How do you decide what animals to raise on your homestead or farm? Do you look at feed costs? Grow out time? Product yield vs investment? Space requirements? Cuddlability? Do you look at short and long term goals or do you simply jump in eyes wide shut?

These are all important questions and sometimes, they may come after you dive in.

Hi there, Christy, from Christy's Farm TN. I am a military spouse with three small kiddos. We began our homesteading journey almost two years ago with the hope of eventually lowering our cost of groceries (specifically our meat budget) for our family. We started with a meager 5 chicks from Rural King after toying with the idea for years. We quickly spiraled and fell in love with the homesteading lifestyle. We now raise chickens, turkeys, and most importantly for us, rabbits.

We live on 2 acres and go through a lot of protein. Many of the animals here came on a whim, but my husband is a researcher and knew as soon as we decided to try homesteading that he wanted to do meat rabbits. It was, admittedly, not an idea that I was keen on. Rabbits? Really!?

YES! Rabbits. There is no cleaner meat and their costs and investment requirements are minimal. The average gestation period for rabbits is 31 days and, when doing everything right, you are able to process litters at just 8-12 weeks, with a goal of 5 lbs live weight per rabbit. Many rabbit breeders start with a trio of a buck and two does. We have raised a multitude of breeds and mixes at this point, and we've also experimented with different feeds and shelters. We have raised in stacked wire cages, rabbit tractors (with and without ground contact), and are now in the process of moving our permanent herd to hanging wire with the intention of continuing to tractor our grow-outs. As long as the needs of the animals are being met, there really is no "right" or "wrong" way to raise rabbits, simply what works best for you and your available resources!

As with anything, we made many beginners mistakes. One of the most important lessons that we've learned is the importance of starting with quality stock! We started with unknown meat mutts and quickly learned that each rabbit is not created equally. We had litters taking 6+ months to grow out to the ideal processing weight. When that happens, your costs go up! Wasted feed, less yield for your investment, and a lot of frustration. We've since invested in several Silver Foxes and of all the breeds we have raised over the years, these are hands down our favorites! It is not unheard of for them to reach 5 lbs by 8 weeks and more often than not, they've reached weight by 10 weeks. They're growth is excellent and their even temperaments and mothering abilities are a definite bonus.

It's a constant learning process, and it doesn't come without its heartaches, but it has been incredibly rewarding. We look forward to continuing our rabbit raising journey and learning many more lessons along the way.

Hello, my name is Jami. My husband and I and our four children live on a beautiful 10 acre farm in Stevensville Montana. I have lived in Montana since I was 6 years old. We absolutely love our farm life. We raise horses, cows, sheep, chickens, ducks, dogs, cats and seasonally, pigs. We grow a very large garden mostly to eat fresh but we also do some canning and preserving. I love to feed my family good food and make our home a place we want to be. I am an interior designer and love to use what we can make and grow around the farm for us and my clients. I'm so excited to share this corn stalk wreath tutorial with you. It's my second year to make one and I absolutely love them! I hope you'll make one and show me!

Hey there! We’re the Sass family, row crop farmers in northern Illinois. Fall on our farm is a busy and exciting season. Harvest is happening and it’s our favorite time of year. We grow corn and soybeans and anticipate harvesting all season long to see the fruits of our labor. This time of year involves many long hours and working together as a family to get the job done.

Along with 97% of farms in the United States, ours is family-owned and operated. My husband, Josh along with his two brothers and their dad are all involved on the farm. They each have their own roles on the operation throughout each season. During harvest, Josh runs the combine for corn. Two combines run during soybean harvest, operated by his brother Ryan and their dad, Dan. They fill in with trucking, tillage, and dryer duties when they aren’t in the seat of a combine.  Ben is Josh’s younger brother, who is the main grain cart operator all of harvest...poor guy.

In the mornings, we get up before sunrise and I help my husband, Josh, get out the door with a packed lunch. He usually packs a cold meat sandwich, several snacks to munch on throughout the day, and cold drinks. Our combine even has a little fridge he can stow away things to keep cool. Josh and I have a two-year-old son, Hank. We love to go out and ride in the combine with daddy, but Hank prefers to drive.

They work out in the field all day, and in the evening one of the wives delivers the crew a hot meal. The boys are close in age and we all have young families with babies, ages ranging from 3 months to 4 years old. The other wives and I split responsibilities to get the boys a hot meal every night.

We typically make something they can eat easily with a spoon because they don’t stop the combines to eat. Some examples would be, tater-tot hotdish, burrito bowls, chicken pot pie, and any kind of warm sandwich. We always serve a sweet treat like apple crisp, brownies or cookies along

with the meal. They look forward to this warm meal every evening and it helps them continue working long hours into the night.

