Funny y'all have been talking about growing own food, this last week I've been doing a lot of research online about homesteading. I've got plenty eggs butcher plenty chickens for meat, I can figs,pears, make cha cha and bread and butter pickles. Gonna start growing a garden again. I just having a problem convincing my wife in getting one calf or a few goats a year for meat. I could realy save because my father-unlawful use to be a butcher and we do our own deer processing already.. anyway that's my new kick, oh and wanting some quineas.
And don't name your chickens lol. Makes it easier to send them off to freezer camp.
Funny y'all have been talking about growing own food, this last week I've been doing a lot of research online about homesteading. I've got plenty eggs butcher plenty chickens for meat, I can figs,pears, make cha cha and bread and butter pickles. Gonna start growing a garden again. I just having a problem convincing my wife in getting one calf or a few goats a year for meat. I could realy save because my father-unlawful use to be a butcher and we do our own deer processing already.. anyway that's my new kick, oh and wanting some quineas.
And don't name your chickens lol. Makes it easier to send them off to freezer camp.
That was my thought too, put up a fence around the majority of my pens, like way in the back of my yard I have eighteen 4x4 pens,a 20x20 and a 12x5 coop and It would be easier letting a goat take care of the grass between those.
does anyone have any 4-1-1 on goats or sheep breeds good for eating and good for feed efficiency..
Some is fair... PrimroseMom1, she's beautiful!! I can't show my 8 yr old the picture because of the rabbit! I'm fighting that battle right now. His teacher has a rabbit as an indoor pet. Not happening at our house! I already have 3 piggies (husband and sons) living in the house!
I find that most kids these days are eager to learn. In some cases, you just have to get them away from their parents (opinion) long enough for the kids to form their own opinion.
The kids that we have come over, may start with a preconceived idea about horses, chickens, etc. but tend to leave with a different outlook. Usually more positive. I did say usually, sometimes they just neat a beating!!!
I did make a rule that they live outside but she is allowed to wrap them in towels to bring inside. They were both hand raised by us (very important) so they are super tame and enjoy just being held and petted. They live in the chicken yard.
How is it that your chickens know just how (and when) to give you a heart attack?
So, today I was talking to someone about adding a beautiful bird to my flock. Sounds great, right? I go out to check on my flock and saw something that scared the crap out of me...one of my girls has black covering a nostril and black spots on her comb. So I freak out knowing I will not bring anyone in if there is a problem with my flock even with isolation. I start searching for answers, and the only thing I can find is dry fowl pox, but it doesn't look like any pictures that I could find and she doesn't show any of the symptoms. So I decide to give her a bath so I can check her further, it all came off! This confuses me, so I place her outside with a little bit of FF. That's when I see it! The first thing she did was move the feed with that side of her beak and than rub her face in the fence line, and once again it looks just like before her bath. (I burn my fence line so it is full of ash.) Fast forward and repeat process, same results. So now I know I have a perfectly healthy hen, messy eater but healthy, and a giant heart attack for no good reason. I found out that she was moving the feed to get the bits of oatmeal. Go figure, I look into a new flock mate and she has to go and freak me out.
Lol! I had something similar happen recently. One of my little Olandsk Dwarf roos looked like he either had a bad case of dry pox on his comb and wattles or someone beat him up pretty badly. I couldn't imagine that he was fighting because my boys get along wonderfully, so I figured he had fowl pox. I called him to me and picked him to to inspect more closely and became even more confused. I finally figured it out.
I had a couple of very smart mice move into my greenhouse recently. I can't let them stay because I do not want them multiplying and the thought of any kind of vermin around my birds freaks me out. The darned mice sprung every kind of trap I tried, so I ordered my own pest glue to make specialty sized glue traps. I won't normally use glue traps because I don't feel like they're as humane as other traps, but I was at my wits end. We made traps to fit on all the sills, eaves & shelves, set them up and shut the door to keep any birds out. Wouldn't you know that before we finally caught the critters, they drug some of the glue traps up the walls of the greenhouse and threw them out of the ventilation doors! My poor lil roo got too close and got glue all over his comb and wattles and then the glue became covered in dirt. Sure was lucky he didn't step on them instead. If anyone's animal ever gets into pest glue, it can be removed with vegetable oil.
Good morning peeps. I hope that everyone had a great weekend.
