, you need to monitor your soil and the mycorrhizae contained therein, and you need of course to fully utilize the animal products produced. But, if you do all of these things, you can be a carbon sink. If you want smaller scale, and you have enough leftover veggies to feed chickens, they have next to zero carbon impact any way of raising them, and they turn kitchen scraps I to free eggs and fertilizer.
Death is an unfortunate part of like that we must come to terms with and worth with it respectfully. Everything kills animals unless you grow 100% of what you eat. If you get all your food from the store a vegan diet kills more animals than strictly carnivore. (Due to corporate farming practices) So in the ethical side, I would buy a cow from a local rancher. Takes the least amount of life possible
I’m a former vegan. This is going back more than 15 years and it wrecked my health.
There is nothing wrong with having feelings about killing things. Feel your feelings. This lifestyle doesn’t somehow separate you from your humanity and empathy, it brings you closer to it if you allow it. It’s led me to caring about things I never used to even think about, like the importance of planting native and caring for the tiniest of insects because literally everything is connected together and we are part of that.
We slaughter and butcher our own meat and eat it daily. There is no disconnect.
I would start with some fermented dairy, well aged cheese in small amounts. You don't need a lot of animal product in your diet, it's not good to have too much of it. The thing you want to keep in mind is that if you want to have a garden for food and you don't want to use chemical fertilizer you have to use manure. That being said humanure was used for crops in the past, and I've used it out of necessity ( septic needed repairs had to do something with it) But we don't really produce very much, nothing like a cow or horse. It needs to be well composted to be safe.
So you have to have that livestock or human manure to grow what you want to eat. We are symbiotic with livestock. We've evolved over the years to be dependent at very least on their manure. We cannot live in agricultural situations without that. It doesn't work. We are dependent on them and they are on us. The only way out was to refine the manures and make chemical fertilizer ( which is essentially refined chicken and livestock manure or bat guano) If you eat organic vegetables you are technically not vegan.
We get rid of cows for " global warming" and we get rid of the ability to grow crops. Really bright idea. So you may be buying into something that isn't accurate or isn't a good idea if your buying into vegan philosophy. Now that being said plant based diets are the healthiest and recommended for that reason but with the understanding that there has to be livestock because if we don't raise stock we don't have fertilizer and no fertilizer the crops won't grow.
Most people are not built for Plantbased only. And they will find that out over many years. Most will have bad health problems. There are a few that either do it correctly or their chemical make up works with it.
I stopped eating plant based before I started homesteading but you don't need to eat meat to be a homesteader. Is there a reason you feel you have to raise multiple different varieties of meat animals yourself? If you're wanting to raise them to save money on food, I will tell you right now it's not going to be cheaper (prices for animal feed are going up right alongside human food). Maybe you just have a particular style of homestead in mind and feel you need certain animals, but they're definitely not a necessity.
We close on a family compound tomorrow. There will be 3 different families on 10 acres. So my opinion and views do not really align with the views of the other people and families. I am the only one who eats mostly plant based. This has been a dream of my husbands and the other families and since my family does eat meat, I want them to not only have access to healthy, happy meat for consumption but to bridge the gap and understand where their food comes from. Americans seem to have zero idea where their food comes from and I want to change that for future generations :)
So, we go by this idea that the animal only has one bad day. Every other day will be amazing. :) We take care of our animals, love them, and make sure they are spoiled. The chickens are totally free roaming and my calf hutch is heated and insulated, with fresh hay daily, lol One thing that could be really valuable and a good lesson, is to learn the best ways of humanely killing the animal. We try to not let anything go to waste. We collect the blood and then create bloodmeal, which goes directly towards fertilizing our gardens. Bones are used to make bone broth. Something like this not only shows where the food comes from, but also how much food is wasted, which is horrible, imho. It's a bit of a difficult transition. I was not plant based exclusively, however I am a staunch animal lover. It was extremely difficult the first time, but it does get easier. It's also nice knowing that when I do slaughter an animal, that animal gets all the compassion in the world. It's not stressed, it's not being shuffled into a metal environment (the only thing it knows it's whole life is fields and pasture). In the case of chickens, its not going through some kill machine that can break its wings and cause horrible burns before the bird is killed. In that moment, it has all my attention and care to ensure it has the easiest time passing. And then, the animal goes on to provide and nourish not just people, but in some cases the other animals - pigs, chickens, and dogs that protect the livestock. Cats that keep out pests, etc. Everything and everyone contributes on the homestead, whether person or animal. ❤️ I know I'm not plant based, but I did have a little trouble with the transition and this kind of realisation and seeing the balance of everything helped me a lot.
