You’ll be harvesting the fruits of your labor very soon if you pick some animals from our list of 8 best, cheapest animal to raise for meat and self sufficiency because they are simply the best farm animals for self sufficiency. These animals are fairly easy to keep and don’t require much space. Actually, most of them can be kept in your backyard!
Nowadays animal farming is becoming more and more popular. Who could’ve thought that this day would come? The awareness about our food and desire to know the exact route of our food from the farm to our table is ever increasing. Organic food vs. GMO food battle is still continuing. While some praise the food production, others are worried about the conditions in which animals live before they are slaughtered. Best farm animals to raise to make a profit is not the topic of this research since we’ll mostly focus on animals which require minimum space, and not necessarily the greatest revenue (though the list can be quite helpful with it, too). Another burning question would be what farm animals are being fed with. Consumers aren’t fooled anymore by the meat color and size. Instead, they rather wish to know what the animal was eating on a daily basis. When you decide to raise your own animals, you can be confident you’re feeding them with the best available material, which will eventually provide you with the best quality meat for you and your family.
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If everything goes well, perhaps you could consider going large since we have some fairly easy animals to breed for profit here. You can also check out 7 Easiest Farm Animals to Raise for Profit. Also, Hobby Farms agrees that most of them are absolutely the best farm animals for beginners, so you needn’t much experience. No need to be the next Old MacDonald here. If by any chance you wish to go wild and deal with the most profitable exotic animal to breed in the US, we highly recommend reading our article about 9 most profitable reptiles, pets and farm animals to breed in America. However, this is by no means a small farm animals list, though some of them are smaller than you could expect.
So let’s see how we decided on the animals for our list. We got some great advice from Survival at Home, Morning Chores, and The Elliott Homestead. We only chose the animals which required the least space and investment (cows were a little too big to fit the list). But how did we decide which are the cheapest and best animals for self-sufficiency? First of all, if you’re self-sufficient, that means you are able to eat your own produce and animal meat. Nothing says self-sufficiency better than being able to go to your garden and pluck what you wish, or picking one of your animals for lunch/dinner if you feel like eating some fresh meat. Surely raising the animal which reaches the age for harvest quickly is very cost-effective. Therefore, they are listed according to their harvest age. The sooner, the better is the motto here. We checked what is the average lifespan of domestic animals bred for slaughter with Southwest Tilapia Farm, Aussie Abattoirs and Farm and Dairy.
Without further ado, here are 8 best, cheapest animal to raise for meat and self sufficiency. You’ll see they’re all pretty easy to keep and require a minimum of your space and time.
8. Tilapia
Best harvest time: about 8.5 months
Perhaps you didn’t see fish coming/swimming to the list of cheapest meat, but here it is. Tilapia can be bred with ease in an ordinary bathtub in your backyard, but you could try installing an aquaponics system for even better results.
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