Nevadans?

[aubreynoramarie]

Thanks Genny. That is REALLY good advice and that what I will do for a while. This dog has not once in the past year and a half that I've had chooks even batted an eyelash at them. Must have been something in the air this week. It was only my two smallest an weekest ones. Agnes wasn't killed by him. So yes I think you're right. We are so connected, him and I, that I am positive he will get the point. Thanks for the advice- it's really good

 

[sherylreno]

Quote:

Darn it - he's just very eager right now trying to be the man of the coop! I wonder if there's a place he can go and learn from an experienced rooster on how to treat a lady?

Hang in there Aubrey!

Elvis is y bad dog who I always thought was a good dog

he's a wolf in Sheeps clothing!

Sorry Aubrey, it slipped my mind Elvis was a dog, that's what I get for reading at work.

 

[aubreynoramarie]

Quote:
Elvis is y bad dog who I always thought was a good dog

he's a wolf in Sheeps clothing!

Sorry Aubrey, it slipped my mind Elvis was a dog, that's what I get for reading at work.

it's okay, you're a busy lady!

 

[sherylreno]

Thank you, now I need to add something else to lunch too! I just thought of it and you'll love it, it's a surprise though!

 

[aubreynoramarie]

Quote:
You big tease! I'm so excited!

 

[Jeeper1540]

Ron: Do you butcher your own hogs or take them to a guy to butcher? We are planning to do it ourselves

 

[NevadaRon]

Quote:
Actually, I take them to a gal, Julia Mori of Mori Meats in Fallon. I don't have the facilities to handle anything that large. She charges me $1/lb. of dressed weight - that includes making sausage and smoking the bacon and hams. Her sausage is some of the best I've ever tasted - she seasons it delicately so you can still taste the pork.

ETA: Good luck doing yours, though. Someday I would like to do it myself; I'm just not there yet!

 

[Jeeper1540]

Quote:
Actually, I take them to a gal, Julia Mori of Mori Meats in Fallon. I don't have the facilities to handle anything that large. She charges me $1/lb. of dressed weight - that includes making sausage and smoking the bacon and hams. Her sausage is some of the best I've ever tasted - she seasons it delicately so you can still taste the pork.

ETA: Good luck doing yours, though. Someday I would like to do it myself; I'm just not there yet!

We usually do the deer ourselves. The best butcher in town can't do it at all this month, and there really aint anywhere else good up here. There's someone in Battle Mountain, $.50 a pound, but they don't smoke meat so we figured that we could do it ourselves and not get smoked meat or take a hot drive there and back, and pay for it to be done, and still not get smoked meat. There is someone in Jerome Idaho who our neighbors use for their deer but we can't really afford to go to Idaho right now. We figured since we've done deer before, this can't be too much harder and it would make more sense to do it ourselves. We have a great electric grinder for sausage, and good seasonings as well. Plus, our CAL Ranch store has started stalking casings for summer sausage and breakfast sausage, and seasonings for summer sausage (we already have breakfast sausage seasonings from the deer) So we are hoping to make some good sausage as well.

We are only doing the one pig anyway, and we got ice and ice chests so we don't have to worry about it going bad during the heat of the day.

does the gal that does your pigs do game animals as well? Maybe we could try her if I get a deer this year. Thanks for your help Ron!

 

[HorseFeatherz NV]

Quote:
If you don't mind some tips - they may or may not be helpful to you.


Get some bed sheets that you can throw away or do not mind washing and reusing to butcher. The sheets are great to wrap the carcass in while you are working on a section - helps keep flies off the meat and dirt from flying/falling onto it.

Block and tackle - for lifting the body to bleed out - use a big tree (if you have one) or barn beam. We always used our truck to hoist the body.


Do you know if you are going to scald and scrap the hide or just remove the skin? We usually just skinned them - lots of work scrapping.


Have fun

or atleast enjoy it as much as you can.

 

[Eglyntine]

Hi All!!!!

I know it has been a while since I posted but it has been pretty rough around here the last couple of months. I had mentioned before that I had to switch doctors after my old one basically quit to avoid lawsuits and jail time. Well switching doctors meant starting all over again. I had to get retested for everything, go through the whole "let's try this medicine that does absolutely nothing but the doctor does not believe you until you go a month in total agony while he figures out that you are telling the truth." Long story short, I have been in a lot of pain while waiting for the new doctor to catch up. I had to pretty much put everything on hold while I dealt with this issue.

I have been hatching out chicks though. Having broody hens makes it so much less time consuming than incubating and then having to keep the chicks in a brooder, etc. Out of 35 eggs I was able to hatch out 30 chicks so it has been really successful. My girls are pretty fierce about setting, hatching and protecting their chicks. I do not think that I could ever go back to the other method of taking care of chicks after it being so easy this way. Broodiness is definitely contagious that is for sure. I have 3 girls right now that are insane with broodiness. *LOL*

I have got some really weird looking chicks out of these hatchings that is for sure. I will have to take some pictures of my buff orpington X golden laced wyandotte X cuckoo maran chicks so you all can see what I am talking about. The WCB Polish X Australorp is pretty funny looking as well. I still have not got my new segregated layout setup. We were supposed to do it this last week while my DH was on vacation but he and the boys got sick the first day of our vacation so I am going to have to figure out how to do it myself. Now that I am feeling better and have my pain lvls somewhat back in control it should not be that hard to get things built now.

I made a neat little discovery over the last couple of weeks, I have been getting two deep dark brown eggs a day for the past several months and of course all of the breeds I have are supposed to only lay regular brown to off white eggs. While I was going through one of my many chicken catalogs they had a picture of a Cuckoo Maran that looked a lot like Hortence. So I flipped over to see the Barred rocks and started looking for any difference btwn the two breeds when I noticed that Barred Rocks have yellow legs while the Marans have white legs. So the next time Hortence showed up in the kitchen I picked her up and sure enough, she has white legs not yellow. Mystery solved of where the chocolate eggs are coming from. It is pretty funny how you miss little details like that when you are SO sure you know what the hell you are looking at. *LOL* Pride is a terrible thing sometimes.

Aubrey: I am so sorry to hear about what happened to your babies. My Dad took over parentship of my brother's English Bull Terrier when he died and he brings him over here to hang out with my girls from time to time and although he has not killed any of my chickens yet he does get himself lathered up around them and breaks out chasing them sometimes. I do not think he has any intention of hurting them but if we were not out there with him I am sure he could easily give them a heart attack especially in this heat wave we have been going through the last week or so. I just lost one of my GLW hens yesterday and I suspect my dogs had something to do with it. The last couple of days they have been running out into the yard and for whatever reason they have had the urge to chase chickens. Chickens' hearts are pretty fragile things as it is and if you add extreme heat and an over rambunctious dog in the mix it is a definite fatal recipe. I would just keep an eye on him for a while and reinforce that he is not allowed to chase chickens and you should be ok.

As for wanting a polish, I have had several ppl stop at the house and ask me if I would be interested in selling them polish chickens the last couple of weeks so I have been toying with the idea of ordering a few extra so I can start breeding them. I put in an order for Red Crested Reds, Buff Crested, and Golden Laced. If you would be interested I could give you a couple of the chicks when they arrive. All of the hatcheries that sell the crested breeds only do St. Run orders so there is no telling what sex I will get but I am sure there will be plenty to share.