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So this is a goal of mine I have had since I first got interested in hunting, fishing, gardening and all that stuff. I am just wondering what everyone's thoughts are on the subject, whether it be the healthiness of it, how hard it would be, or whatever. maybe some of you currently do this yourself, if so I'd like to hear how you manage it.
I for one think that living off of game meat and meat you raised yourself in a free range environment is by far the healthiest way to eat your protein.
I'd love to try it, but I'd need a couple of freezers.
It is do able but it would depend on many factors such as family size, the ability to raise your own meat. etc. When we lived on a farm we were able to come close to it. With a little more effort, we could've done it but our jobs made it difficult.
most farmers do it... sort of
Unless you can get a 'sustenance' exclusion or you are/or able to hunt with a native then it will be pretty hard pressed to fill your freezer with enough wild meat....at least with the way the present tag system works.
I've been raising the majority of my own meat for going on 20 yrs now. I have to barter/pay for beef from a neighbour but all the rest; pork, lamb, chicken, turkey, rabbit and of course wild turkey and deer come from my own property. I have 5 full sized chest freezers running and life is good.
I can also warn you, the cost to eat this way are way over what it would cost if you buy your meat locally from a butcher. The cost of bag feed and hay etc, has skyrocketed over the past 10 yrs so that it's hard to get a return at all. Hay alone used to cost me $1.25 a bale..it's now over $4. When you buying 1,000 bales it sure adds up.
Add to that the cost of processing your meat thru a butcher and those pork chops I eat from my own raised pig cost me over $4 /lb...minimum. It cost me over $200 just to process a 225 hog.
I have about $10 invested in a 8lb chicken ($1.25 for a day old chick, and $4 for processing and $5 for feed over 2.5 months)
A 5 lb rabbit, which I raise and butcher myself, still cost close to $20 each once 5 months of feed is factoring in.
Don't be dissuaded by these facts, I won't go back to feeding my family store bought 'cellophane' meat. If I ever scale back operations here, I will only buy my meat from a local butcher or on the hoof at the sale barn and take it directly to an abattoir.
Good luck and feel free to PM me if you want more specifics.
My wife and I eat mainly wild game and I am in Southern Ontario. We are blessed with extra tags for deer and a no possession on Canada geese. Couple that with three turkey per year and we do pretty well. I am with Moe on the "good steaks when on sale" as I always enjoy a nice steak:) I do need to get back into fishing as we must buy fish, but it is always a sustainable product. And along with Mike we do not do it becasue it is cheap, I am obsessed with gear so if I added it all up my meat probably costs me about $500.00/lb LOL. But good luck and you can certainly make it a big part of your lifestyle.
Yup even roadkill costs with the price of gas these days but it's there for the taking .:D Just gotta beat the ravens to it .:thumbup:
TD
I use to grow all my own vegetables and buy a whole cow from my neighbour down the road. my garden was 900 sq ft and we froze all our own food for the winter. after a few years doing that I realized I could buy the food at the farmers market cheaper than I could grow it. As for buying a cow from the farmer down the road it was cheaper than the store and I knew what the cow ate.
To live off what you could hunt, well you would probably need to spend about 5 days a week in the bush and you would definetly need to get a Moose tag every year. I suspect in the end you will require much more time than you have available.
Like MikePal I raise chickens mostly for eggs but will start meat hens actually this week. I'm raising them for myself so I just butcher them myself. If your going to pay someone to butcher them it will cost you much more than buying in the store. The other thing you need to keep in mind in land. How much land do you have? I have 3/4 ac just enough to raise some chickens and maybe a goat or 2 (don't have any yet). You can always do somethings but very time consuming to raise all your own food.
Mike pal
Why pay $4, to process your chickens? Build yourself a whizbang.. Can de feather 2-3,chickens at a time... In under 1 minute... Sure may. Most a couple hundred to make... But the money u save on processing...
I raise my own turkeys.
and chickens (eggs) I Ku pay to process what I will sell.. (Stupid legalities) but I get good money for organic Free range... Especially here near Toronto..
On the 417 east of Ottawa, roadkill gets grabbed pretty quick.Quote:
Originally Posted by 400bigbear
Even excluding the cost of time taken off work to hunt, wild game is not a cheap way to eat.
