From a self-sufficiency standpoint, livestock can be divided into two categories:
- “Producers” - herbivores like cattle, sheep, goats, geese, rabbits and bees - and
- “transmuters” - omnivores like pigs, chickens, ducks, turkeys, pigeons and quail.
A short thread…
Ideally, the bulk of a self-sufficient farmer’s livestock should be producers, as they convert a renewable resource - pasture - directly into food, saving the farmer a lot of work.
Transmuters, on the other hand, require supplemental feed, and producing that feed is work.
However, transmuters are particularly useful to the self-sufficient farmer
who has to deal with a common problem - limited space.
Such a farmer can still achieve self-sufficiency by using much of his property to grow calorie-dense crops, to feed his transmuters.
It should be noted that an animal’s exact position on the producer-transmuter spectrum
is highly dependent on it’s breed.
An extensive transmuter breed, like the Turopolje pig, may function more like a producer
than an intensive producer breed, like the East Friesian sheep.
In conclusion, a self-sufficient farmer should focus on producers as much as the size of his property permits.
Transmuters are useful for adding variety to the farmer’s diet, and as a way to circumvent the problem of limited pasture space.