It is extremely rewarding to be able to provide home-grown meat for your family. Here are the reasons we raise a variety of species of livestock on our farm. If you don’t have the space or time to raise your own, these can also be reasons to buy local, humanely-raised meats.
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I don’t buy meat at the grocery store.
In our house, we eat home-grown beef, pork, goat, chicken, and rabbit (as well as wild game) from our freezers. In today’s over-processed food market, we prefer to raise our own animals to ensure that our family has the highest quality protein sources in their diet. Unless you do your homework, you really don’t know what you’re putting into your body.
Although it’s not easy, quick, or cheap, I’ll tell you why we raise multiple different species every year for own consumption.
The 7 reasons given here center around taste, lessons learned, and freedom to choose!
1. When You Raise Your Own Meat, You Know What the Animal Ate
When you raise your own meat animal, you control what it eats. If you want non-GMO pork or grass-fed beef you can make that happen.
My feed mill has a sign that reads “You are what your animals eat” and it really is true. Our meat animals convert nutrients from their diets into fats, amino acids, vitamins, and minerals that we can use to fuel our human bodies.
I believe you get out what you put in to any endeavor. I wish you could turn moldy hay and food scraps into beef and pork, but it doesn’t work that way. In my experience, it is adequate amounts of high-quality feed that results in the healthiest, happiest, and fastest growing animals and, in turn, yields of marbled, delicious, ethically-raised meat.
2. When You Raise Your Own Meat, You Know What Medications the Animal was Given
When you raise your own meat, you know if the animal was vaccinated or treated for parasites. You know if the animal was healthy or endured suffering from disease.
You know if the animal was given antibiotics, for what reason, where they were given, and how long ago. You have the responsibly of antibiotic stewardship and adhering to withdrawal times.
When you buy meat at the store, you may see notes about growth hormones and medication usage but have to trust that management decisions were made in the best interest of the animal or consumer, not the company.
3. When You Raise Your Own Meat, You Know How the Animal was Treated
When you raise your own animals, you know if they had fresh water, enough to eat, a buddy to hang out with, or a clean spot to lay down. You know if they had space to run around and engage in normal behaviors for their species (grazing, browsing, rooting).
If it matters to you, like it does to me, you can answer questions about the animal’s well-being. At my house, my kids know that pigs and rabbits are only here for a short time and they go out of their way to make sure the animals enjoy themselves- with treats and extra attention.
4. When You Raise Your Own Meat, You Decide When the Animal is Market Ready
When you raise your own meat, you don’t have to use a scale or calendar to tell you when its time to butcher. It’s up to you to make your own assessment of the animal’s condition and determine when it is market ready. If you prefer a smaller carcass to work with or extra fat on your hog, you don’t have to worry about current trends influencing your dinner.
5. When You Raise Your Own Meat, You Get the Cuts that You Want
When you raise your own meat, you get to decide (for the most part) how that meat is processed. Although “Just steak” isn’t an option for beef processing (I wish!), you can choose bone-in or bone-out cuts, as well as the size of packages.
If you really want options, butchering and packing the animal yourself is definitely the way to go. Click the link here to read a related article outlining all of the advantages of on-farm, do-it-yourself butchering.
6. When You Raise Your Own Meat, You Can Learn or Teach Responsibility
When you raise your own animals for food, your whole family can learn valuable life lessons. Kids develop discipline from having to do daily chores, even on the days that they don’t feel like it. They can learn responsibility from caring for an animal that is completely dependent on them for food and water. Shoveling manure is also a great character-building opportunity!
Adults and children alike can better understand and appreciate where their food comes from when it is raised in their backyard.
7. When You Raise Your Own Meat, You Get a Sense of Pride and Satisfaction
When you have a hand in raising your own food, from start to finish, you can smile when you open the freezer, cook with peace of mind, and eat with true gratitude. Watching an animal grow and flourish under your care is extremely rewarding. Providing your family with meat that is safe, healthy, and delicious is a feeling that can’t be matched. Being more self-reliant is something to be proud of and celebrated!
What About Saving or Making Money?
You may have noticed that saving and making money are not included as reasons to raise your own meat. Caring for animals is not a cheap undertaking, especially today. The costs of grain, hay, and even bedding are at record highs.
Making even a small profit often requires large numbers of animals, breeding your own stock, and growing and harvesting your own grains and forages. These practices are not an option for many small farmers.
To help break even, I recommend raising two animals and putting one in your freezer and selling the other. This can help recoup costs and give you some return on your investment.
Raising animals for meat won’t save you tons of money, but it will save you a few headaches and trips to the grocery store.
The Land Issue
You don’t need to have a lot of land to become more self-sufficient and raise animals to feed your family. We raise Cornish-cross meat chickens and New Zealand meat rabbits in tractors in our backyard. If you have some room, both hogs and meat goats do well in relatively small pens. If you’re thinking of raising cattle though, it is best to have some acreage.
I wouldn’t let the land issue stop you from trying, start small, and start with what you have!
Are there other reasons you raise your own meat? I would love to hear about them in the comments.
Mother, farmer, author, and teacher by trade… She loves tending to things and watching them grow!