Kentucky people

[Mojo Chick'n]

Quote:

I was very tempted to just tuck her into the pasture and not call the neighbor... I figured he'd notice sooner or later, though.

meri

 

[ametauss]

Rain - Rain - Go - Away - Come - Again - Another - Day!!!

My barn is full of water... the gutters are full of leaves... The goats are VERY unhappy....

I'm unhappy to have to be walking in that mush mud....

Meri - I too would love to do some deer wrangling and would gladly give you half or more.... My freezer is on the small size..... BTW - Mooky sounds soooo cute, I'm not sure if I'd have the heart to eat him... he could come live out a long life with me....

 

[Mrs. Turbo]

ohhhh I love "deer"

we have one waiting to go into the freezer if I can ever find a decent used freezer. New ones are soooo expensive!We have a small one but it is full of pig....lol

still hope to go to the swap Sat. no fevers today so 24 hours with no fever they can go back to school.....I can taste that bread now.

ametauss would you want to trade 5 blue wyandotte chicks for bread? 2 weeks old

 

[Mojo Chick'n]

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Yeah, it might be tough to send Mookie away to be slaughtered, I just tell myself every day he is dinner someday.

This morning I went out to feed and he walked up to me and rubbed his head on my leg to get me to scratch his neck - he is such a sweetie.

I am sick of the rain, too - barn is wet puddly mud, corral is just as bad (have the calves out of it, but still... it's nasty). The places we put gravel really really helped - no puddles there. I plan to do the corrals and barn, also - just need another load or two brought in. We've used all but a tiny mound of the 12 tons we got last time.

I went out and bought a huge upright freezer last year when we had Stella to put in it (Stella was the Freezer Camp Cow before Mookie - she was our first.) Plus I have a smaller chest freezer, so I have plenty of room for meat. (we also put in two generators in case the power goes out too long here - it goes out a lot

we hardwired them to the breaker box - just have to fire them up and flip a couple switches and we have power to various rooms).

I learned a lot from Stella. Number one thing I learned is to tame the cow so you can handle it

Stella wasn't mean, just VERY friendly and didn't know her own size (or that she had horns) and whenever you went in there, she went nuts trying to get loved on - I think she thought she was a lap poodle. Mookie is a lot more low key and not rowdy at all. Stella wasn't hard to take to the processor at all

I liked her ok, just not overly much.

I talked to Jon last night, he is gonna come home for Thanksgiving, too - so I'll have a houseful soon - I get to do two Christmases this way

I've been dying for Halloween to get done so I could decorate, now I have an excuse and hubby can't whine too badly

Got to run to town for dog food today for the dogs - sheesh they've been eating like crazy lately. I just bought them a huge bag not two weeks ago - In summer it lasts them longer, I guess with winter coming on, they're fattening themselves up. They get free choice food - neither of them are fat (solid, but not fat) so I let them eat what they want. They run all over working it off, so I don't mind feeding them extras. I need to get some treats for them, too. Toby earns treats for stuff (Lily just gets one because she'd feel left out - she never does anything to earn it

) so I need to have some on hand. The difference between Toby and Lily is that Lily is a city dog who likes to lay on the porch and watch the animals - Toby is a farm dog who wants to work with the animals.

He was so good yesterday with that cow. I was surprized, cause I've never really trained him at all. I told him to "move that cow" and he chased it up over the hill off our property, then came back. Happily he knows the difference between stray cows and ours - he is good with our own cows, doesn't chase them in the pasture. Even so,

when I first pointed at the cow and said to move it, he looked at me a couple of times like "Am I gonna get yelled at? Is this a trick?" (had to tell him twice before this not to chase our cows, but he caught on quick - especially after one of the calves kicked him right in the chest

)

He sent it in the right direction, though, and stopped once he had it off the property and came right back - good dog

I have a roast to put in the crock pot today - cost me over 11 bucks!!!!!!!!!!!! can you believe that??? I really needed to have a freezer cow before this. I had no idea how long Stella would last us, I guess I learned something from that too. It was October last year when we took Stella in to be slaughtered. She was actually smaller than she should have been, too. So, with just hubby and me (after Sam moves out) a cow will last us a little over a year - we had four people eating off Stella, so the ratio was off, too. Stella was about 780 pounds live weight when we took her in - I'd like to get Mookie to almost 1000 pounds if I can wait that long.

I hate buying store meat

Stella was so tender and good tasting - I have to season the crap out of the store meat and tenderize it with stuff to make it edible. I never knew it was that horrible to pay that much for meat that was such a lower quality before I ate Stella.

Well, at least if I go into town for dog food I can hit Subway for lunch - I've been craving their tuna subs lately.

ok, enough randomness for one morning....

meri

 

[ametauss]

Mrs. Turbo -- Do you know if they're little girls?? Have they been outside... I would guess not at 2 wks but thought to ask... I'll have to get the brooder set up inside again... the kids will LOVE it.... 5 for 2 sounds right to me... I can see I'll be baking up a storm Friday night....

