live stock for a small vegetable farm

If you were/are running a small (10-20 acres) vegetable farm, and wanted to add some livestock for diversity and fertility. What would/have you thought of/tried?

I think I might go with ducks and geese. Maybe a turkey or two once in awhile as I love turkey. I got rid of our chickens because they just ruined any planted areas they got into. I might also give a go with rabbits, gentle little critters that go nicely in a skillet. If I got rabbits I think I would also learn to tan and use their fur.

I personally would shy away from large animals like pigs or cows, just too much work involved there for me. I've never had them but I would think about goats for milk. I might also consider a sheep or two mostly for use as grounds keepers.

Goats and sheep neither one nor ducks and geese need much winter weather protection I don't think, just a place to sleep that's secure from predators. I'd keep the rabbits in a mobile coop, kind of like the chicken tractor idea and move them around to fertilize various areas.

O' and maybe a miniature donkey because they are so cute and to make fertilizer. And maybe to pull a cart.  

If I had that much space I would be doing chickens, turkeys, and maybe a pig or two, rotating pastures on grass. (keep in mind, my farm right now is the size of a postage stamp, 10-20 acres seems like an entire continent).
I am a big fan of rabbits, they take up almost no space (even fit in my tiny garden!) and provide excellent fertility, could also provide income streams (meat as well as manure). The thing I like most is that they really cut down my waste, they eat all the garden and kitchen scraps, and I don't need to waste space on composting. Depending on what you're growing, and whether it interests you, I might consider adding a small number of goats that could also eat the waste stream and also provide meat/milk/additional income in a pretty small space.

When we do size up, the one thing I really want is chickens.

Just about anything will work on 10-20 acres with suitable water.  What are your resources?  Do you have pasture?  Waste vegetables?  What do you like to eat?

If you don't mind buying in some grain, I'd probably look at a pig as I imagine you would have a lot of vegetable waste.   A feeder pig is a short term commitment, 5-6 months, which places them ahead of many other animals for me.  I'd probably put it in a small, pen, deep bed it, then after the pig, muck it out (a loader would be nice!)and apply it to veggie beds after a suitable amount of time.  You could really do this with just about any livestock, timeframes just vary.  A dairy animal is also an option if you have the time and dedication to milk it.

Another method may be to use portable pens and raise animals on next year's garden beds.  I tried this with pigs and got quite a bit of compaction.  So unless you are going to move them often, and/or till, I don't recommend it. Lighter stock/poultry may be better.  Also, things might be different with other soil types, we have a lot of clay.

I have gone with chickens, Kunekunes, and Nigerian goats.  Just because these are low effort animals does not mean they are no effort. Animal tie you down. They also take a good deal of effort when sick. Getting a goat through goat polio is a 24/7 job.  Then there is the potential of the animals getting out and discovering the vegetables.  Though, I have to admit  on most days, it is a 30 minute effort.

Excellent question. For a vegetable farm, I'd be considering livestock with two things in mind:

manure production for compost and fertility

a way to deal with surplus and "waste" produce

The other question is, do you want eggs, milk, and/or meat?

Others have pointed out that keeping livestock properly separated from your vegetable production areas is a must, so good fencing is a must. How much work that is depends on how you view it. I find that once I develop a routine, it seems less like "work" and more like business as usual.

We've kept chickens, goats, and pigs (small breed - American Guinea Hogs) and fed them well from garden and kitchen waste. Pigs are also excellent disposers of slaughter and butchering waste. For chickens and pigs, especially, you can pretty much feed them 100% from what you grow. Goats still need hay, minerals, and supplemental feed if the pasture isn't excellent. We've also had Muscovy ducks which we loved, but they're flyers and it was hard to keep them out of places we didn't want them. Never tried rabbits, but they would be worth considering.

Animals can add a whole lot to any kind of farm or homestead!

10-20 acres of vegetables is a huge amount. The parents in law do 20 all row cropped with most weeding/planting/sowing etc done with a tractor and around half the beds in plastic ground cover and it still takes 10 people full time. So I would say no animals you simply will not have time. They used to have cows which ate almost all of the scraps but when they expanded to 20 acres they didn't have time to keep them any more and had to get rid of them. their 20 acres produces around 3-4 TON of scraps per week in season. most is composted some goes to a neighbouring dairy farm.

