Full Circle Farm to Table: Rabbits, Chickens, Vegetables, Berries, and Mead Micro-Farming

Though we may all wish for a large property, current prohibitive market rates on land make this a rather unobtainable goal for many people. Many of us, however, refuse to abandon our ideas of sustainable self-production and are thus forced into the rather complicated world of small-scale farming. We have set up an unobtrusive system of rabbits, chickens, vegetables, and berries on a quarter acre in the suburbs, which supplies us with eggs, meat, vegetables, berries, and economic alcoholic beverages as well as producing additional income. It has taken approximately two years to become financially sustainable, but we are now getting more out of our operations than we put in, meaning that it is cheaper to produce this food than to buy it. This has been done as a high-school project (with the exception of the alcohol, which is purely Dad’s contribution) with the aim of long term larger-scale sustainable agriculture in an alternative location.

Please Note with amusement chatGPT / Dall-E’s terrible 3rd attempt on this concept.

Decide what you want, and can, actually have on your property. This is a basic rundown of our production:

5x10 shed: five rabbits, six hens, and storage in the attic. 

The rabbits are in 36x36 cages hung from the ceiling and zip-tied to the chicken wire windows to prevent shifting. There are two cages (holes) on each end of the building, slightly staggered. It works better for the higher one to be closer to the wall, and always put bucks on the bottom, does on top. In the middle of the 10’ wall, there’s one cage on a barn-door track, called the “swing cage.” This allows for access to the side cages and maximizes capacity. 

The hens are on the ground below the rabbits, and they’re on a deep bedding concept that minimizes odor. Their food and water are suspended from the swing cage, and their nest box is strapped to the ladder.

The attic is accessed by a two part ladder; one part is fixed to the wall (partially obscured by the nest box, but we just step over it) and the other folds up to the ceiling on a pulley system.

Garden: With all those rabbits and chickens converting food into fertilizer, it is most efficient if you can put that to use in a garden! (See section 6) Ours is 15x22’ and is a little small to accept that much fertilizer, providing another bartering or selling opportunity. In addition to the vegetable garden, we have berries growing, which also work well for brewing mead! (See section 7 and 8!)

Not all of this may fit on your property, and that’s fine. Customize to your capacity. We are actively looking for more property and expansion ideas. (see section 10 for our ideas to foster your own!)

It is necessary to consider your individual acreage when planning your micro-farm. In our particular case, we are under constraints of neighborhood value and high predator population. For this reason, we chose to build an aesthetically pleasing shed that matches the style of our house, which will raise property values as opposed to lowering them. It is also predator proof, as much as realistically possible.

This was, of course, significantly more expensive than something like a pre-built hoop house. If aesthetics are not an issue, hoop houses are a very viable, cost effective option. 

Decide what you want to build, then put together a spreadsheet to track costs.(link to our source?)  This will help you know when and where to cut spending, and let you know how much you’ll need to produce to earn it back. Our spreadsheet includes total expenses to build, then “maintenance” costs like food or supplies. Those are balanced out with “income” categories, like eggs, meat, and sales, which will let you know how much each dozen of eggs or fryer actually costs to produce. It can be extremely discouraging for a while (eggs were $80 a dozen for a long time!), but eventually you’ll see that costs go down and profits go up as you pay off the fronting costs and balance out your production. We’re more than ten dollars under market price for rabbit meat now!

Key price saving difference - economic carbon instead of bales of wood chips from a local farm store.  You can look for local sources of wood chips in bulk, dry sawdust, etc.  This really helped shift our small farm operation to profitability.

What do you do with all that fertilized carbon?  That is where a garden is a great complimentary effort.  See section 7 below!  We actually have difficulty using all the fertilizer on our little 15x22’ garden, and have taken to selling or bartering excess fertilizer.

This may take a while, and that’s okay. It took us a few months planning and work to get our shed together, but it was definitely worth it. We built ours from scratch with a variety of online resources, totalling roughly $5000 in materials and rental items like hole borers.  The animal part of the shed is only 5x10, and we have household storage in the other side, a two-story 10x10 (maxing out the code of 10x15 total shed without a permit).

In addition to a plethora of resources in instructables for building sheds, also consider Polyface Designs by Joel Salatin. He discusses the multiple facets of farming infrastructure and provides comprehensive blueprints for the average layman to understand. Every project has a parts list, detailed instructions, pictures, and tips. 

https://www.amazon.com/Polyface-Designs-Comprehensive-Construction-Infrastruture/dp/1733686614

A few things to consider:

-local building codes - how big of a shed can you make, especially without a permit?  In our case, 10x15’, or 150 square feet.

-Electricity. It might not seem like it, but it’s awfully nice to have lights in the shed! Most times it’s not necessary, but when I have to go out before dawn or after dark, I don’t want to be carrying a headlamp.  Check your local codes for requirements and inspections here. 

