Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

[beverly evans]

Quote:
Can you guys have at least one big freezer outside at least in the winter months, then if its freezing outside even without power the stuff stays frozen?? Or is that just dumb thinking on my part and not feasible??

 

[Beekissed]

Pop has gone to seed.

But when the weather breaks here (raining buckets), I'm going to try to get this new camera to work to get some more and better pics of the birds so I might as well have my helper take one of me too...just to scare everyone!

By the way...Jason is single (never Married) and is talking about looking for a good women to settle down with when he gets back to the states. He has changed his mind about making the Corp his Career. He told me he has learned some lessons about women....one is that the prettiest physically might not be the best wife material. He's going to look for one who can carry two bails of hay at a time, pull plow and give birth while field dressing a deer she had just harvested.

My sons are looking for the same thing...that Holy Grail of woman that no longer exists as we know it.

The only thing out there are young girls who can text on cell phones with both hands, pull a face each time they are expected to do housework, and don't want to raise their own children after they give birth and don't know a thing about any kind of harvesting.

 

[Beekissed]

Can you guys have at least one big freezer outside at least in the winter months, then if its freezing outside even without power the stuff stays frozen?? Or is that just dumb thinking on my part and not feasible??

That would only work in areas where it stays below freezing at all times and that doesn't happen here any longer...used to, but not much now that the climate has changed. We can be in the single digits one day and be in the 50s the next, so keeping a lot of meat in a freezer that got disabled when the winter storm came through and the electric hasn't been restored when the temps warm up can get to be a nightmare.

Last year, during a freak summer storm, I lost about 150 lbs of pasture raised, FF finished CX because I put off canning for too long..the meat was parceled out to those who still had electric and I only got a few chickens and some bags of legs back from that ordeal. We could never have afforded to keep a generator going long enough to keep that meat well frozen for the duration of the outtage and the gas was hard to come by at the local stations. Lesson learned. Don't trust your food supplies to anything that requires an outside source of preservation...can it up and you need never worry.

 

[hellbender]

@hellbender your son looks a lot like you.

That certain complements me...thanks!!!

 

[hellbender]

Can you guys have at least one big freezer outside at least in the winter months, then if its freezing outside even without power the stuff stays frozen?? Or is that just dumb thinking on my part and not feasible??

And for my part, I have free natural gas so as long as I keep my equipment in good shape (which I do), I should be fine, even if the power goes out for a long period of time. The natural gas generator is a new addition but I too lost so much 'stuff' during the long outage that I had to buy the darned thing. There is no way I could can all the processed spent birds/cockerels, beef blood etc. Freezing is the only option.

I have gas lights too but they weren't much help during our last major outage because it was hotter than the hinges of hell for that time of year,

I have a couple natural gas refrigerators but they are pains to deal with and aren't frost-free. I considered buying a couple of natural gas freezers

but didn't have to be a math wiz to figure out that buying the semi-industrial natural gas generator was my best option.

I'll answer that question about making money on eggs again....NO...I'm thousands of dollars in the red. The generator isn't even paid for yet!

 

[Beekissed]

Understood! You had the outtage the same time we did...a big freak wind storm came through in the hottest part of summer and knocked down trees clear across the state. Power out, hot temps, the Nat'l Guard was out passing out water to people, etc....it was a mess. Some old folks died from the heat and loss of power, etc. We are currently staying warm on the bounty of wood that fell on our land and road in that storm.

I didn't even know they made natural gas freezers and generators! I grew up with an old natural gas Servell fridge and they were none too big and the freezer frosts up so bad that you can barely squeeze in some ice cube trays. But..it was better than nothing at all and better than keeping the fresh milk in the spring.

 

[Triple Willow]

Give a wave when you get down here to FL...It's sposed to be a WONDERFUL 80* today! I'm LOVIN it!! 

Sooo... you're going to be CRUEL today too! HMM!!! LOL I just went out and threw salt on top of two of my coops to TRY to melt some of this stuff. It has been sleeting since early this morning and it just sticks where it falls- not good. I need a huge old fashion barn... at the top of a hill. Enjoy that beautiful day!

 

[Beekissed]

Just rain so far for us...lots and lots of rain. Makin' my bones ache like a toothache but no ice as of yet. The birds are out in it like it's a spring rain so the worms must be drowning in their burrows and coming up for air. I've cut back from 4 c. of feed to 3 c. due to the unseasonably warm weather and increase on foraging causing the flock to leave FF in the trough.

 

[Shellz]

No, they are Belgian Malines, and are not yet available in the US.  She is in Canada.

Right you are. These birds will be available for sale in the U.S. in spring from a certain Florida hatchery.

 

[Triple Willow]

They are both, yummy when cooked or raw.  They are also a cultural experience here in the mountains, with festivals created just around ramp season.  They have charity benefits featuring ramp dinners, the local pizza place offers ramp pizzas, they are sold along the highway and the location of ramp patches are guarded as "secret" and are much like the family treasury.  Hillbillies take their ramps quite seriously.  You can smell someone who has been eating ramps long before they reach you and before they open their mouths...the smell seeps out of the pores of their body. 

It's a mountain thing. 

Do you have a pic of ramps? I wonder if they grow around here. How did they get the name ramps?