If you mean 10-20 acres of land and 1/2 acre of vegetables then you probably need something to eat grass to keep the rest of the land in check, round here 10 acres would be 3-5 cows the number of geese or ducks you would need would be insane. I've done chickens and ducks and the amount of scraps they eat makes no dent on the scraps a 1/2 acre intensive garden makes not in the numbers I had anyway (5 chickens and up to 32 ducks) To make a dent on the compost needs (for 1/2 acre) I would guess we would need 40-50 chickens which is over the limit here. I would say pigs are the best choice for us that is what we will do once we manage to save up enough for the fencing (I will not keep them in the barn even though it is already laid out for pigs)

We have 15 chickens and will be adding rabbits in the spring. We've talked about goats or a miniature dairy cow (didn't know that was a thing until more recently), only have 2 acres (a squeeze for larger animals).

Skandi Rogers wrote:10-20 acres of vegetables is a huge amount. The parents in law do 20 all row cropped with most weeding/planting/sowing etc done with a tractor and around half the beds in plastic ground cover and it still takes 10 people full time. So I would say no animals you simply will not have time. They used to have cows which ate almost all of the scraps but when they expanded to 20 acres they didn't have time to keep them any more and had to get rid of them. their 20 acres produces around 3-4 TON of scraps per week in season. most is composted some goes to a neighbouring dairy farm.

If you mean 10-20 acres of land and 1/2 acre of vegetables then you probably need something to eat grass to keep the rest of the land in check, round here 10 acres would be 3-5 cows the number of geese or ducks you would need would be insane. I've done chickens and ducks and the amount of scraps they eat makes no dent on the scraps a 1/2 acre intensive garden makes not in the numbers I had anyway (5 chickens and up to 32 ducks) To make a dent on the compost needs (for 1/2 acre) I would guess we would need 40-50 chickens which is over the limit here. I would say pigs are the best choice for us that is what we will do once we manage to save up enough for the fencing (I will not keep them in the barn even though it is already laid out for pigs)

I am.thinking about a vegetable farm that is 10-20 acres in total size and how animals could be used to close the fertility loop a little bit. The idea would be to still have at least half of the land in row crops in any one year

A livestock option is to buy feeder pigs in the spring and butcher in the late fall. Warning ...the term "hog tight " came about for a reason.  But some breeds are less likely to escape than others.  

That's a nice turn around time. I'm going to check if they allow pigs in my area.

I went with chickens, and I'm glad.  They are lots of fun, supply eggs, are about as easy to care for as an animal can be, they create soil, they can be used to create new garden areas, they process compost for you.  If you want more of them, you can just hatch your own.  They are just a great addition in my mind.

I really really love my chickens, but I am frequently disappointed in what they will eat and how much.
They still are great composters because they shred what they don't eat.

I wish I could keep a pig,  nothing else seems to do what they do in terms of converting almost anything to meat.
I'm trying to duplicate this with vermicomposting,  with poor results so far.

For fresh vegetative scrap,  rabbits might be great.
I have rabbits bit they are my wife's babies,  so they are pampered.
I would like to have rabbits that we treated more like the chickens, not pets,  not food,  but composting partners.

We have a small market garden on 6 and half acres and raise chickens and ducks. They've been a really.good addition to our system and I feel they compliment each other really well.

Our run is on a hillside and I pile stuff from the garden and oak leaves at the top. The chickens do a good job picking through the pile and the ducks will eat almost anything the chickens won't.  Everything remaining slowly gets picked through and works its way to the bottom of the run. Twice a year I clean it out and return it to the garden.

I also like housing them together . Ducks will raise the temperature of the coop which is nice in the winter. But they're really wet, even when water isn't present and make a mess out of their bedding. I use straw for bedding and keep a faily deep layer. The chickens like to pick through it and keep the bedding loose. And that makes maintaining the coop a lot easier.

We sell at 2 farmers markets and chicken and duck eggs always sell out in the first hour. Cost wise they basically pay for themselves and we get free eggs and eat plenty of chicken and duck , with a minimal out of work.