5 Animals That Feed Characters & Elevate Stories

Fiction thrives on the gritty details—and when your story hinges on survival or rural living, it’s not just meat on the table that matters. In this episode, we explore the top five animals—cows, pigs, rabbits, chickens, and bees—that do far more than fill the stew pot. From raw honey to rich manure, and dairy that goes the extra churn, we unpack the overlooked ways these creatures sustain communities, nourish characters, and powerfully shape realistic settings.

Whether you’re writing post-apocalyptic grit, historical homesteads, or resourceful frontier families, you’ll walk away with tangible insights that elevate your worldbuilding and deepen your characters’ connection to the land. Oh—and yes, there's even room for that twitchy-nosed sidekick with the ears that wiggle.

Transcript

Forget the supermarket—survival in rural fiction depends on the living, breathing food systems built into the backyard. In this episode, we explore how chickens, pigs, cows, rabbits, and bees don’t just fill bellies with meat, but sustain your characters with eggs, milk, honey, and even better crops. These animals aren’t side notes—they’re the engine behind the meals, the harvest, and the realism your readers crave. Learn about all of this and more in today’s episode. 

Welcome to Writing Rural with Alley, the fiction writer’s weekly inspiration station for rural life and lifestyles, from historical to post-apocalyptic, helping you bring your rural stories to life! I’m Alley, and this is episode #110, Meat & Meaning: Top 5 Food Animals Every Fiction Writer Should Know. Stick around to the end to find out all the ways things could possibly go wrong in your story. Now, let’s get into this.

1) Cows

I know, we all saw this one coming. Cow is one of the most popular meats worldwide. Who doesn’t love a good burger?! The average cow yields roughly 450 LBS of meat, which is a lot of meat in today’s terms.

But cows are versatile animals, and meat, while yummy, is not the most coveted product they are good for. Do you know what is? If you guessed eggs, I have a nice old encyclopedia set you need to read. If you guessed milk, you’re right! 

Milk, as most people know it today, is a drink that comes in the store, but there is a whole lot more to milk that comes straight from the cow. There are many things that can be made from milk. Some of them are: 

* Cheese

* Yogurt

* Butter

* Cream

* Cottage Cheese

* Whey

* Ghee

* Condensed Milk

* Evaporated Milk

* Powdered Milk 

Milk is also added to many types of food 

* Baked goods 

* Ice Cream 

* Milkshake 

* Custard 

* Pudding

* Sausages such as Alfredo sauce

* Eggnog 

In many parts of the world, the internal organs are eaten. This includes the liver, heart, kidneys, brain, and even the stomach lining. The tongue is also a popular one in certain parts of the world, and can be found at many grocery stores here in the US. I know, because I was surprised to see a cow tongue on my local shelf. 

Now, there is one last thing that cows do that can help your characters eat. They poop. No, we are not eating their poo! Ew! Cow poop is often used as a garden fertilizer. This is true in history, in modern times, and will likely be long after an apocalypse. Adding cow poop (called manure) to crops enhances the soil and will help with crop output. 

2) Rabbits

I know this is a touchy one for some people, but this is a realistic one for all of history, in many places in modern times, and will likely be common after an apocalypse. So let’s talk about it. 

Rabbits have been both hunted and bred for meat, leather, manure, and even wool. (Yes, there is a type of rabbit that produces wool!) However, we are talking about food, so let’s stick to that. 

The average meat rabbit weighs between 2.5 and 3.5 LBS. We will split this down the middle and say 3 LBS. The average litter size is 6 to 8, so let’s go with six for the sake of math. Females can have 5 litters per year. The litters are ready to eat at 8 to 10 weeks old. So, let’s say your character has two female rabbits and math that out. 

2 does × 5 litters/year = 10 litters

10 litters × 6 kits = 60 rabbits

60 rabbits × ~3 lbs meat/rabbit = ~180 lbs of meat per year

180 LBS is impressive in and of itself, but remember when we talked about the cow being 450 LBS? Well, using the same formula, if your character has five female rabbits, that gives them 450 LBS, the same amount of meat as one cow. This is a big deal if your character doesn’t have the money or space to buy or raise a cow. Rabbits take up a lot less space and eat less food. This is one reason they were popular in history, are common in rural areas today, and will likely be very popular after an apocalypse. Just ask any doomsday prepper. They likely have them or at least want them. To top this off, with the fact, that they can eat the meat quickly and do not have to store meat. This is an asset that many people in history loved. 

Now, if your character is hunting rabbits, this is a bit different. Wild rabbits tend to yield approximately one pound of meat. Which is fine, but it’s not as much meat as a meat rabbit. (Hence the name.) 

The insides of a rabbit (kidneys, liver, heart, etc.) can be used as fishing bait. This gives your character another type of meat. Trust me, eating the same thing day after day gets old, and your character will be glad for a change every now and then. 

Now, like cows, rabbit poop is used by many as a crop and garden fertilizer. Many gardeners today call rabbit poop black gold, and it can be sold for large amounts of money to be used as fertilizer. In fact, at the time I am writing this in 2025, an online search shows a three-pound bag selling for just over $20 and local searches from individuals show five pound bags going for $10 to $20. 

