You are a homesteader-type on a few acres or even a small lot in town. Ideally, you’d like to live sustainably so you tend a vegetable garden and fruit trees, or also raise a few livestock animals for eggs, meat, and milk. With the rising cost of grain and ever-fluctuating price of fuel, soon enough you’re spending more to feed them than on your own groceries! However, with just your existing garden almost anyone can grow enough to at least supplement the feed of a few healthy, productive animals.
You’re probably already animal gardening to some extent without even realizing it! When you pull weeds or thin vegetables you give them to the rabbits. While preparing your meals, you save fresh scraps for the laying hens. When canning or freezing the harvest, the ‘waste’ goes to the goats. The stripped, sweet corn stalks go to the cows. After the harvest, you let the chickens or pigs finish cleaning up the garden beds, tilling as they go. And what gardener/animal raiser hasn’t snatched a few carrots or snap peas for the sheep?
It really is that easy, simply planting extra of what you already grow in order to supplement the feed of any animal on your homestead! Here are a few more tips.
Getting Started
If you’re just laying out your garden and space is a problem, try either the “Square Foot Gardening Method” or the French Intensive method, even a combination of them.
Raised beds are quick to set up and easy to maintain. Beds about 4’ x 4’ mean not having to reach in more than 2’ from any side. Many different materials, salvaged or new, can be used to build the beds. Or create permaculture Hugel-beds or containers.
If your established garden is laid out in rows, space them closer together. There’s no need to waste space wide enough to drive a horse or tractor through; this wastes water and compost and you have to weed all of that empty area. All of these methods will allow you to grow five to ten times as much in the same space!
Heavy mulching will reduce watering and tending needs. Remember to use simple compost and manure teas periodically to give the plants a burst of vital nutrients.
Know your weeds, too. Don’t waste time and energy eradicating weeds that are useful as food and medicine. Welcome them into your garden!
Use collected rainwater and greywater from washing hands/dishes with biodegradable (or greywater certified) soap and hand water; or water with soaker hoses beneath the mulch.
Encourage beneficial insects. For unwanted pests, chickens, ducks, and wild birds are very helpful!
What to Grow
If you have enough land and the right climate, field corn is as easy to grow as sweet corn. Leave the ears on the stalks to dry, and then pick. Husk the ears. Store the ears in a dry, well-ventilated, rodent-proof area. Old-time farmers say that corn stored on the cob is better quality. Dry corn is easy enough to shell, done little by little makes the job manageable.
Then there are the root crops. At one time mangles, or stock beets were a staple feed for dairy cattle. Potatoes were once common feed for rabbits. Turnips and carrots are favorites among shepherds. Jerusalem artichokes, or sunchokes, have long been touted as livestock feed. Most animals (including humans!) like the flavor of the tuberous root; cows, sheep, and goats enjoy the stalks and leaves.
Sunflower seeds are relished by rabbits and chickens just as readily as the wild birds. Goats benefit from the stalks. Even the flower petals are a nice treat for rabbits! Simple sunflower sprouts are packed with nutrients. Grown anywhere in an inexpensive plastic container, they can be fed once they have their set of true leaves. Kale, celery, pumpkins, the outer leaves of cabbage, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts, and fallen fruit are wholesome food for many animals.
Alternative Crops
Common cereal grains, such as oats, wheat, and barley are rich in protein, vitamins, and minerals as well as high in moisture content. These can easily be grown in standard-size garden beds: scatter the seed by hand, cover with a light layer of soil or tamp in as with lettuce or radish seed. If you have only a few animals, plastic tubs can again be utilized to grow a luscious crop of grains year-round. Why not have a few tubs, in various stages of growth, growing all at once! Harvest when the grass is 4” high, continuing until it begins to look scraggly.
Do you have a housecat? Grow a bit of healthy grass for her in a pretty pot right on the coffee table. She’ll love you for it!
A “crop” as old as the hills but hardly thought of today except by herbalists, is hedgerow herbs. Imagine livestock moving through the hilly countryside whilst they peacefully graze on the wild plants in the fields and hedgerows. Herdsmen of centuries ago and nomadic peoples today rely heavily upon this widely and freely available means of feeding their stock. This category includes comfrey, dandelion, plantain, nettles, raspberry leaf, borage, chickweed, red clover, and yarrow, to name only a few. Many are winter hardy perennials, high in protein, vital nutrients, and medicinal properties, cut-and-come-again wild plants requiring minimal care. These are not only excellent as food but can be fed as supplements to the regular diet to correct illness or imbalance. These can be fed fresh or dried if stored correctly so as not to grow mold.
Edible flowers like cornflower, lavender, red rose petals, and marshmallow flowers have their place in the diet, too.
We have barely scratched the surface of this topic. From here, the sky is the limit! Learn about animal nutrition. Make changes gradually. Use common sense and watch your animals carefully for any changes in condition.
Good health to you and your entire homestead!
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