Survival at Home

Since most people are so far removed from our food system, to them, these plants will simply look like a nice, decorative touch to your landscaping efforts, not a potential food source to raid. If you wish to grow some more traditional plants, but also keep your gardens less than obvious to outsiders, square foot gardening is another option that can be use in conjunction with camouflage gardening. If they look like they could be beautiful ornamental plants that may not look like food, consider adding them to your camouflage garden as well! Simple methods like keeping blueberry bushes trimmed in a more decorative manner can be enough to make these them simply look like any decorative landscape plant.

Keeping meat rabbits is a fantastic choice for those who want to be more self-reliant, especially for people who see the need for reliable protein sources. As we discussed in Top 5 Meat Animals Best Suited for Your Backyard, it takes about 3lb of grain to produce 1lb of rabbit meat. The top performers, and the most popular, are the New Zealand White, Californian, and the Standard Rex. History: This breed was developed in America as a meat breed. However the kits tend to grow bone weight before meat weight, so at 8-12 weeks they have much the same amount of meat as the other meat breeds.

Rather than trying to find a recipe that doesn’t use lye, check out this beginner’s guide and start making soap with confidence. Not only will you use it to neutralize the equipment you use, but you will also need it should you get any lye on your skin. If you want a soap that you can use at the end, use your thermometer to check your oils and lye are at the correct temperature before mixing together. A container for holding your measured oils before being added * Thermometer (that can withstand being wet and super heated) It is more than reasonable to be hesitant when it comes to using caustic ingredients when you’re making soap at home.

Commercial meat chickens are more efficient than dual purpose breeds, however, dual purpose breeds will also lay eggs and reproduce for you, ultimately saving you money. Not surprisingly, I would prefer and recommend dual purpose breeds over the commercial breeds. If you would like to look into breeds further, My Pet Chicken has a good chart to compare these different chicken breeds. 3 birds = 2 boxes, 6 birds = 3 boxes, 9 birds = 4 boxes.