introduction

Some of the most memorable and rewarding experiences can be found in keeping barnyard animals.

To awake in the morning by the rooster’s crow.

To gaze outside your breakfast window, watching sheep in their peaceful graze of green pastures.

Even to be called to the chores of their keep—work so slight when measured against the return. On the way to the barnyard, you pause just long enough to wonder why life took you down the long road to get here.

The joy found in keeping farm animals isn’t a one-dimensional foray into raising a healthier food source. The joy is in fact multi-layered, ever evolving, and inspirational. Through tending to a small group of barnyard guests you’ll discover new appreciation for Earth and all of her inhabitants, a discernment between morality and profit, and a desire to take responsible action for the sake of future generations.

Keeping farm animals is a sharp contrast to our high-tech, low-touch, modern life. The start of each new day is no longer spent at a computerized device checking texts and replying to e-mails. Instead you will be called upon to partake in a hands-on, rewarding experience. You can fill up the hours between morning and evening chores with all the business and bother of an average modern day, but those trappings are soon to be sandwiched by the joy of pastures, coops, and barnyards.

Benefits to keeping farm animals are greater still if you have children in your life. Learning and exploring the complexity of different animals with an adult is a bonding exercise a child will never forget.

Raising farm animals will enrich your life as well as provide a healthy and economical means to feed your family.

Children who have taken part in raising farm animals understand the process of procreation, experience the miracle of birth, and appreciate each meal placed before them in ways that many in this world cannot—even the vast majority of adults who have never contemplated the life that existed previous to the tidy white supermarket package. Ask any country child, however, and you’ll receive a systematic walk-through of the most probable journey from barn to table.

A Change of Heart

At a time in our lives when we don’t think we can take on one more daily task or chore, the act of keeping farm animals may seem daunting. Others have passed this way before and I have been one of them. I assure you there is time enough in all our lives for the amount of chores any farm animal within the pages of this book requires.

In time you won’t be counting chores as added responsibility, but as a labor of love.

Love?

Yes. In a noble and caring admiration of those you keep. If there is but one inherent trait of every happy backyard farmer I’ve crossed paths with—no matter how busy their lives—it is that they love the animals they keep, even though surface intention might appear otherwise. With honor and with tender compassion they find joy in the effort expended tending to their own food source, knowing the value of doing so and sharing the bounty with friends and family.

Preparation and Practicality

Keeping any animal—farm or pet—requires knowledge as well as time. The very fact that you’ve picked up and are reading this book is a signal of the highest intention—to gain wisdom enough to provide the best possible life for the food animals you raise, no matter how short their stay on your land may be.

Apart from providing basic care, other preliminary questions may arise. Below are a few questions to which you’ll want to have answers before you begin setting up for or bringing home new animals.

•   Do local zoning regulations allow this animal on my property?

•   Do I have a backup plan or person to help with chores if I am called away or get sick?

•   What will I do with the offspring if my animals breed?

•   What is my plan for dealing with barnyard waste and manure?

•   Who can I rely on for veterinary support? What if I need a veterinarian in the middle of the night or on a weekend?

•   Does someone exist in my community or personal network who will answer questions for me on the health and maintenance of my chosen animal or breed?

Within these pages you will find insights into the very nature of each animal. Through understanding their instinctual nature you will be able to read their cycles, health levels, and needs.

The author’s daughter, Veronica. At fifteen years old she still can’t resist a trip to the livestock auction. Today she brings home a baby duck to raise, but past purchases have not been so easy to transport. The family rule, years in the making, is: “If you bring it home, you have to care for it yourself!”