Very cool projects!  It is always great to pass on knowledge to our kids that seem to be getting lost these days.  I am the same in that I am constantly teaching my kids about self reliance, sustainability, survival.  Kudos to you for sharing that with their classes! 

As for animals or crop, a lot of things depend on how much and type of land / climate you have available.  For most people with smaller set ups, smaller animals such as rabbits, quail, pheasant and chickens make more sense and what I would suggest.  Ideally those who want to live or be able to live a subsistence lifestyle, need to work to find ways to make their system self sustaining, so crop becomes important.

On the other end of things, if land is available that can support of self sustain larger animals then the downsides are reduced, but as mentioned there are considerations with large animals.  As an example our Ranch and pasture lands on the Big Island are pretty self sustaining for our cattle that are true free range, no extra feed.  Rain and water supply is abundant for us and ponds / reservoirs never run dry.  Of course certain basic infrastructure needs to be set up, but it isn't overly burdensome especially for small personal situations.  However once in place, it can be very self sustaining with normal maintenance.  We also do chickens, ducks fish and there is no shortage of wild pigs, but keeping domestic pigs is great.  Goats and sheep would also do well.  It is nice to have a milk producing animal if you can support it.  In addition we have garden / crop production so it goes into the cycle.     

Bigger animals yield a lot of meat at one time, so you must have the means to slaughter, prep, preserve or keep the meat.  Smaller animals are infinitely easier to deal with and rabbits are about the quickest and easiest to take from cage to table with great yield per input of animal.  Also smaller animals such as rabbit, chicken, duck, quail are a one time meal so preservation isn't necessary.  It depends if you want to do a lot of work at one time, or do you want to do lesser amounts of work every day for prepping your meat. 

If you are limited in space there is much you can do as London outlines.  But if you have the land you have options and diversity is a good thing.  Pros and cons for everything and your own situation will dictate much of what you can or cannot do.     

I had rabbit on the Big Island in Volcano. I don't know the source of the rabbit though.

I doubt regulations would let someone have a rabbit farm (for commercial sale) in their back yard but a rabbit farm might be a gold mine just waiting to be tapped here. Skinning and gutting is supposed to be easy too I think.

Skinning and gutting rabbits is very easy. It's the same process as skinning a deer or pig, but on a smaller scale, plus the hide seperates easier from the meat than it does for deer and pigs. It's more like a large bird in how easy the hide is to separate. The same cannot be said of squirrels though. They're small enough to be more of a dissection at times rather than butchering, and the hide seems be harder to separate than a rabbit as well. Ive found snakes are the easiest of any animal I've butchered.

Skinning and gutting rabbits is very easy. It's the same process as skinning a deer or pig, but on a smaller scale, plus the hide seperates easier from the meat than it does for deer and pigs. It's more like a large bird in how easy the hide is to separate. The same cannot be said of squirrels though. They're small enough to be more of a dissection at times rather than butchering, and the hide seems be harder to separate than a rabbit as well. Ive found snakes are the easiest of any animal I've butchered.

But rabbits are so cute and fluffy. Hard to snap theirlittle necks!😭

Rabbits are out fo the nest, They still havent opened their eyes yet so we keep pushing them back in, I am going to block the bottom 2 inchs of the door to stop them. im worried they might fall out of the cage (2x6 rabbit wire fence)

First Quail hatched overnight last night at my daughter school. The kids kept it in the incubator all day and we have now took it home. 2 more eggs have started to hatch and if any of the others are alive they should start to break it overnight and into the weekend.

8 out of 15 so far,

1 died 

Any others hatch?  I am more familiar with chickens, ducks and pheasant, but I do believe that quail have a pretty high mortality rate, somewhere upwards of 70% or even more in the wild.  So all in all I think you're doing OK.  Monitor them, ensure they have a good amount of protein and monitor the temps.  It looks like they are able to get out of the heat lamps.  Hope the little buggers make it!

Any others hatch?  I am more familiar with chickens, ducks and pheasant, but I do believe that quail have a pretty high mortality rate, somewhere upwards of 70% or even more in the wild.  So all in all I think you're doing OK.  Monitor them, ensure they have a good amount of protein and monitor the temps.  It looks like they are able to get out of the heat lamps.  Hope the little buggers make it!

we still have 7 eggs in the incubator, i dont think they are going to hatch tho. We had 2 incubators and only 1 egg hatched from that one(The first one). When we set it up im thinking the temperature was set to high in that incubator so we might of fried them.
All the others are doing great, They can get out of the heat if they want but most of the time the lay under it. we had to separate the first one that hatched as he was about a day older then the others and was being very aggressive (Quails will kill each other via pecking) he will join the rest of the flock latter today now that they are all around the same size. They will stay in the house for a couple of weeks before moving to their outdoor home.

Did you buy or make cages?

Post some pictures

Did you buy or make cages?

Post some pictures

At the moment they are in my living room. When they move outside (2 weeks or so)  i will be making use of the other 1/2 of my dog kenel chickn coop. These are not pets and will be in wire cages, nothing fancy just a space to live untill old enough to eat,

i will take photos when i move them/finish making the space.

Rabbits are out of the nest, eyes open. Havent seen them eat or drink anything yet. New estimate on age is 12-14 days today.

from the 7 quails that hatched we are doen to 4

My wifes dog got one, it escaped from its cage and the dog ended up playing with it. The other 2 have mysteriously died overnight on 2 separate nights, Did a full clean and bedding change hopefully if it was something environmental its gone. Im going to change the feed to a medicated chick feed as well. we have been using a mash of our regular feed which they seem to like but it is unmedicated.

So i decided to justgo ahead and buy a dog cage on amazon ($32) ran some smaller wire inside it and use that as a cage. It fits ontop of the other one we use for my wifes dog to sleep in, The news paper is because they throw sand out of the cage and it just keeps it contained. It has a pull out tray for easy cleaning, just change the news paper every coupel of days and were good to go.



we added 2 containers with sand, they like to bath and play in it.



Next to the quails is my turtle enclosure.

how are the rabbits now

how are the rabbits now

Both still alive and doing good, They are eating and drinking what the others do, Havent seen them weine for about a week now (i could just be missing it)

My wife named them so it looks liek they are staying.

This is Thunder


And this is Lightning

My wife was speakign to her frind again yesterday and we ended up with some more eggs to hatch, These will be going to my daughters school so the kids can see the process. The anaimals will be going to back to the farm/person we got the eggs from. He dosent have an incubator at the moment so this is a great way to teach the kids and help him out.

We have 4 Turkey eggs.


AND we have 6 chicken eggs
https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/14717124_10157603345745634_1224516379511305859_n.jpg?oh=4a3b57a84cf91ff4287d49ab1c8eac54&oe=589CBAB6

Any updates?

Any updates?

Quails are a bigger and should be laying eggs anytime soon.
Chickens should hatch next week (election day)
Turkeys should hatch the week after.

We did lose a rabbit tho, It was the mother of the baby's. Luckily they had finished weening so no loss for the baby's. The catch on the door came lose and the mother fell out of the cage, My dogs whent to check her out, She panicked, they got excited and do what terriers do.

Today the quails laid their first egg, We believe we have 2 males and 2 females. They are going into new cages next week and will be outside, We have to make room for the new chickens and turkey's in the house. I just ordered some parts i need to build the new quail cages and will post photos once done.