Dixie Chicks

[Beer can]

That sounds delicious @vehve !
I've never cooked with apples before but I see some dishes call for it I'll have to give it a try.
Added chopped pineapple to coleslaw awhile ago, didn't think I'd like it but it was good.

 

[Beer can]

Off to finish roofing, put up run, and move giants hopefully before work.

 

[vehve]

Beer, especially with pork and game birds, apple works well. One thing I like to do is make pork shanks with basically the same recipe I just described, only substitute the wine with a nice ale and maybe skip the cream.

Bunny is in the oven now, we'll see how it turns out.

 

[perchie.girl]

Processed the rest of the baby bunnies yesterday, we had four left. They weighed 1.2, 1.3, 1.5 and 1.6 kg processed. I'm going to cook up one of those today, I'm thinking I'll throw some onions, apples and potatoes in a cast iron pot, and mix together some butter, garlic, thyme, flour, salt, dijon mustard and pepper to make a paste that I'll rub into the bunny bits, then roast it on high heat and once the meat gets a nice surface, I'll pour in some white wine and a cup of cream and that should make a pretty nice all in one pot meal.

We also did a fall clean in the bunny pen. Destroyed all of their tunnels and took out the nasty bits. It should stay clean for longer now that we got rid of most of the inhabitants. It'll be interesting to see if the two younger girls managed to get impregnated. If not, I think we'll wait until spring to try next time.

Thats alot of meat. 1.6 kilos I had to calculate it out that's 3.53 pounds. I know the different ways to dispatch chickens how do you do the deed with rabbits. Never mind the cute factor they have to be as hard to do as ducks.

deb

 

[vehve]

The cute factor isn't really a problem. We've known from the start they're raised for food, so we've been prepared for it. Sure they're cute, and fun to cuddle with, but on the other hand, they're delicious and processing them will make the bunny pen easier to maintain as 3 bunnies make a whole lot less of a mess than 10 do.

Processing is pretty easy, we use a captive bolt gun (spring operated) to stun them, then slice open the throat to bleed them. And they're pretty easy to skin, a lot less work than plucking birds. One thing I noticed though, rabbits can apparently get the same thing that frogs get, they sometimes move afterwards. Super freaky when a skinned and gutted headless animal starts twitching in your hands. We're still a bit slow at the processing, but every bunny is quicker at this point. I think we can get it down to a few minutes per bunny soon, but I would need to rig up some kind of work station where we could have several bunnies hanging at the same time and just process them production line style. At the moment we've found it easiest to do so that one holds the hind legs while the other one does all the dirty work.

 

[perchie.girl]

The cute factor isn't really a problem. We've known from the start they're raised for food, so we've been prepared for it. Sure they're cute, and fun to cuddle with, but on the other hand, they're delicious and processing them will make the bunny pen easier to maintain as 3 bunnies make a whole lot less of a mess than 10 do.

Processing is pretty easy... while the other one does all the dirty work.

Ok I was thinking of something else... This one is good. I might consider it I will look it all up.

deb

 

[BriardChickens]

@Alaskan yay for selling the chickens at a good price! In my area, people are currently trying to sell their backyard mutts at 20-25 dollars each but can't seem to get rid of their extra cockerels for free! I guess people just don't understand that extra roosters should be eaten. I have heard: that one person contacted their local SPCA to give roosters too. Person was told to bring them to a rooster/chicken sanctuary...

@vehve nice to hear your bunny project is doing well! I have found that rabbits that don't get handled often are actually pretty mean animals, that would make processing them easier...

As for me: every one is doing well. Waiting for my EE hatch from 8/9weeks ago to mature enough that they stop peeping and go over to clucking so I can introduce them to the main flock. My brownish EE hen and black roo created 3 black offspring and 2 blues or is it grey? Hmm
Once the 5 babies are in the main flock their cage will be handed over to the breeding trio of Partridge Chanteclers that currently reside in the chicken tractor. The tractor is not winter approved. Hopefully these 2 shuffles happen before the first snow as the run on the tractor will not hold snow.

In my main flock I have a couple of ducks. The drakes started to fight so I moved 3 over to the layer flock. Still too many drakes in the main flock, but it seems to have eased the tensions, still wanting to move 3 more drakes. The ladies in the duck layer flock are happy with a couple more boys. The ratios in the main flock were way off.

Quails are still the best layers in my coop.. out of 5 hens we get up to 7 eggs in a day!!

 

[Alaskan]

Yep... Quail are excellent layers... I just got tired of cracking tiny eggs.


I too am trying to consolidate.

Selling off the Marans was awesome..... Except it sounds like the person I sold them to will not breed them and sell chucks in the spring. wowsers will lots of people be disappointed. I have the best stock for over 100 miles, and the best priced good stock in the entire state.

Ah, whatever.

 

[hennible]

Nice Fexlix and BC
Now I want quail (again) and rabbits...
First I'll tackle hunting with my SIL's boyfriend, then I'll have an idea of wether or not I could do rabbits.

 

[Beer can]

@hennible Will you be using beagles? That's the easiest and most fun way to get rabbits. Its great cause wild rabbits are free and it's easier to process them for me, didn't raise them. I've ate hundreds of them. I do have rabbits in the plans for spring, miss the bunny poop fertilizer. Lucked upon a breeder of American chinchila meat rabbits at our county fair. Super rare and great meat rabbits, didn't think there was any in our state.