Talking about ACV, I just bought a bottle of Braggs and mix it up with regular ACV. It seems to develop the mother on its own. .... The apple tree in the old house did not give us much apples at all this year. Dont' know what the deal is since we have had such nice weather compared to the last 2 yrs.
I have bad news. One of the peachicks died.
I do the same Tweety - Deerfield Acres, who isn't active on this forum much any more, put me on to that little tidbit. Now I buy the cheap ACV from
Walmart, pour off a cup, pour in a cup of the Braggs and then pour the original
Walmart ACV back into the Braggs bottle. That way the mother develops in all of it. I buy a new bottle of
Walmart ACV whenever I am down to about half, and then it sits there growing the mother while I keep using the current bottle.
Apple trees sometimes produce on an every other year basis. One year they will have only a few apples, the next the branches will be laden, and the following year it will be scant again. Unfortunately this year was my year to get tons from ours so it may be a couple of years before I have enough apples to learn how to make my own ACV (but Danz has definitely got me interested in doing it).
So sorry your little peachick died - I hope the gaping one gets better and you can find him or her a companion easily.
I can see the benefit of having a butchering class. It is really a simple process but lots of people just can't get over that initial hump to do it. I can and do do it but that doesn't make me enjoy it by any means. I prefer to do several birds at once rather than setting it all up for one or two birds.
Exactly! I know how hard it was for me to get started because I hadn't been exposed to that kind of thing. Mostly I didn't want to cause undue suffering to the bird, and that led to me putting off doing the first one as long as possible. I figured there are probably lots of others out there who are in the same boat and now that I've done enough of them to gain some confidence and know that I can do it without the bird feeling too stressed or experiencing much pain, I thought if I could help someone else get over that initial hump too then….I would.
I actually just do the processing inside any more, as there is less to set up and put away afterwards. I have my cone hung outside, so I do the deed there but then carry them in and do the rest inside. I've done two at a time, but more often I just do one early in the morning, then put it immediately in the crockpot and let it render the meat at a slow temperature all day long. By doing it more frequently, I've kind of got into a rhythm where I can do a chicken from start to being finished cleaning up in about an hour - slightly longer for a duck or turkey. If I were doing a large number, it would be worth setting up outside but just the setting up and taking down can take almost an hour if you have to cover a lot of distance to retrieve everything you need, so for me, doing one at a time inside is what is working the best.
Well, remember the fox we had here a few weeks ago? It was back this morning. We could see it out in the pasture, way out of range, but were able to watch it through the binoculars. We could see it was eating something and I felt smug that all of my birds were locked up tight (as usual) last night. I figured it had a rabbit or something. Later, DH and I walked out to where it had been and I was disappointed to find a pile of black feathers. Then I remembered that yesterday morning one of my (black) hens had somehow got over the fence and into the lagoon fence. This happens a lot and - as usual - I left her to figure out how to get back. Last night it didn't even really occur to me to look for her in the coop, and I didn't notice her in the lagoon. If you'd asked me, I'd have said I assumed she made it back in hours before. Well, I guess she didn't. Lesson learned.
The dogs are in the chicken yard at night - and I've had no losses from within the chicken yard so I really think their presence there is effective. But apparently all bets are off if a bird is NOT within the confines of the chicken yard at night. I can't let the dogs roam the whole property because in order to give them access to the pasture, I'd have to let the goats and sheep out.
But - all bets are off for that fox as well. Next sighting, you can bet, I won't be using "out of range" as a reason not to try. I'll for darn sure be trying to get myself back IN range.
Trish, how is your cat doing?
I'll be thoroughly disinfecting the grow out area this weekend with Oxine (unactivated since it is an enclosed area with 1 window). I may even bring the lone peachick back inside the house with me so I can keep an eye on it even more.