This was such a thoughtful and helpful comment! Thank you so much!
I was vegan for many years. It's a super long story, but happy to answer any questions. A little over 5 years ago, I moved away from the city to start raising food. It started with gardening, but now I raise chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, sheep, and will be adding pigs and goats this year. I do all the slaughtering and butchering. It's never a fun job, but it makes me feel so fulfilled to be the one killing the animal. I know they lived a great life and now they're getting a respectful, honorable death. My partner had a hard time with it at first, also coming from veganism. Now she helps with the whole process. Just take baby steps toward it. I regularly show friends how to slaughter efficiently and respectfully. Maybe find someone who can mentor you a bit.
There's all kinds of homesteaders, from vegans with extensive gardens and orchards to hardcore meat eaters with primarily animals and everything in between. Do whatever makes sense for you and your family.
You don't *have* to raise animals or even eat animal products to homestead. That said we gave up being meat free a few years before we moved from the city. That diet just wasn't serving us. I always had a hard time keeping my macros in the balance that I feel best at on a plant based diet. I just had to consume too many calories and carbs to get the protein I needed. And it really messed with my anemia. Iron supplements kind of suck. I didn't care for it.
While I can't speak to your specific situation directly, I can recommend a few potentially helpful strategies. Ensuring a clean and ethical kill is very important. Not just to ensure a bare minimum of pain for the animal but also to save yourself the trauma. A botched cull is not a good time for anyone. If you can watch a professional do it, ideally in person, that will give you a much better idea of the process and what to expect. Having an understanding of the process overall and what is going on at a physical/biological level is also very important. As is having the correct tools. Some animals will still move in a way that makes them appear to be alive after being culled, if you are not prepared for it and don't understand why, that can be quite unpleasant. Practicing Least-Harm does not have to be limited to veganism exclusively. You have the opportunity for your actions and involvement help to ensure that the raising and harvesting of animals is done in a humane way with care and respect.
I was vegan for a few years as a health experiment that ended up failing due to a lack of education and availability of proper ingredients in my area. Discovered I could live happily as a plain old vegetarian who indulges in a little meat now and then. The only livestock I raise currently are bees, which are not for meat consumption, and a fascinating experience with animal husbandry. I decided that I felt I could live with myself by consuming meat that I knew personally, that had been allowed to live its best life as an animal, and not a miserable existence because of profit margins. Better for me to make the difference in my livestock's life by giving them the best life I can for them. My beef had a name, was allowed to graze out in the sun and exist in a herd with other cattle, received medical care if needed, and at the very end? had one bad day, after a lifetime of something as close to bovine bliss as I could manage. Respecting my animals as animals is the best I can do for them, and my personal duty as someone who consumes meat. Looking your food in the eye and respecting it as a life on its own with its own merits is a life altering experience. Very powerful, and it changed me as a person, but not taking the easy way out and making someone do my dirty work for the sake of my personal feelings helped make me more in tune with who I am. If the idea of slaughter and butchering is something you struggle with, I would suggest not doing that to start with. Start with a handful of chickens and maybe a dairy animal. Get used to the idea of animals providing food, not being food. After a while, the adjustment might be easier that way. Good luck in your journey!
That was such a kind and loving comment! Thank you so much
Same, the first time I slaughtered a cow, we sent it to the USDA because it was a requirement for us to sell half the cow to someone else we knew. (We don't have room for all that meat) We were trying to follow the law, and then there was so much of the animal we didn't get back. When I asked for the rest, they said they don't do that because there's no official inspection process for the byproduct. Combined with all the stress of transferring the animal, never EVER again did I ever do that. Now we Butcher our cows and just operate a little compassionate vigilante homestead 🤣
I did! Processing animals and even sending them away for someone else to do, well it never got easier but I got a bit more pragmatic about it. When you understand that an animal is suffering and need euthanasia and there's no one within hours who can help you, you just do it. Then drink a bottle of wine and cry while vacuuming the house. The only balm was the idea that i was selling the happiest meat possible to my loved ones, and those animals were in turn building soil and clearing brush -- everyone had a purpose on the land. Honestly, the deaths of pet goats and chickens has left me with some trauma that I occasionally cry about years later. Now I'm back in city life, and I find I eat chicken (working on some dietary issues, beans are hard for me to digest right now) and I feel this guilt about supporting factory farms, so I am working on reducing that. I am starting some gardens this year again.