I am not sure if it is possible to hunt everything you would need and still have a job/family. You might consider bartering with other hunters to trade game meats. I am just throwing that out there - not sure of the legalities.Quote:
Originally Posted by new2hunting
we survive mostly on wildgame meat, as others, we buy the odd meat like lunch meats and hamburgers etc. but last 2 years i have gotton a bear as well as a deer, and eat mostly that, down to my last 2 packs right now actually. also raise chickens and turkeys for meat and eggs as well, and do all my own butchering and plucking so get lots of meat from them. havent gotton into cows yet, as have bin good with wildgame meat, but am really wanting to get myself a jersey calf to raise, as i have bin watching kijiji and auctions and see alot of them selling from $20-100 each, got lots of pasture and hay for them so would just need to spend some time bottle feeding it, then butcher it myself as well and would have nice cheap meat. my cost to hunt my meat is low as i hunt on my own property and the crown land around it, so i have no gas to do it, just a bit of money buying oats for bear bait... and as for the time spent doing it, well id be doing it anyways as its what i love to do...
Like oranges too much to go off the grid completely but try my best. When as a kid moved into my neighbourhood over 30 years ago it was great. Coming from an Italian background and most of the community off the boat Italians it was like an European farming community. With 1/2 acre lots everyone had their home garden most raised some kind of farm meat. Growing up we had rabbits, chickens, quails and bought other than staples, junk food and potatoes(cheaper to buy than grow for the space they take up) bought very little. Over the years the neighbourhood has changed. Now with the monster home people the flavour of the community has changed. Last neighbour to move in behind me was the nail in the coffin to my 3 egg chickens as technically bylaws state no farm animals allowed which was not a problem for old world people.
We used to do our own, when we first started out with 20 chickens....then I started raising 100 to sell off 2/3 to pay for mine, so I had to use the Poultry Plucking Service anyway...like you said it's the law. Same with pork...I raise 6 pigs and sell 4 so they have to go thru the licensed/inspected abattoir.Quote:
Originally Posted by topher
One of the customers for my live rabbits is an 'old world' Italian...lives in a fancy home in the burbs....I pull up and the garage door opens and there he is with his apron on and a huge smile...His daughter says 'Rabbit Day' is the happiest he has all month. He loves to do up a couple of rabbits for her.Quote:
Originally Posted by finsfurfeathers
Nice to see/hear that there are a few more folks on the forum who have found there way to a better life/lifestyle. :thumbup:
Well I get a Bear Deer yearly , some year Moose , on Bear hunt picking blueberries for the winter . I have to try Duck , Geese ,Rabbit , Grouse , squirrel ,Quote:
Originally Posted by new2hunting
I can say it is possible .
depends how many people there are in your family like "The wife" said for 2 people its doable. a family of 6... I doubt i could do it. A moose,, a deer or two and ALOT of duck/goose breasts in the freezer(s) i believe helps keep cost down.. (moose meat isnt cheap) the rest are in my backyard.. lol..
Moved in? more like taken over! wholly smokes! everytime I drive that way there's a newer, bigger barn raised, and another huge new clear cut and fields put in.Quote:
Originally Posted by Moe
They have been busy!
I've done it all my life and grew up with it . I've always lived on atleast 50% no matter where I lived . Like MikePal and others I raise or do a share raise with others and yes I also barter . I hunt and fish locally and likely don't save much in the long run if anything, but when I harvest I feel less under the gun by any fluctuation in the market . I eat what I want , when I want . I have a root cellar too . Do I still grocery shop ? Yes I do, but rarely for red meat and never fish . I do like putting on a smash of chicken wings though for company . If I'm not going to raise something I barter for it that year . If I hear of roadkill , I'll take that too if freezer is low or find someone who will . But I subsidize my yearly food intake by hunting ,fishing , growing , raising my own critters , or bartering . At one time I even used to make my own beer and wine . LOL I've never had to poach wildlife but if the day came , I'm an honest man and would . If no wildlife I would eat my dog , then your dog and maybe even you .. LOL
TD
You might be on to something....do you know how many good eats are listed on Kijiji as "Free to a Good Home '...LOL....:)Quote:
Originally Posted by 400bigbear
Don't you guy's be stealing my Gig. I have first dibs on all free eats in Kijiji in the Ottawa region. ;)
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Originally Posted by MikePal
yeah if i get to hard up for meat in the winter, i got 2 1000 lb white things in the pasture that will make for good eats... wife might be a little upset, but horse meat is big in quebec so why not here ;)
jeez you think amish took over out there, take a ride through chisholm, i meet more horse and buggy than i do cars lol
This is my ultimate goal, but we just bought a place with 1.84 acres, so it will not happen here.