-Windows. Your animals need airflow! We have four mesh windows, with shutters. We don’t want our animals to stifle, so some way of getting air in is important, but so is keeping cold and rain out. You’ll want something to cover your windows that don’t fully block air. 

Security. A good, locking door or securely zippered flap will keep your animals in and predators out.

-Storage. You need somewhere to keep carbon, hay, and food. That can be a lean to, separate building, or even metal cans.

-cleanout capability: since we were building it from scratch, we were able to put two swing doors at the bottom and slope the floor so we could hose out the whole thing instead of manually mucking it out.  

Here’s how we take care of our rabbits, a brief rundown.

Two bucks, three does. None of them should be related, so you don’t have to worry about inbreeding.

Again, bucks live below or at the same level as the does. Otherwise, they spray the does and everyone is sad.

We hang the cages from the ceiling beams, but in a hoop house you would need to put them on stands. I highly, highly recommend covering the tops of the holes with cage-to-ceiling mesh, or the hens will learn that they can sit on top, and that leads to all sorts of nasty things like fecal matter and eggs where you don’t want them.

Does are open (ready to be bred) for about 20 days out of the month. If they’re not ready, don’t breed. When they are ready, just pop the doe in with the buck for a few minutes, not long. Don’t bring the buck to her, because does are extremely territorial and will quite probably hurt the buck before he can breed her.

Does are pregnant for 30-35 days, and they should be given their nest box on ~ day 25-28. This gives them time to nest without destroying the box.

Babies are ugly, don’t worry when they come out without fur. It will grow in in a few days, but they really need to be kept warm. Usually the mum does that, but watch to make sure. Cold kills, be careful.

Technically a doe can be bred every four weeks, but that’s the best way to wear them out. I only breed every three-four months, depending on how big the last litter was. That includes pregnancy, raising to eight weeks, and some rest. They don’t rest when they have their babies, so give them a break.

When adding to your rabbit count, try to buy proven rabbits, of both sexes, that aren’t older than 2-3 years old. That ensures that they have a good productive life ahead of them.

Again, a few basic tips on hens. We keep ours inside on a deep bedding concept, because there are far too many predators in our area to allow them to be kept outside. 

Again, the deep bedding concept is really well explained in Joel Salatin’s books Polyface Micro and You Can Farm. This is where the concept called "Raken" comes from - Rabbit - Chicken. https://www.amazon.com/Polyface-Micro-Success-Livestock-Homestead/dp/1733686622/ref=asc_df_1733686622/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=692875362841&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=5194596277197724572&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1018733&hvtargid=pla-2281435180498&psc=1&mcid=18a4a4eae6d939c99564829001cf2921&hvocijid=5194596277197724572-1733686622-&hvexpln=73&gad_source=1

https://www.amazon.com/You-Can-Farm-Entrepreneurs-Enterprise/dp/0963810928

If you won’t be letting your hens out, make sure that they have plenty of room. 

I don’t recommend a rooster, because they’re loud (neighbor concern!) and they have it out for you. Pretty much everyone I know who’s worked with roosters has at least one scar from the “pretty bird.”

They’re honestly not much work at all. We free feed and water, and they have a nest box, so about the most work is maintaining the deep litter.

The deep litter works as such: carbon (wood chips) are added, as well as moisture (urine, feces, and water drips from the waterers). The hens stir the carbon mixture, which keeps it aerated. It ferments, which releases heat but not ammonia. This mixture becomes some of the most wonderful fertilizer you’ve ever seen, and it doesn’t smell. Just add ~5 gallons of carbon per rabbit per week, and you’re good. We clean out the bedding twice a year in spring and fall, and put it in the garden. This way we don’t have to worry about cleaning it every week, and the chicken feces are composted enough to use straight from the shed.

The kits are wonderfully adorable, but you can’t keep them all. At eight weeks, they’re ready to leave their dam (mom), and they have to by twelve weeks or the males will breed the dam. By eleven-twelve weeks, depending on the litter, the kits will be ready to harvest.

There are two options to get rid of a litter: sell them or eat them. 

To sell them, I recommend Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace. You can put them up for sale, and soon enough you’ll be inundated with people clamoring for your adorable baby rabbits. Just be sure to socialize any litters you think you may want to sell! It can be a bit annoying and time consuming, especially when people flake on you, but it’s nice when you find a good home for a kit.

If you don’t want to worry about sales and need an additional source of meat, you can eat the kits. 

https://foodprint.org/real-food/rabbit/#:~:text=Sustainability%20of%20rabbit-,Environmental%20impact,produce%20six%20pounds%20of%20meat. 

If you know you’re not going to sell a litter, I wouldn’t bother with socializing. It makes the process of turning them from cute bunny into crock pot foddermuch easier if you’re not attached. I’m not going to go into too much detail about this facet of the operation, but I will give you these tips:

Don’t bleed them. It’s a jerk move and they feel every second of the several minutes it takes for them to die.

