Here’s an awesome YouTube video about Novella Carpenter’s urban farm in West Oakland (California, USA). It’s got a lot of great info applicable to growing food and raising animals (for eggs, meat and dairy) in suburban and urban areas.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yYO4L2vegE
05:00 – Thoughts on slaughtering chickens, turkeys, etc.
06:30 – Vegetarians and vegans always come up with naive suggestions about what you can do with your animals instead of eating them. Too true! I’ve encountered this myself recently. These people have good intentions, and I respect that, but they should be much more concerned about the industrial meat producers than small-scale, sustainable, humane animal-raisers.
10:00 – I love how she describes chickens as a “gateway farm animal” :-). That’s exactly my experience too. They’re super easy to look after, a lot of fun, and very rewarding – and they lead people into wanting to explore “harder” animals.
11:18 – Learned how to kill a rabbit watching YouTube videos. Me too! There’s some good stuff on there about how to butcher chickens as well.
11:30 – Mentions Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall: River Cottage is one of my favourite sources of inspiration.
Novella is the author of Farm City (get it at Amazon.com or BookDepository.com), which sounds like a fascinating read.
Hi darren,
the book depository is a great book shop. Have u seen the book city permaculture. Was thinking of getting this one. Hows the piggies going! Donna.
@Donna: A friend at work put me onto the Book Depository. She buys from them all the time. Much cheaper than most other options. I haven’t seen City Permaculture, but I looked it up and it sounds interesting. You can read more about it here: http://www.holisticpage.com.au/CityPermaculture-VolumeOne_EarthGardenBooks%7C9780957894068
The pigs are doing great – they’re now about 50 kg! I can’t believe how fast they grow. I’ll try to post new photos tonight.