Finally butchering again

[Parront]

Wow at @iwltfum that is really something! Can you elaborate a bit on the events you are having this summer? Sounds like a great way to legally sell meat. Great job growing your home business! You are truly an inspiration, providing wholesome food for your family and community. I look forward to continuing to learn from you.

X's 2!

 

[iwltfum]

I love your cooler, BTW!

Thanks! A restaurant closed down just down the road from me and we bought that cooler from them. It was a bear to move, but it's been an important part of our butchering process.

Props. I'd suggest sheet pans as the racks in the cooler look like they'll be a bear to clean.

I am currently trying to get the household on board with harvesting our own. It might come to: like it, or not...I'm doing it.

Thanks. Thats a great idea. The racks aren't too hard to clean, with a powerwasher and a soap sprayer, but if i can find some sheet pans that fit, I'd definitely consider that. I do like how the racks dry them nicely by letting any water or moisture through them.

Wow at @iwltfum that is really something! Can you elaborate a bit on the events you are having this summer? Sounds like a great way to legally sell meat. Great job growing your home business! You are truly an inspiration, providing wholesome food for your family and community. I look forward to continuing to learn from you.

X's 2!

Thank you. Last year, because farmers markets weren't happening, we had a couple of fresh chicken pick-up days where we sat outside for a few hours on the day after butchering and sold chickens to people who had pre-ordered them. This year we nixed the "pre-order" part and are just advertising that we will be having chickens for sale from this time to that time. We are also going to fire up the hot smoker and smoke a few birds to sell since prepared food options can be few and far between around where I live. I have invited a few musicians to come out and play some live music during the events also - and we are going to encourage people to wander around the farm and find a place to sit down and eat their chicken if they want to. Or they can take it home with them. Keeping it simple at first. We'll see how it goes.

 

[3KillerBs]

I have invited a few musicians to come out and play some live music during the events also - and we are going to encourage people to wander around the farm and find a place to sit down and eat their chicken if they want to.

If I weren't 8 states away ....

Suggestion though -- for biosecurity you might want to make sure that the public is kept well away from your main flock facilities. Maybe set up a display flock in a convenient place for people to look at with the awareness that they shouldn't rejoin the main flock until they've been quarantined?

 

[Tre3hugger]

This year we nixed the "pre-order" part and are just advertising that we will be having chickens for sale from this time to that time. We are also going to fire up the hot smoker and smoke a few birds to sell since prepared food options can be few and far between around where I live. I have invited a few musicians to come out and play some live music during the events also

inspired

 

[iwltfum]

If I weren't 8 states away ....

Suggestion though -- for biosecurity you might want to make sure that the public is kept well away from your main flock facilities. Maybe set up a display flock in a convenient place for people to look at with the awareness that they shouldn't rejoin the main flock until they've been quarantined?

I've always been a bit loose on biosecurity I guess I trust the soil and the movent of the birds to prevent most things. We dont vax for mareks or anything, but the main pasture where the birds are is all blocked off with electric fencing for our goats- most of the fencing will be turned off but it still creates a barrier that people cant walk through and most people assume it's on no matter what. The gates are all kind of difficult to figure out so I'd be surprised if anyone actually found their way into the pasture, but intrepid guests have surprised me before. Most people are more interested in seeing the goats and the ducks more than the chickens anyway .

 

[iwltfum]

Most people are more interested in seeing the goats and the ducks more than the chickens anyway .

It's sort of a beef I've held about chicken tractors from the beginning. They dont "look" like the idea of a chicken that is free to roam and pick at what it chooses - because, of course, they arent. The pens are certainly not bucolic but I've found that the trade off is worth the reduction in the pastoral nature of the farm. Kids dont get really excited to see chickens penned up - even if it is on fresh grass. It's hard to understand how the pasture pens work for the average person.

 

[3KillerBs]

It's sort of a beef I've held about chicken tractors from the beginning. They dont "look" like the idea of a chicken that is free to roam and pick at what it chooses - because, of course, they arent. The pens are certainly not bucolic but I've found that the trade off is worth the reduction in the pastoral nature of the farm. Kids dont get really excited to see chickens penned up - even if it is on fresh grass. It's hard to understand how the pasture pens work for the average person.

The museum volunteer in me wants to create an informational display board about how it works and the advantages of the system.

 

[Isadora]

I really love this! Thank you for making this thread. My husband and I have started raising our own meat birds this year since we finally bought a place where we have enough space to do it. We processed our first batch of freedom rangers a few weeks ago. Oh my goodness, they taste amazing! We have toyed with the idea of going bigger and selling to people. My husband would really love it if he could find a source of income that would keep him around the house more. For this year, we're just going to stick with raising meat for ourselves, and we'll give some whole chickens away... See if we can get enough people addicted to our homegrown chicken.

 

[RUNuts]

One of the things I'm hoping to do by moving birds around different parts of my land is to soften the concrete-hard, compacted, sand-with-some-clay soil.

I've got compacted clay. The areas that really popped were the ones that I poured woodchips on the sheet poop from last year's meat birds. I couldn't abide the smell after a night's worth of poop, so woodchipped it. I've been pondering this, the poop boost starts the growth, but the added carbon content of the wood chips as they get incorporated really feed the soil.

I'd suggest that you add carbon to fluff the sand/clay that you have. The carbon helps my clay absorb water and runoff appears to be better.

Feed the soil.

 

[3KillerBs]

I've got compacted clay. The areas that really popped were the ones that I poured woodchips on the sheet poop from last year's meat birds. I couldn't abide the smell after a night's worth of poop, so woodchipped it. I've been pondering this, the poop boost starts the growth, but the added carbon content of the wood chips as they get incorporated really feed the soil.

I'd suggest that you add carbon to fluff the sand/clay that you have. The carbon helps my clay absorb water and runoff appears to be better.

Feed the soil.

I'm having a big, dead tree taken down so there will be woodchips, but mainly I use pine straw in the run because it's free for the raking on my property.

I'm looking forward to seeing what the ground is like under the current run when we move the chickens to the new Chicken Palace once it's finished. I have to put it back to grass and I expect to see really AMAZING grass there next summer.