Urban Animals: How to Raise Chickens, Goats, and More in Your Backyard

How to Raise Chickens, Goats, and More in Your Backyard

[Video coming soon]

In 4 full-length online classes, I will show you how you can raise your own superior eggs, milk, honey and meats — AND how to integrate them to enhance your property while improving your vegetable and fruit production, too! The information I have to share will elevate the nutritional, physical and financial health of your family, and create a regenerative system that becomes more productive over time.

This course is based on tried and true permaculture principles and techniques that really work! You won't find complicated systems here, or techniques that require special equipment. You also won't find a sterile "how-to" that reduces farming to providing food and housing. Instead, you'll discover how to confidently team up with nature to raise and grow wholesome, organic food, as it was always intended.

In just 4 classes, you'll be thrilled to discover the pride and satisfaction of raising your own backyard animals, and how simple and fun it really is. No more shelling out your hard earned cash for pricey organic eggs and milk... No more wondering if the food you serve your family is really free of antibiotics, hormones and GMOs... And no more worry that animals will take up too much time or create unwanted odors — you'll be delighted with the bounty you can create, whether you have a small yard or acres!

Meet Your Instructor: Kari Spencer

Kari Spencer is a popular local gardening & homesteading speaker. Both a Master Gardener and a Master Farmer, Kari enjoys sharing her passion for growing and raising food with others. In addition to teaching classes all over the city of Phoenix, she is a talented instructor and curriculum writer in the Urban Farming department at Southwest Institute of Healing Arts. Her family operates The Micro Farm Project, a small farm in North Phoenix, where gardens and livestock animals provide her family with fun and food.

What You Will Learn:

First, we're going to discuss what it means to raise food "organically" — no complicated or time-consuming systems. You'll learn the steps to planning a farm that produces healthy, great-tasting food with no nuisance to the neighbors.

Second, we'll create a farm that is as self-sustaining as possible and that produces MORE than we put into it.

Finally, we'll learn what poultry and goats need to be happy and healthy, and how to enhance their environment. Many of the usual ways we raise animals in the city have turned out to be wrong — there's actually a much easier, cheaper, and more efficient way that results in bigger and better harvests every year!

The 4 Classes:

01 — Designing a Productive System with Animals

Before bringing animals home to the farm, it's important to think through the ecological design of your system. In class 1, we find out how to analyze and design urban farms that are increasingly abundant over time — saving you time and money, yielding healthy food, and benefiting the environment.

02 — Chickens & Other Poultry

Imagine collecting your own fresh eggs daily and having feathered helpers in your garden. In class 2, we discover how poultry fits into a good ecological design and their many functions on an urban farm. We cover their basic needs and ways to make them profitable financially and ecologically — from chickens to ducks, turkeys, and quail.

03 — Goats & Sheep

By class 3, you'll understand what goats and sheep need to thrive, and how incredibly beneficial they can be to the health of your farm and your physical well-being. There's nothing sweeter than cold, fresh milk produced at home!

04 — Value Added: Reducing Costs & Monetizing Your Farm

By the end of class 4, you will have more knowledge than many conventional farmers using outmoded techniques. You'll begin to see how the products of an organic farm can add up to much more value than the time, effort and money you put into it. Once you complete this course, your farm may even be up and running — you might be on the cusp of collecting your first eggs or enjoying sweet, raw milk!

What Others Have to Say:

"Kari's gardening classes taught me everything I needed to know about how to garden... not only the 'how' but the 'why' of gardening. Now, I have four garden boxes and lots of buckets - a total of 100 square feet of gardening space. My husband and I harvest something from our garden almost every day. Gardening has revolutionized my life."

— Erin Bradham, Gardening Student

"I've taken several of Kari's classes on a variety of garden related subjects. Her classes have been well thought out, organized and offer great information. She's always enthusiastic about the material and makes sure each student understands the information thoroughly. I enjoyed her classes and felt confident under her instruction."

— David Creech, Landscape Designer, CFdesign / Founder, ModerSteader.com

"We are new to gardening and had a desire to learn about growing food in an urban setting. Kari's class was a wonderful guide! We learned valuable information about soil, sunlight, watering, plot construction, and seed selection. It's obvious that she loves what she does and we are excited about our future as urban farmers!"

— Stephanie Kirchheimer, Backyard Gardener

What You Get:

• Four pre-recorded, full-length online classes — four 1.5-hour action-oriented classes with simple but extremely impactful steps that build on each other week by week
• Access to the private, member-only Urban Farm Facebook group — tap into an online community of urban farmers, both new and seasoned, to ask for advice, post photos, and converse with fellow food-growers
• Downloadable content in the Urban Farm U Member Site — videos, webinar links, PDFs, plus lists of books and programs. Topics include how animals fit into permaculture design, what egg carton labels really mean, selling eggs, incubators, milking dairy goats, saving water, farm record keeping, profit-making, creating rich compost, and building healthy soil

Plus, this FREE Bonus:

• Virtual Tour of The Micro Farm Project — Kari's family-owned urban farm on a quarter-acre parcel in the heart of Phoenix, Arizona, producing naturally grown vegetables and fruits, farm-fresh chicken and quail eggs, heritage turkeys, raw goat milk and cheese, lamb, pickles, relishes, jams, artisan breads, and more. On this tour you will:
  • Explore a real family-owned urban farm from the comfort of your home
  • Witness the potential for how much food can be cultivated on a standard city lot
  • Learn from Kari's successes and mistakes
  • Be inspired to start or expand your own urban farm

Learn skills that will forever change your perspective of fresh food.