Stay clean. You don’t need any extra bacteria. On that note, try not to puncture the bladder when you’re removing the innards.

Let the meat sit in the fridge for a day before putting it in the freezer, or it’ll be super tough.

Rabbit meat is good just about any way chicken is, it really does taste like a slightly sweet hen.

State planting guide: (supplemented with specifics from each seed bag)

[Just do an internet search for your state’s planting advice]

• I integrated this advice and the seed packet advice into recurring annual reminders in my Apple to-do so I’d get reminders to weed, fertilize using Burpee, spray with organic bug preventer every 2 weeks, harvest peas, etc. 

Companion guide:

https://www.almanac.com/companion-planting-guide-vegetables

• Parsley and other herbs might be good
• Garlic was a great bug repellent, just keep away from the Peas
• Basil good near peppers, tomatoes
• Romaine lettuce around cantaloupe

There is a big debate in several gardening / farming magazines on whether to rototill or not.  I am leaning toward rototilling personally, but some personal research on topic is probably warranted.  The cost of renting a big manly rototiller is about $100 each time, so maybe once a year in the spring to get the great black earth to the top is a good compromise.  

I really appreciated the weeding reduction of using plastic sheeting - definitely recommended.  Landscape fabric use:

https://organicgrowersschool.org/ask-tom-burning-landscape-fabric/?utm_term=landscape%20fabric&utm_campaign=Blog&utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=ppc&hsa_acc=4285800261&hsa_cam=9951438903&hsa_grp=109776050108&hsa_ad=562735464213&hsa_src=g&hsa_tgt=kwd-14017020&hsa_kw=landscape%20fabric&hsa_mt=b&hsa_net=adwords&hsa_ver=3&gclid=Cj0KCQiAjbagBhD3ARIsANRrqEtLei1nomoU8Kp5X3rWrL3OO4H5HqYBUiZwb6XC9PThI20WpFpBPRQaAiuIEALw_wcB

• Reuse year after year
• Roaring fire, 3” pipe fittings to melt holes through
• I actually found this to not work that well - I followed a reader suggestion after the article above and just started using a blow-torch to melt appropriate sized holes.  Be careful to stamp out the little flickers or you could loose a big section and have to patch the hole… just saying!
• [implied task - knowing where to put the holes; see below!]
• Garden Stakes / u-nails to hold down the plastic and keep it from blowing away.

The enclosed PDF is my garden ‘table map’ that I made to help me mark the plastic strips and burn the holes.  I tried using a permanent construction crayon that didn’t work very well - I think I’d use spray paint next time.  Since the marker didn’t stick I pull out my printout ‘table map’ and use that for planting every year.

• Updated 15 x 22 garden plan: See attached PDF!
• Each block is a 1x1’ cube, for 15’ x 22’ garden.  The spacing includes the requisite recommended spacing from the seed packs and the suggested combinations from the companion guide.  

Rabbit prevention

https://bonnieplants.com/blogs/garden-fundamentals/keeping-rabbits-out-of-the-garden#:~:text=Bird%20or%20deer%20netting%20works,prevent%20rabbits%20from%20jumping%20over.

• 2’ tall chicken wire, 6” under ground
• Garlic also good

Squirrel prevention 

https://happygardens.com/blogs/news/how-to-keep-squirrels-out-of-garden

Tomato and Cucumber support

https://extension.umd.edu/resource/caring-your-vegetable-garden-maryland

• Instead of tomato cages, put stakes on either end of your tomato runs and run twine back and forth as they grow - works really well!

If you are keeping track of cost savings, which I recommend, in the first year I found that tomatoes and cantaloupe were the most “profitable” garden produce.  I recommend you keep track of “how” you use each vegetable - this makes a big difference in cost savings estimates.

• For example, one cucumber is very cheap as a cucumber, but as a jar of pickles is more valuable by about 6 times.

• Conversely, cherry tomatoes are sold for much more money than tomato sauce you could make from them.

We recently moved and it has taken some time to establish our new berry crop.  We have raspberries and blackberries (bartered with rabbits!) coming in now, and hope to be up to sufficient quantities to eat (doing this year!) and brew mead (melomel) again next year.

Again, the fertilizer from the Raken (Rabbit - Chicken deep bedding concept from Joel Salatin) sure helps.

Here are some pictures of a blackberry trellis!  The friend that got us started on these had about 100’ in two rows about 10’ apart.  Thornless blackberries are much friendlier than thorned!

We found that electric fencing wire and tensioners were the most economical in 100 - 200’ rolls.  Using concrete to place a treated 8’ 4x4 post seemed about right, with the wires spaced about 2’ apart.  Mine are in the shape of an “L”, about 25 feet long overall.

