Best animal to get into as business?

[pridegoethb4thefall]

Might I suggest a somewhat 'themed' type of business?

I know of a woman promoting 'sustainable living'- she only has a bit over an acre, but has small pigs, all types of poultry in smaller amounts, and goats. She holds classes that she charges entry to, that teach people how to use their land to its full potential, how to raise and ethically process all types of poultry for personal consumption, and she is working to get into bee's and gardening as well.

She makes a very paltry living, but IS making a few dollars. Her animals mostly free range, she does supplement with feed. She uses CL, Facebook and word of mouth for advertising (all free!).

I guess if you were to create a business around different models (could be sustainable living, organic living, free range living, etc) that included being able to sell your animals, it could work. Depends on how much time and money you are willing to spend.

 

[Straw Hat Kikos]

there is not a lot of money to be made in livestock...and if you are against livestock for meat...well...your options are limited.

Exactly right.

And as someone once put it to me, "Just so you know, aint nothing in farming money falling from the sky."

I do not want to discourage you or tell you you can do it, but you have to have an open mind thru it all. And really the only way you can make a living off of animals is to have a WHOLE LOT of land you can run them on. If you have to feed feed to them, then your chances of making a living are next to nothing.

And again, registered animals is the best way to go and honestly, meat animals are also one of your best choices. The milk industry is not alot of money and a LOT of work. I'm not so sure about fiber though.

 

[exotica]

why are meat animals a lot less work? just curious

 

[Straw Hat Kikos]

With dairy animals you must milk them. I have talked to many people that grew up or worked in dairies and they all hated it and everyone of them tells me that they will never milk a goat or cow again. Ever. It takes so much time, so much work, you have no time, you always hurt from the aches and pains, you can never go away even for the weekend, etc.

Fiber is a little less but you have to shear at least once a year, sometimes more. Alot of times fiber animals have lots of issues with mites or lice or related issues due to the hair.

Meat animals you only need to feed. They are much less work.

In the time it takes you to milk 10 goats you could feed 200 goats. More time on your hands, less work, less money to start-up and maintain, etc

Of course you will need to do the normal stuff like meds, worming, hooves, etc depending on the animals. But for the extra things meat animals are much easier and require less work, less money into them, to start-up, less money to maintain them, and all that means more money in your pocket.

I think someone else said this but hogs may be a way to go. hogs take nearly no work and if you have good breeding stock then you can make some big bucks.

 

[exotica]

i see so here is what i gathered from you guys

Meat animals is the most easy

land is the key factor more land the better so they can live from the land

Registered stock

So far cattle sounds the best a type of meat cattle. lots of land that is registered. Ignoring everything else right now as the small animals are just hobby. So large resgstired meat beef stock. Things that can't really go out because everyone always will eat them.

Thank you everyone for your responses i have learned a lot. I think meat is the way to go probably if someone wanted a career out of it.

 

[michickenwrangler]

Like others have said, you would need to get into meat to at least make money off culls.

I got into small livestock again with a Jacob ram someone gave to me and some Angora goats I got in a package deal. Next thing I know, a co-op contacted me about goat milk, so I got into dairy again. Then some people contacted me about goat meat. So I butchered excess goats. They wanted more meat, I bought some wethers and resold for a profit. Then they wanted more meat ... You see where this is going.

People need to eat and there are people around here that make money off small beef and meat sheep herds. It's not a lot, they tend to be weekend/hobby farmers, but enough to pay for their animals plus a little extra.

I never planned on doing meat goats, but that was where the demand was, so I rose to meet it (no pun intended). Toyota, the auto manufacturing company, originally started off with textiles and looms in Japan in the late 1800s. Then they took a chance on automobiles.

 

[Straw Hat Kikos]

Yes, imo, meat animals are by FAR the easiest to care for and deal with.

Land is THE key to it all. You can not and will not make anything if they can not live off the land. Period.

Yep. That brings the most money esp if you can sell them as registered breeding stock.

Cattle is probably one of, if not the best, bets. I would think that them or hogs are best for your purpose.

Best of luck on whichever route you do choose.

 

[that's*satyrical]

If you could get the land to grow a certain type of feed preferably non-gmo or organic and charge reasonable prices for it and sell it local I'll bet you would make a killing. Good feed is REALLY hard to find. There are a lot of people moving towards the sustainable lifestyle because they don't like all the garbage in the food nowadays and they don't want to feed garbage to their animals either. But local/organic/non-gmo feed is very hard to find. You could keep whatever animals you liked on the side and not have to worry about purchasing extra feed for them because you are growing it yourself. Therefore you will be able to make a profit off of them since feed is one of the biggest costs associated with raising animals. Also whatever products you chose to produce from your animals that you were feeding organically could be sold as organic products at a higher cost as well. You could also keep bees on your land it would increase your yields and honey is one of the few commodities you will make a decent profit on. It's not very tightly regulated yet either. Just a thought.

 

[exotica]

only problem with feed is the planting and harvesting lol

 

[boykin2010]

What about Chickens?

I specialize in breeding rare and exotic breeds of chickens. I sell hatching eggs, chicks, and juveniles year round. The chickens by FAR pay for themselves. I make more money off my chickens every year then I do my whole flock of registered sheep.... Chickens take up very little space and do not eat as much....