Was a VERY busy weekend for me. I'm surprised I'm still alive to tell about it. My Friday started off by me meeting a very nice lady that had contacted me about wanting some peacock feathers. Her parents are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary and the theme is peacocks. I may have mentioned this many posts back. My boys were dropping their tails so I would always pick up the feathers because I was going to sell them OR barter. In this day and age, a lot of people do not have readily cash available to buy things but they may have something that is worth more than money. So, in the ad that I posted, I explained that I was looking for canned preserves (jellies, etc) and would be willing to make an even trade. Well after a couple of weeks of texting back and forth we finally sealed the deal. So this is what I received for my bartering for the peacock feathers. I'm happy !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
18 Pear
13 Chow Chow
9 Fig
3 Muscadine
2 Peach
1 Salsa
1 Jar Pickled Chicken Egg
1 Small Fig/Strawberry
1 Small Muscadine/Grape Jelly
1 Large Pepper Sauce
I counted 51.
I tried some of the salsa this weekend and it was SOOOOOOOOOOOO GOOD!!! I made some wheat pasta with mushrooms and poured some of the salsa preserves over it. All I can say is, C'est Bon.
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Well, after meeting with the lady to do the swap, I get home and was outside in the chicken yard. I looked up and saw a utility pole and what looked like lightening. After seeing all the sparks, the lights in the neighborhood went out. I guess a transformer blew. The first thing that I thought about was my pea eggs in the incubator. Nothing I could do about that but to report the outage. So, the lights were out for 4 hours. I don't know what will happen to the eggs but we'll see.
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So, I got up at 5:00 AM (after going to bed at 1:30 AM) and went to my farming leadership class in Baton Rouge. Class was over with at 3:15pm. I drove home and changed clothes and I set out to pick some muscadine. There is the very nice guy that told me that I could come and pick ALL of the muscadine that I wanted. When I got there, I had no idea what I was about to embark on. This guy has literally hundreds of acres. His driveway is about 1 1/2 miles long (away from the road). I was lost just on his property. So, I get there and he shows me his muscadine vines along the fence. Weellllllllllllll the muscadine vines were about 1 mile long. I almost passed out. I said to myslef there is no way that I can tackle all of those muscadine. So, I had brought he and his wife 5 dozen eggs for their kindness being as though he was so kind to allow me on his property to pick all of the muscadine that I wanted and did not charge me one single penny. I thought that was the least that I could do. So, after an hour of picking the muscadine, I was overwhelmed and I had to shut it down and go home . But before I left his wife walked back up the mile long drive way and brought me some of the BIGGEST pears that I have ever seen in my life. I was shocked. She said that she was very appreciative for the eggs. So here is a pic of the muscadine that I picked. I picked 5 gallons. He told me that I can come back any time I want and pick what I want. His wife said that their muscadine just go to waste every year because they really don't pick it.
So after I leave there, I drive home and cut my yard until 9:00 PM. I know that they neighbors were cursing me to kingdom come because I was out cutting grass that late. I never do that but oh well anyway. :/
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So I get up Sunday morning after a great night's rest and cleaned the house and was back and forth in the chicken yard. It was nice weather outside.
So about 4:00 PM, I set out to meet my co-worker who was picking up some more muscadine for me. I met a very nice guy that belongs to the same wine forum/online group that I do and I was asking about muscadine and he said that he would give me some muscadine . Well things worked out perfect because he lives in Vacherie, LA and I had no idea how was I going to get to Vacherie, LA to get muscadine when I could buy some because the gas to get there would be the same if not more that I would pay for muscadine. So, it worked out perfect because my co-worker is from Vacherie, LA and she went home this weekend, so she was able to pick up the muscadine for me. The guy told me that whoever picked them up to bring an ice chest because they would be frozen. Well, when he said bring an ice chest, I wasn't thinking about how many, I was only thinking about keeping them frozen until they reached me. Well, when I met my co-worker and she said that she needed help getting the muscadine out of her car, I was like, "What? You need help? How heavy can it be?" Well, lo and behold when I helped her to get the ice chest out of her truck and opened up the ice chest, I almost fainted when I saw how many muscadine this man had sent back for me. There were so many in there. My co-worker texted me later to tell me that her mom called and said she left some muscadine in the freezer.. I was like, "OH MY!"