As the blackberries grow, weave them between the wires up and back down to grown in a new spot, keeping them constrained and pruned so that you can easily access both sides.

Again, just my dad’s contribution (first person below is him), no endorsement of underage alcohol here.

Here is a basic starting point for getting going: 

https://www.growforagecookferment.com/how-to-make-a-gallon-of-mead/ 

Mead / melomel produces about 15% alcohol.  I like sweet melomel and use 3 pounds honey per gallon, and typically make about 4 gallons every 6 weeks or so, leaving plenty as gifts for friends.  

I use CostCo honey, which seems to be from Argentina and certified high quality, yet only about $3/pound (was $2/pound several years ago - inflation is sad), which equates to about 35 cents a drink, very economical compared to about $1.50 a beer in today’s economic times.  Using local honey at $10+/pound would really wreck that economics but would be memorable, I imagine.

The brew closet takes up about a 2’ x 3’ x 5’ spot in literally a closet in the house, and takes 2.5 hours on a Sunday afternoon about every 6 weeks.  

Pretty low maintenance, pretty tolerant of forgetting about it for 2 extra months.  My style of maintenance and return on investment!

The fruit variant of mead is melomel, and with spices it is technically called metheglin. Nobody understands that - just call it mead.  My favorites are as follows, with the basis recipe and my simplification / modification:

1. pumpkin - spices and then charred oak secondary
2. https://www.alehorn.com/blogs/alehorn-viking-blog/how-to-make-pumpkin-mead?srsltid=AfmBOoqA1FGHO8u-TGvpvDFFSGJNlxMHxoIKPy2yVq2t-yUkQMw4_Yg8 
3. I have made it with a grown pumpkin from the store, but the work and cost is pretty high compared to just using canned pumpkin which you can do year round.
4. 1 15oz can pumpkin per gallon
5. 3 lb honey (skip the brown sugar, cane sugar if you ask me)
6. No lemon or cane sugar - the 3lbs honey is enough
7. 1 tbsp each of nutmeg, allspice, cinnamon
8. Oaking your mead. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/oaking-meads.347463/ 
9. Cranberry orange - with spices and ginger
10. https://www.food.com/recipe/faolans-spiced-cranberry-orange-mead-446195 
11. I just use 1 cutup orange, one cup cranberries (no juice)
12. I use 3 lbs honey
13. 1 tbsp each of ground cinnamon, clove, allspice, and nutmeg
14. ½ tbsp ground ginger 
15. Blueberry Orange
16. 3 lbs honey
17. 1 orange
18. Enough blueberries to cover the bottom of the jar
19. This one doesn’t drink well right away, green, and has to sit for 9 months.  I really like how it tastes, but I seldom make it for impatience.
20. Raspberry - home grown is best!
21. Enough to cover the bottom of the 1 gallon jar
22. Mixed berry - blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries - very tasty!  I find strawberries make it very dry, but two little strawberries per gallon are a nice compromise 
23. Again, enough frozen fruit to cover the bottom of the 1 gallon jar
24. About anything else you can think of, including kiwi raspberry, dragon fruit, mango, in creative combinations.

Congratulations! You have successfully created a sustainable micro scale farming enterprise that feeds into itself in a positive cycle. Fertilizer for the garden, fresh produce for the hens and rabbits, plus eggs, meat, vegetables, and some spare income from sales. It will take a while to even out the costs, but don’t give up! It’s incredibly rewarding, and fresh eggs taste way better than store bought!

We’re always innovating and coming up with new ideas. Some of these are practical, some not. Some are “someday” plans while others are “when we get around to it” plans. 

1. Ducks! We’re hoping to put a few ducks in the 15 x 22 garden.
2. https://pithandvigor.com/2024/01/move-over-backyard-chickens-ducks-are-better-for-a-beautiful-garden/ 
3. Maybe some water collection for the rabbits and birds. 
4. https://theprepared.com/forum/thread/diy-project-rain-water-collection-barrel/
5. Turkeys!  We will definitely need to move to more than a ¼ acre of land, but male turkeys aren’t as loud as chicken roosters.  Turkeys sure taste good… and the eggs are huge and eat the same as chicken eggs.
6. Bees might be a good idea to streamline production of homemade mead for the adults and honeycomb cookies for everyone. We have known friends to have 3 beehives in town on less than ¼ acre.  It’s a lot of work, but it might be worth it.  The challenges include:
7. startup costs ($800+), 
8. know-how (intense learning curve), 
9. Difficulty - I’ve know several pretty seasoned and diligent practitioners start strong and lose their hives…
10. …and painful to the human mental / heart maintenance.  If you think that butchering cute little bunnies for food sounds tough to stomach, drowning a cup full of bees to count the number of mites to inform periodic medicinal treatments sure sounds tough to me.