There are two important notes about rabbits. Wild rabbits can carry a disease called rabbit fever that is infectious to humans. (Its technical name is Tularemia, but I can’t pronounce that.) The risk of getting this is reduced in the winter months. Now an important note is that there is folk lore that says there are brain eating worms that make a person go insane if they are infected and the rabbits with this die off in the winter. I always heard them called Weevles, but talking to other people, they heard other names. Either way, this one is not true, but it is true that rabbits carry normal parasites, and the meat should always be fully cooked to prevent infections in a person. 

The other important thing to note is that rabbit meat is lean. It’s so lean that there are documented cases in history of people dying from what is called rabbit starvation. Rabbit starvation is when the food (normally meat) has so little fat in it, that the body can’t process it correctly to extract the nutrients the body needs to survive. Yes, small amounts of fat need to be consumed for the human body to be able to absorb the nutrients in food. Rabbit starvation was mostly documented when winters were harsh, and rabbit meat was all they could eat for long periods of time. 

3) Pigs

We all know the meat is coming with this one! Pig is one of the most popular meats. Ham and bacon are two favorites. My personal favorite is pork chops. Mmmm! In some areas, the brains, liver, and kidneys are considered delicacies. And don’t forget that in history, sausage was stored in a cleaned out pig intestine. 

Now the most common non meat part that comes from a pig is lard. I have a whole episode of Lard and second about its many uses. Lard is fat rendered down. The two main purposes (although there are many more) were to act as an oil to keep meat from sticking to a pan. The second way it was used was as a larder. Simply put, meat was stored inside of lard for longer term storage. 

Unlike the other animals on this list, I have never known anyone to use pig poop. The reason is that many pig diseases can transfer to people, along with any parasites. Not that your characters can usually find a lot in all the mud they play in. 

That said, there is another food source they help with. If you have listened to some of my older episode, you will know that pigs have been used to make, or to reseal a pond. Ponds can be stocked with fish as another meat source. Ponds are also a great place for water dependant plants. Native Americans used to harvest wild rice in ponds, rivers, lakes, and anywhere else it grew. Water crest, and water chestnuts are known to grow in water. If you are writing a specific area, make sure to research that area and what water-loving plants are native to that area. 

4) Chicken

Chicken is another yummy treat. In case you didn’t guess, I like meat. While chicken meat is good, you actually don’t get as much chicken as you think you will. The chickens you get in stores are intentionally over fed and confined so they will have as much meet on them as possible. Many companies feed their chickens hormones, and what takes me six months to raise in my back yard takes them six weeks. I know because my parents both worked for chicken companies, and we raised chickens at home. 

Now at six weeks when commercial chickens are butchered, the meat they get is between 4-6 LBS. When backyard birds, sometimes called heritage birds, are butchered, they yield 2-3 LBS. That’s a big difference. the other important difference is that commercial chickens have larger breast meat, while backyards birds have more meat on their legs because they can move around. 

And of course we can’t get away without talking about eggs. Now, it’s true that smaller chickens like bantams do lay fewer than most breeds, with only 50 to 200 eggs per year. Let’s be real, most backyard chickens are a mix of egg layers, and meat chickens. Let’s compare them with the commercial chickens. 

Commercial chickens are bred for high egg yields. They can lay between 5 and 7 eggs per week. This means they lay 300 to 350 eggs per year. Backyard birds in history were either prolific layers laying 300 or so a year, or they were a typical layer at 200 to 300 per year. In modern times, these breeds have been mixed together until many of us have no idea what bred it is anymore. These hybrid birds can be typical to jaw dropping. 

Let me tell you about my chickens. I have roughly 30 hens with a few roosters. The perfect rooster to hen ratio is one rooster to ever 7 to 10 hens. Our chickens are a mix or Road Island Red, Dominique, Bluff Orpington, and Plymouth Rocks. Currently, I am getting 10 to 20 dozen eggs per week. Yes, you heard that right. 

While I want to say I have amazing chickens, my neighbors in this area have the same and they get normal amounts or even less than we do. We have compared notes, and we feed the same food, have the same hen rooster ratio, and we all let our chickens free range on days when it’s safe to do so. (I live in tornado alley.) There are only two things I do differently than the neighbors. 

First, we added more protections from predators. My chicken coop is inside of a huge 1 + acre fence, we have around our home where the dogs and kids play. At night, our dogs are able to protect the chicken coop from predators all night from all sides. We also strategically left trees on three sides of the chicken coop. This prevents chicken hawks from swooping down and snatching chickens. They do not have enough air space to land or take off. These two things mean our chickens do not waste time or energy worrying about predators. Plus, chickens will stop laying for a day or three after any attacks. 

The next thing we did was to build a huge chicken coop. It’s about 12 feet by 10 feet. If you break that down, it’s roughly four square feet per chicken. While our neighbors seem to have one square foot or less per chicken in a chicken coop. Is this definitely a contributing factor? Likely. Close quarters are stressful to birds, and chickens need to be inside a coop at night to keep them safe from predators and the elements. Environmental factors like these can affect egg production. 