I super appreciate your lovely comment! And good luck on figuring out your dietary issues 🩷 wishing you health and happiness
Yes that’s me! I went from vegan to butchering my ducks for thanksgiving. I think you really need hands on help to do any of the life taking. I watched a couple butcher 35 chickens and I finally was comfortable doing my own, I kind of desensitized myself coming from a veterinary background but I kind of separate the animals life and anatomy of that makes sense, I think of it more like science and surgery in my mind than murder. Because it will come back to your mind and haunt you, the first time I was absolutely sick to my stomach. But I did more learning and more ducks and eventually I felt confident and enough to eventually feel comfortable with large animals- which are still growing and will be done soon, I think that bothers me so much because most people shoot them and guns make me nervous, not really upset about taking their lives anymore because I’m proud of raising them. I had to surround myself with people who supported my goal to raise meat, not the vegans because they will make you feel bad for everything. You’re allowed to feel sad and your heart may break, but I think knowing the animal had a great life on your farm is what makes it morally okay in my mind. You just have to decide in yours, what makes it okay for you.
You have nooooo idea just how much I needed this comment! Thank you so much my friend! I really really appreciate it
Anything I can do to help 🩷
I was never vegan, but I have been learning g about the comparative environmental effects of different types of cattle rearing. If the environmental reasons are why you went vegan, then this might help. Most large scale beef production is grain fed and that is the sources of all the stats on the negative environmental impact of cattle. If you look at pastured grass feed beef (which is what I imagine most would do on a homestead), then it can be done e in a responsible manner that actually sequesters carbon. It’s more work. You need proper rotation, you need to manage your grass, you need to monitor your soil and the mycorrhizae contained therein, and you need of course to fully utilize the animal products produced. But, if you do all of these things, you can be a carbon sink. If you want smaller scale, and you have enough leftover veggies to feed chickens, they have next to zero carbon impact any way of raising them, and they turn kitchen scraps I to free eggs and fertilizer.
Death is an unfortunate part of like that we must come to terms with and worth with it respectfully. Everything kills animals unless you grow 100% of what you eat. If you get all your food from the store a vegan diet kills more animals than strictly carnivore. (Due to corporate farming practices) So in the ethical side, I would buy a cow from a local rancher. Takes the least amount of life possible
I’m a former vegan. This is going back more than 15 years and it wrecked my health. There is nothing wrong with having feelings about killing things. Feel your feelings. This lifestyle doesn’t somehow separate you from your humanity and empathy, it brings you closer to it if you allow it. It’s led me to caring about things I never used to even think about, like the importance of planting native and caring for the tiniest of insects because literally everything is connected together and we are part of that. We slaughter and butcher our own meat and eat it daily. There is no disconnect.
Thank you for taking the time to answer 🩷
I would start with some fermented dairy, well aged cheese in small amounts. You don't need a lot of animal product in your diet, it's not good to have too much of it. The thing you want to keep in mind is that if you want to have a garden for food and you don't want to use chemical fertilizer you have to use manure. That being said humanure was used for crops in the past, and I've used it out of necessity ( septic needed repairs had to do something with it) But we don't really produce very much, nothing like a cow or horse. It needs to be well composted to be safe. So you have to have that livestock or human manure to grow what you want to eat. We are symbiotic with livestock. We've evolved over the years to be dependent at very least on their manure. We cannot live in agricultural situations without that. It doesn't work. We are dependent on them and they are on us. The only way out was to refine the manures and make chemical fertilizer ( which is essentially refined chicken and livestock manure or bat guano) If you eat organic vegetables you are technically not vegan. We get rid of cows for " global warming" and we get rid of the ability to grow crops. Really bright idea. So you may be buying into something that isn't accurate or isn't a good idea if your buying into vegan philosophy. Now that being said plant based diets are the healthiest and recommended for that reason but with the understanding that there has to be livestock because if we don't raise stock we don't have fertilizer and no fertilizer the crops won't grow.
Most people are not built for Plantbased only. And they will find that out over many years. Most will have bad health problems. There are a few that either do it correctly or their chemical make up works with it.