I just baked up some fresh pumpkin to use instead of store bought so they should be really yummy.... I had to taste some of the pumpkin to see how sweet it was and boy oh boy was it good... I've got two more pumpkins to bake up... at this rate, I'll need to stop and get a few more small pumpkins before they're all gone for the season....

Can you smell it baking now???

 

[ametauss]

Mrs. Turbo, where do you get your animals processed at?? How did they do your bacon?? Growing up a family friend did a pig and the bacon was gross... I'd want mine smoked... We bought into 1/4 cow and it filled my small freezer and we ate off of it for a year, supplementing it with chicken and pork but man were those steaks sooooo good....

DH said I could get a pig if we ate him but I don't know where to go for processing.... I figure if I got a regular pig and a mini-PB pig then DH and DS would be happy....

DH even said he'd do lamb but once DS found out what that really was he wasn't too thrilled with that idea.... We told DS that we were going to have 'Scovie for Thanksgiving and he was crushed to think we'd eat one of his beloved babies....

Now DD is ready to eat anything out in the barn... She's upset because I sold our Turkey's this past summer and is worried about not having one for Thanksgiving... Guess I'll be on the lookout for one....

 

[Mojo Chick'n]

Our processor doesn't do bacon or hams (he will make the cuts - just not smoke or brine them - they come fresh). I'll need to do the smoking/brining myself, I guess. I've been reading up on it.

We got a half a pig this summer - was a spur of the moment thing we went in with someone on. Because it was spur of the moment, I didn't have time to think or research on smoking or brining, so we had most of the bacon cuts put into the sausage - I've got to warn you don't EVER do this!!! the sausage has a great flavor but it is REALLY fatty. I think the pig was fatty to begin with, not a lean pig, and they just added in a lot of the fat. (I do have a few good bags of "lard in the making" though, to render down when I have a chance to make soap.)

This is one reason that I want to do my own pig - so I can raise it to not be all fat and icky. I adore pork - I am not so enamored of extra fat added in. It would be different if they had trimmed a bit more fat before making the sausage, but man, it is greasy!!

I would love to do my own, I know a man who does his own hogs, maybe I'll get him to do mine if I ever raise a pig for meat. I have a place to put a pig - it was even built to be pig escape proof, just that I have calves in there now

With the economy going how it is, and if Cap and Trade passes, I think the price of meat will go way up just like everything else will - it'll really pay to have the land to raise my own, then.

Plus, the little bit of milk I use, I can steal some from Camille when she is nursing babies, so I'll have some every now and then for me

Her mama gives 65 pounds of milk a day!!! so I'm sure Camille will be able to spare me a quart or two every now and then.

Now, if I could just get the dang chickens to grow and butcher out so they aren't so chewy - I'd be all set. I'm sure I'm doing something wrong, because everyone else loves their chickens homegrown - I have yet to cook one that is even able to be chewed. The quail are tender and tasty - but rather small... maybe I should do cornish and butcher them really young for "single serving chickens"

meri

 

[ametauss]

We only cull the roosters and the last set we did, I ended up doing them in a crock pot to make soup... that was the only way to get them tender....

So, if anyone has any hints on how to raise a tender roo, I'd love to hear it...

 

[estpr13]

I am processing some 13 week old this next week and they will be the single serving size chickens since I am single and they will be cornish size. I am getting lazy in processing and am just cutting them up into pieces instead of whole cornish style chickens. Since the roos still don't have red in their combs and waddles they are sstill tender.

I have been told that if you soak a rooster in brine water over night that they will tender up. My neighbor did that to an old (30 week old ) rooster of mine and he was the best tasting chicken I have eaten. Of course... I don't cook very well yet. But he was good eating.

I am getting muddy eggs now. the spilt watering can from yesterdays rooster style WWE smack down has caused all the hens to have muddy feet as that area of the coop is muddy. They then walk into the dusty places and have mud caked on their feet which then gets transferred to all the eggs.

The good thing is that they are using all three nests now. Wow what a relief. No more eggs on the floor. The brood hen is still setting tight and has gotten off the nest to poop and eat and drink as evidenced by ... well you can guess.

I moved a hundred pound sack of old deep litter out into a new composter this past weekend and have been rotating it every other day. When I pulled it out of the coop I leveled the floor and spread all the litter evenly. Well today about three days later there is a big hole in the center of the coop with the concrete floor showing and about a foot of litter along the walls. I threw scratch along the walls to hopefull encourage the girls to move some of the litter back to where it ought to go.

I guess I will need to go in and move the muddy litter into the dusty litter and level it all out again.

 

[Mojo Chick'n]

Quote:
Mine do that too - drives me nuts when I get their coops all looking nice and ready for winter - then they dig the litter all the way to one side of the coop by scratching it, or they scratch it right out the door (happens on a couple of coops).

I get muddy eggs sometimes too - depends on if they are muddy and poopy whether I just throw them or not. If it is just a little mud I try to wash it off, then use those first.

meri