The gardening thing, you can get your stuff really cheap if you do not need to water it and only fertilize when you start out at the beginning of the year. This year I have 2 70ft rows at my fiancees grandparents since we were planning to move before the harvest. So far I have picked enough cucumbers for 30L or dill pickles and probably about the same of bread and butter (I have them picked but I still have to make them). Potatoes take up too much room for how cheap they are. Roma tomatoes are the only ones I would bother with, I have 12 plants this year and if they do not blow over in the wind I am looking at a crazy amount of Tomatoes.
I just picked up a pressure canner for less then half the cost of new, now I can preserve full meals and not need to use my freezer at all, saving on the cost of hydro.
I plan on getting chickens next year, looking at a mix of meat and layers, and meat rabbits as well. I would love to have something that would cut the grass for me and in turn give me meat but I doubt that will happen on such a small plot.
Good luck in your endeavors, I do not suspect in this day and age that you could live off just wild game, but with a mix of wild and home grown I can see it being doable. I know there is talk that raising your own is not cheaper, I agree when it comes to off-choice cuts. If you were to live off only the cheapest of cuts then sure, it will be cheaper, but with bacon at $7/lb, steaks at $18/lb, that $4/lb beef side looks really appealing. (I got the beef side number off kijiji, it says hanging but also processed, so not sure how accurate, still would not end up at $18/lb for your T-bone, ground is even $5/lb, not on sale) Pork is listed at $2.79/lb, hmm.
on 2 acres depending what the lay out is, you could raise some animals for meat... something to cut the grass, a goat or 2 would work great ona small plot, some people like goat meat, never tried it myself... 1 acre of pasture would feed a cow, 2 cows if you supplemented with hay. depends on your towns bylaws of course...
when you buy the beef side you are paying for the hanging weight, so the weight of the cow divided in half, less the hide, entrails, head etc... so basically the bone in weight... removing the bones takes alot more weight away so that $4 lb will really be higher, but still cheaper likely then buying it in the store...
With a lot of thought, you can live off wild meat. That would require you, your wife/spouce to get their deer, and bear and even moose/elk. Going and get fish, fillet them etc and freeze them, shoot a lot of grouse. Migratory, definitly!!! And you will need to butcher and wrap it all yourselves, to save coin.
The issue is, what fits within the bylaws and how good or bad the neighbours are, ha ha.Quote:
Originally Posted by fishy steve
As for the hanging weight, they are actually listed at $3.79/lb, they say you pay for hanging weight and get 70% return, I think that means that after processing you get 70% of the weight in wrapped meat. So $1895 for 500lbs hanging weight, so $5.41/lb for 350lbs of meat wrapped in your freezer.
With extra lean ground beef in the bulk pack at $6.39/lb at Food basics on regular price the half a beef is by far the way to go. I just checked, Food Basics has ground beef on sale for $5/lb until the end of the day.
yuppers
sometimes you see on kijiji, guys selling them on the hoof for around a $1/lb... hire a truck to take it to a butcher, pay the butcher etc, probably get a whole cow for under $3/lb, split a side with somebody and ur laughin... especially in the ottawa area, lots of farms past ottawa, and the auction there sometimes sees cows going on the cheap...
I better go get a beater truck, a cow will not fit in my matrix, a deer will but not a cow.Quote:
Originally Posted by fishy steve
hatchback? you'll be fine... lol
i said hire a truck...
A lot of Township and County bylaws in Southern Ontario state that you must have a minimum of 10 acres before you can raise livestock , ie; cows , at least that is the way it was a number of years ago when we bought out in the country, some may have relaxed those bylaws.Quote:
Originally Posted by fishy steve
North Grenville, no minimum, you just have to be zoned rural and go by the 1 AG unit per 2 acres rule.Quote:
Originally Posted by jaycee
I have seen those rules though, it can make or break a place to live.