It’s pretty unique for a family like ours, with three sons, to all decide to come back and work on the family farm together. We work as a team to keep everything moving smoothly. It’s all hands on deck and we love every minute of it.

Nestled on 20 acres of Treaty 1 Land in Manitoba, Canada, resides The Raspberry Roost. My husband, André, and I are fresh to the farming community. We escaped the city three years ago and have not looked back. André works in the engineering field and I am an educator and forever learner. Neither of our families are involved in farming, but we felt drawn to this genuine life. We run a small farm with alpacas and sheep for fiber, all sorts of pasture-raised eggs, rogue goats, rescue horses, and of course we are accompanied by a fluffy squad of dogs and cats. To say I am passionate about animals is an understatement. My mother would tell you I am currently living my dream times a million. Some days it feels like an absolute chaotic zoo, but this chaos feels right for my soul.

In this chaos, like many folks who farm or homestead, we are trying to maintain a balance between profit, purpose, and people. All of these aspects are connected and help us focus on the community around us. Community is at the heart of what we do here, and we are passionate about caring for this land and conscious about the fact that this land is not ours. The territory we live on is the traditional lands of the Anishinabe (Ojibway), Ininew (Cree), Oji-Cree, Dene, and Dakota, and is the Birthplace of the Métis Nation and the Heart of the Métis Nation Homeland.

This year on the farm, I’ve discovered how powerful and absolutely necessary joy is for me. I honestly never really thought about joy before. Happiness, sure, but I never thought about connecting with joy. WOW, how life-changing that has been for us on the farm. Joy is richer, deeper, and stronger than happiness. You can feel pain, yet still know and feel joy. This discovery in my own personal journey led me to create #farmingforjoy on Instagram. A crucial reason why I created #farmingforjoy is because I want everyone to be able to experience joy, while farming or otherwise! Experiencing joy is a massive privilege, and part of my journey here in the community is to make sure I do the work (social activism, anti-racism, etc.) so that all people can experience joy. For me to continue doing this work, I also need to take care of myself. One of the ways I care for myself is through seeking and feeling joy.

For me, seeing joy is cracking open our quaint, blue barn as the sun greets us, and all of our bodacious hens come scooting out of the door. Feeling joy is finding the exact itch behind one of our rescue horse’s velvet ears. I’m trying to understand joy through the trial and error of pasture management (no really, I’m trying!). I hear joy when I listen to the boisterous, fowl orchestra, presented by our comical, yet radiant geese and ducks. Taking a walk through the magical willows during a golden sunset and squeezing my husband’s hand is how I know joy exists. This life we are experiencing is a gift, and it is truly a joy to be here. I want you to experience these moments, too. In your hardships or happiness lies joy. Seek it, build it, offer it. Our communities need joy now more than ever. You need joy now more than ever. What are you going to do to grow it, nourish it, or create it? I cannot wait for you to share with me how you are #farmingforjoy.

My name is Lee and I live on the East Coast of Australia. I started a garden a year or two after I had my first son. Up until then, I was the person who bought potted herbs and put them on my windowsill, promising myself I would lovingly look after them and then a few days later they were dead. I would’ve described myself as a black thumb. I had always wanted to grow my own food but lack of time coupled with my tiny backyard meant I put the idea in the too hard basket. When my son came along, I became more interested in health and sustainability. My main reasons for wanting to grow my own centered around knowing what was on my food and where it came from, food miles and I thought it might save us a few dollars in the long run. So after procrastinating for a while, I finally did it.

Our backyard was a courtyard about 47m2 and my actual garden itself was about 8-10m2 - very small! It's was also a concrete slab. The odds were against me. I wasn't really sure about how it would all work but I just decided to install the garden and hope for the best.

I didn't know it at the time, but setting up a garden would also help me in a way that I hadn't planned on. I had some complications after having my first son and that, coupled with a colicky baby and struggling to adapt to a new and unfamiliar life led to some mild postpartum depression (I prefer postnatal depletion). My whole world was now centered around this gorgeous new little person and I felt like I had lost a part of me and didn't know how to get it back.

Gardening gave me back some of the identity I felt had gone missing - it was and still is such a restorative process for me and it’s now one of my greatest passions. Two years ago, we moved to a new house, had another baby boy and set up our current garden. My pospartum experience second time round was completely different and I know having a garden has played a huge role in that. There is, in my opinion, no downside to growing you’re own food.

My favourite thing to grow is tomatoes. I found them to be a challenge at first but over the years I’ve been growing them, I’ve learned a lot and I think I’ve finally cracked the code. There is nothing quite like a homegrown Tomato and I look forward to them every year. As Summer in Australia is at Christmas time, I usually get my first tomatoes around then and make Bruschetta. We use homegrown Tomatoes, homegrown Basil, Red Onion and Feta on Sourdough with balsamic vinegar drizzled on top. It has become a Christmas tradition and a delicious one at that!