Now, will your characters have the same results? I don’t know. You’re writing them. But trust me, neighbors talk and will compare note. Of course, some of my neighbors think I am holding out on them about the food I feed them. Outside of worms when it rains, I don’t know what else I haven’t told them. My point is that real life people think others know tricks, and sometimes you just get lucky, and so can your characters. 

A few egg laying notes. chickens molt in the spring and fall. During this one to two-week time, they will not lay as much and can even stop laying for a time. It’s perfectly normal. Another time they stop laying is if they are sitting on eggs to hatch them. This is what we call getting broudy. It takes 21 days to hatch eggs and she will stop laying during this time. 

Just like cows and rabbits, chicken poop is a good fertilizer. What most people don’t know is that chickens are little pooping machines! I have dirt floors in my chicken coop, and once or twice a month, I have to dig a new hole for the door to open in, because they pooped so much, it is stopping the door from opening well. 

5) Bees 

Did you see this one coming? Bees make honey and honey is a natural sweetener. There are cave man paintings of humans collecting honey, and in ancient Egypt (maybe even before) they were keeping bee hives. I have a whole episode about honey, and a separate one of beekeeping and beeswax, if you want to learn more. 

If stored properly, honey doesn’t go bad. There are reports of Egyptian tombs being opened with honey that was still good to eat in them. Not only that, but honey is used as a way to preserve fruit. 

While those are important things, the most important job bees have is to pollinate our crops. Yes, 90% of all crops in all of the world, are pollinated by bees. If we lost bees, we would lose 90% of our crops, that is how important their pollination is. That’s why, even though I have a mild phobia of flying things with stingers, I don’t kill bees. Now wasps are a whole other story! 

Now, before we go further, we need to cover a few points on historical meat consumption. It was a lot more complicated than it is today. 

Let’s start with how much meat was eaten. The records are a little sparse for this, but from what I find, in medieval Europe in the 15th century, the average person ate about 12 oz of meat per day. That adds up to about 280 per year, or about 70LBS each season. Other records at the same time show the royal families eating 2.4 LBS of meat per day in the winter months. In 1810 there are records of sailors and soldiers being rationed 4 LBS of meat per week. 

Other important things to consider are that livestock are slaughtered at the beginning of winter to take advantage of the natural refrigeration winter brings. This gives them more time to preserve the meat through salting, smoking, or drying other methods. Plus, that is one less thing to feed in winter. 

Your characters will want to eat the meat before it spoils, meaning they are likely to consume more in the winter. Plus, consuming more calories in the winter also helps the body to stay warm. This means your character is likely to consume more meat heavy meals in the winter time. 

Also, their occupation will help decide if they are likely to consume more meat. As stated, rich characters can afford more. Fishermen, livestock owners, hunter/trappers, butchers, or even taxidermists, have access to more meat. 

No matter the status, meat was usually extended as far as they could make it go. They might have one pound for the day and a family of ten. They could shave off small pieces to add to eggs like an omelet to go with some porridge, then use the rest for stew that they add vegetables to. Perhaps they have a ham for Christmas and scrape off the last pieces on the bone the next day and use that to make ham and beans. The bone will be saved to make bone broth. Historically, people rarely let food go to waste. 

Fun fact: The bloody feud between the Hatfield’s and McCoys started over a stolen pig. 

One quick reminder before we get to all the ways things could go wrong in your story. To help others find this content, pop on over to Apple podcasts and leave me a review. Or if you are watching on YouTube, drop me a comment and say hello, or ask a question. This is the best way to help others find my content. 

Now, for everyone’s favorite part, what could possibly go wrong in your story? 

Likely to go wrong: Your character leaves the milk out too long, and it goes bad. 

Likely to go wrong: Your character gathers the eggs from the chicken coop. On the way to the house they trip, and the basket they are carrying the eggs in falls, shattering all the eggs. This is why the saying, don’t put all your eggs in one basket exists. 

Possible to go wrong: Your character goes to gather eggs, and the rooster decides to flog them. This could hurt. 

Possible to go wrong: Your character is feeding their rabbit in its cage, when the rabbit attacks them, biting and clawing them. While many rabbits are friendly, or will at least stay away from your character if they don’t like people. A few have been known to attack. 

Unlikely to go wrong: Your character goes to milk a cow and walks behind it. The cow kicks them. This could cause serious injuries or even be deadly. 

Unlikely to go wrong: Your character is a bee keeper and goes out to collect honey. In the process, they get stung. However, they have been stung so many times that this time, their body has an allergic reaction. If they do not get help quickly, this could be deadly. 

Improbable but still technically in the realm of possibilities: Your character tries to use pig poop in the garden. They unknowingly contract a pig disease. This could be deadly. 

Improbable but still technically in the realm of possibilities: Your character is butchering a cow for the first time, and it takes them so long to cure the meat that some of it goes rancid before they can finish. 

Thanks for listening! Until next time, happy wordsmithing.