The last time I bought a split side from my neighbour, about 5 yrs ago, it was basically his cost at 3.45 lb. I imagine that has gone up over time. He unfortunately passed away 2 yrs ago and I haven't bought any beef since so I don't know what a side of beef costs directly from a farmer.Quote:
Originally Posted by fishy steve
Bylaws mean nothing when you have good neighbors. I like the saying "Back Off Government This Is My Land. Never seen a bylaw I liked. ;)
Quote:
Originally Posted by jaycee
ya thats what i ment by depending on the towns bylaws... up here it varys by township, in powassan you need 5 acres to even have a chicken in east ferris its 25 acres to own livestock, my township goes by 1 acre per large animal, yet all these places allow horse riding stables who own a fair chunck of property board like 10-20 horses in an area that less than a acre... poor things dont even know what grass looks like lolQuote:
Originally Posted by jaycee
yes but alot of farmers would rather sell it to you alive at $1/lb than to send it to a auction where they might only get 1.5/lb and have to pay auction fees, trucking fee's, pay a fee to the beef farmers of ontario.Quote:
Originally Posted by MikePal
I always bought a Bull from my friends dairy, he always had some. Last time I bought one was about 9 years ago thing I paid him .45/pound on the hoof and .50 pound to the butcher. So .95/pound in total from start to finish.
My township no requirement for live stock
Unless you live In the specified area..
You got me thinking and inquiring minds wanted to know, so I dropped into the local Butcher on the way in to town this aft and spoke to the owner.
He says beef cost are really high and no sign they are gong to come down. His last buy of a split side for a customer cost him over $5/lb. Sounds high if you usually buy it that way, but when he showed me his steaks at $17/lb....$5/lb was looking like a good deal. :)
I think the cutting cost at an abattoir is now in the range of $3.50 /lb for a cow.
It's not cheap to raise your own meat.
It's now 3.5/pound for cut and wrap??? Wow. Where I went there was also a kill charge of 50.00. Wonder if that went up?
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Originally Posted by MikePal
A few years ago a farmer near me had his buffalo escape.. Had a free buffalo that year.Quote:
Originally Posted by fishy steve
So sorry GW..a bit misleading....that is if they supplied the beef and is a few years old....(old list from my file folder)Quote:
Originally Posted by greatwhite
I just called my butcher and she says the basic cost is between $60 -$80 for the slaughter and $0.53 a pound (hanging weight) to cut and wrap.
The average cost of beef at the sale barns in Ont this year so far is about $120 (per 100 lbs) so a 1,000 lb steer will cost you $1200.
If you look at the cart below is is the average cost to buy a cow at the sales barn in Ont for the past few years....note: the cost shown is per 100 lbs....
Big difference to even 4 yrs ago (2010) when it was only $70 per/100 lbs :scream:
http://aimis-simia.agr.gc.ca/rp/inde...nDownload=View
and just in case your doing a cost ratio.....That 1,000 lb steer will yield about 400lb (or 40% of live weight) of cut and wrapped meat.
So the $1200 for the steer and $495 ($70 for slaughter and $425 (800 (approx) x $.053) for cut and wrap)
that 400 lbs of beef will cost you $1695 or $4.25 lb.
this link explains the weight process...
Quote:
The packaged beef take home weight is approximately 40 percent of the animal’s live weight
http://www.shutersunsetfarms.com/PDF...%20Carcass.pdf
you can still kill it and butcher it yourself if it is for your own consumption. Hang it 28 days....Also you may want to hang your deer at least 26 days
up here i believe the cost is $65 to kill, and 65 cents/lb hanging weight to cut and wrapQuote:
Originally Posted by MikePal
Price of beef is highest it has been in a while. Lots of guys getting back into raising it because corn and feed is getting cheap and getting paid a good price. They will likely flood the market eventually and prices will go back down. The reason there is a demand for it now is due to high feed prices the past year. High feed prices and low beef prices mean less beef.
I usually bought a Bull off spring from a dairy cow. Is there a specific name for that (Sorry I don't know all of the types of cows). I use to buy it from a friend down the road last time was in 2005 thing I paid him 45 cents a pound. What the price for one of these now as there are not "True" beef cows.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MikePal
my buddy moose hunts up north somewhere, when he got back a few years ago, i asked if they got anything, he said, a cow and 2 cows... im like huh? apparently a transport carrying cattle tipped over near where they were hunting, and the cows got out and into the bush, the mnr went around telling all the hunters in the area if they saw them to shoot them, and they could keep them, well the lucky buggars managed to get 2 of the cows, plus filled their cow moose tag...Quote:
Originally Posted by topher
typically a dairy calf (ussually holstein or jersey) is what is used for for veal. down in the ottawa area and over towards london where there is big dairy farms, you can ussually pic up a jersey (smaller sized) bull calf anywhere from $20 to $60 at a week old, would need to bottle feed them tough. holsteins which are a big bigger can ussually be found in the $100-$300 range as calfs.Quote:
Originally Posted by greatwhite
These bull were usually 2 - 3 years old (I think) and weighed between 850 - 1200
Quote:
Originally Posted by fishy steve
yeah full size ones might sell a little cheaper than beef breeds but not really much less... most large dairy farms sell off there bull calfs right away as they are worth nothing to them, and dont wanna be bothered with them... i see jerseys on kijiji in the $800-$1500 range and they'd likely be in the 800-1000 lb range...