This man was so nice to send me so many muscadine. I have never met this person before in my life and I would not know him if I was on the side of him in the check out line in Walmart. There are a lot of good people in the world but I already knew that but this just confirms the goodness of people.
Ice chest full of muscadine
11 gallons of muscadine
I did share my preserves and muscadine with one of my neighbors. She was at a loss for words when I went to her house and explained why I was there. I also shared my preserves and muscadine with my co-worker who picked them up for me.
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Now today, I am going to pick up some free insulation that someone has. She has a warehouse of insulation that she was given from some grant. I think she said that she had 25,000 rolls of insulation. She told me to come and get as much as I want because it's too much for her to give away. She has been trying to give it away but it's just too much.
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I'm glad that I started taking my B12 tabs for energy because without all of this energy, I would be dog tired.
A few years ago, when I hatched a lot of chicks, I ended up with about 75 roosters. It was easy selling them. (notice I said selling them not GIVING them away) My roosters were HUGE so, people bought them for $15.00 each. Their main goal was to use them for eating. The went like hotcakes after people found out that I was selling them. We processed about 15 of them for the freezer and we used them in gumbos and stews. I'm looking forward to more roosters in the future.
I have 19 crowing roosters right now, but most of them are breeders. I do have a few silkies to rehome because I won't be breeding them. I have 2 boys in with my layers that were 2 of the first chickens I bought/hatched. I'm scared to rehome them (Lavender Ameraucana & Basque) because I don't want them to be dinner. We do process our extra Basque and BLRW cockerels. Our flock of white Bresse gives us lots of eggs now so we are finally starting to hatch and grow out a few for processing. We are more than ready to find out if they live up to their reputation of being the best tasting chicken in the world! I'll let y'all know in a couple of months.
Have any of you had Langshans? If mine are typical of the breed than I will never get any more. I have 3 Black Langshans sold as pullets, 2 roos and a pullet, my luck... The roosters act like really mean hens, the pullet crows, all three are really dumb for chickens, and when they come out of the coop I have to look for the tree that fell. They are so massive that there is a "thud" coming out of there.
Yes, I have seen Walmart at that time. Not good. Pretty soon when times get hard, your neighbors will be kicking the door in instead of knocking on the door for food.
Are you growing out Cornish X? They are just nasty to deal with. I urge you to try a heritage breed if you don't like those before you give up. Besides the messiness of the meaties, they were much harder for me to clean over the heritage birds. The Cornish X birds all had copious amounts of internal fat. My heritage birds have been very clean. Sorry to anyone who didn't want those details. :/
Just want to share this with y'all.
Upside down orange biscuits. Mix same part orange juice as sugar. I do one cup sugar one cup orange juice, wisk on stove till sugar melts. Pour most not all in a pan. Save some to pour on top after done. Place biscuits on top then bake regular time. When done take out and flip upside down and cover with powdered sugar..
I did make a rule that they live outside but she is allowed to wrap them in towels to bring inside. They were both hand raised by us (very important) so they are super tame and enjoy just being held and petted. They live in the chicken yard.
Bunny daytime playpen in chicken yard.
Hutch in chicken yard.
Oh PLEASE don't give me ANY ideas! I'm a sucker for animals. I think they play such an important role in kids lives. If my eight year old (Matthew) persists long enough, I may set some ground rules and give in. It will take a while though, I need to make sure he continues to help with the chickens with his current enthusiasm.
btw, if ya'll look at the sticky on top of the recipe thread, in the recipe index are several canning recipes both water bath & pressure, and also recipes for pressure canning chicken & meat.
I guess I need to get Jim to building a chicken plucker & bite the bullet on the meat birds when it gets cooler this fall.
I said to myslef there is no way that I can tackle all of those muscadine. So, I had brought he and his wife 5 dozen eggs for their kindness being as though he was so kind to allow me on his property to pick all of the muscadine that I wanted and did not charge me one single penny. I thought that was the least that I could do. So, after an hour of picking the muscadine, I was overwhelmed and I had to shut it down and go home . But before I left his wife walked back up the mile long drive way and brought me some of the BIGGEST pears that I have ever seen in my life. I was shocked. She said that she was very appreciative for the eggs. So here is a pic of the muscadine that I picked. I picked 5 gallons. He told me that I can come back any time I want and pick what I want. His wife said that their muscadine just go to waste every year because they really don't pick it.
I never do that but oh well anyway. :/
