The self-sufficiency is nice, but economically..one has to wonder if it much of what we do it worth it. Iguess if you enjoy the time spent that counts for something. You could buy a 20k harley or 40k classic car and spend time on rides or car cruises instead.
We raised turkeys this year..didn't count the food costs in detail as we have chickens also,but it was $45 for 6 turkeys, 2 died in the first couple of weeks. We already had the coop and such, so no cost there. 6 months later we had them 'processed' - take them to the 'guy' and later in the day pickup turkeys, 50c a lb for his efforts. Ignoring our time, gas to the processor (75 miles in the truck at 11mpg and 75 more in the car for pickup, trips for feed, etc) - figure $7/week for food, 24 weeks is $190 say, $56 for processing and the purchase price is 300 as a round figure. for 113 lbs of meat (and bones...). the tom weighed in at 46 lbs...the hens a bit over 20lb each. $2.65 a lb.
You can buy turkeys for under $1/lb in november...
IF we processed them ourselves, bred them ourselves, grew the food for them the economics would improve - but our time investment would also.
Tempted to try meat chickens..but again, is it worth it? A local store sells beautiful skinless boneless chicken breasts for $1.69 lb...fresh. Zero work.
As for hay..how much yield can you get and at what cost? Pa ag stats say you get about a ton/acre..if a bale is what, 40 lbs that's 50 bales an acre. I assume that's all three cuttings. When I SEE people haying I see what looks like double that...so 100 bales maybe?
Does one need to fertilize, plant, weed the field also? I lack the equipment to do any of that...a beef producer (been here can be had 2.85/lb per side) says fertilizer runs $600/acre...don't know more details,but OMG that screws the economics completely.
I read that garlic is, per acre, very profitable, and the big garlic farm owners here just retired...