Would they fall under.
http://www.ottawalivestockexchange.ca/
Fed Heifers, Dairy & Dairy Cross # Head Low $ High $ Avg $ Top $ Avg Wt Over 1000 lbs 2 116.50 126.50 121.50 126.50 1,410
or
Cows # Head Low $ High $ Avg $ Top $ Avg Wt All Weights 39 62.00 109.50 88.73 127.00 1,331
Pretty difficult to live off game meat for me (I couldn't eat deer every week and there are legal limits) but you can improve your life by also buying a farmed pig or beef.
This year I bought a 1/4 of a beef from a local farm. Black Angus, 15 month old, I got roughly 60lbs of steak and 60 lbs of ground meat for $700 (no water in the meat, a pound is a pound of "meat"). I wasn't expecting saving any money but I think I do after all. It was mostly grass feed so the meat is really strong, almost like lamb, so it's not for everybody, it took me some time to get used to it.
I bought a local farmed pig a couple of years ago, Berkshire, lots of fat it that breed so the meat was delicious but the pound of meat ended up been pretty expensive.
Anyway, it's tough eating for free these days, beside road kills.
Seabast
yes... heifers are females though, so the milkers, steers are castrated males, which is your best bet for meat, and bulls are obviosly bulls... ive yet to figure out on the auction websites what just plain cows are, must just be the older stock that dont really fit under the other catagories as you will see on there as the cows get up over a 1000 lbs the price gets pretty low per lb, in the ones you show the lowest price was a $1.165 per lb, as i said early that farmer would have bin better off to sell it to you at $1 per lb and not had to pay auction fees, trucking etc. so he likely only made like 80 cents/lb at the auction...Quote:
Originally Posted by greatwhite
i like keadys auction website, it shows the the "by the head stats" when you see a C it is cents, so 146 C would be $1.46/lb, when you see a H it means whole i guess so when you see 146 H it sold for $146 for the cow
http://www.keadylivestock.com/catalogue.html
steve in reference to keady prices , C would refer to 100 pound .H would mean head, or 1 animal. This example would probably be a Holstein bull calf , about a week old or less.
bclf is bull calf , hclf is heifer calf, ons refers to overnight stand, the animal had no feed or water since the previous afternoon, the buyers will give more per pound for an empty animal, they don't want to pay for cow manure. Farm folk have their own lingo. old243
Yes Old243 is correct. The H would mean Head and the C would mean 100 weight I believe in this case. In the above reference the top table would be for dairy stock (replacement heifers, milking cows and milking cow crosses) and the prices would be per 100 weight. The bottom table labelled just cows would be dairy cows that are now cull cows and that is why they are cheaper. They are dairy cows that no longer produce or were culled due to breeding or production issues and will soon be in your mcdonald's hamburger. As far as young Holstein and Jersey bull calves most will be bought off of farm for the $150-200 range (higher now because veal prices are high). They will be taken at 3-5 days old after hopefully receiving colostrum from the mother. If you are going this route be sure the calf got colostrum or health and growth rates will suffer. A red veal calf right now will be raised from 5 days old up to 700lbs (6ish months) on corn and a protein/mineral supplement and then sold back to auction for slaughter or for somebody else to finish off as beef (over 1000lbs). Hope that helps.
Last time I bought a dairy cross was around 2005 think I paid back then approx .45 cents a pound.
Buy the calves in the spring,than butcher in the fall.finish them off with corn.sell one it will pay for all the feed. I never bought any meat from 95 - 2013. Hunted Ontario , Michigan and Ohio for venison . Raised turkey,ducks,geese and chickens. Veggies and fruit were bought from the market cheap for freezing and canning. Killed turkey's and geese on the farm too.i ran 2.5 upright freezers and two fridges.
So how are you finding NB. Did u do any Salmon or get out for Mackerel down on the coast? Black or Beaver harbor is where I use to fish for Mackerel. Clams should be better this year since the weather has been a bit cooler. I hear these days u need a license to dig your own clams.
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Originally Posted by Greenhorn
Quote:
Originally Posted by old243
yes so 145 for 100 lbs. so 145 divided by 100 will give you the price per lb... so 1.45 ;)