What other birds do you process?

[Dogfish]

Deer, elk, bear, ducks, geese, turkey, pheasants, grouse, salmon steelhead, halibut, lingcod, yelloweye.......

If it has fur, fins, or feathers, it may likely get processed at our house.

 

[Steve_of_sandspoultry]

Steve) what type of quail do you raise? Whats the average dress weight on them?

Corturnix quail. To be honest I have never weighted them dressed. We normally skin them and just take the breast and leg 1/4's to save freezer space.

Buffalo quail leg 1/4's always amaze people. lol

Steve​

 

[sonew123]

Quote:
Corturnix quail. To be honest I have never weighted them dressed. We normally skin them and just take the breast and leg 1/4's to save freezer space.

Buffalo quail leg 1/4's always amaze people. lol

http://i244.photobucket.com/albums/gg37/sandspoultry/misc/QuailBuffaloWingssortof.jpg

Steve

good grief how long did it take you to process all those tiny suckers? Oh PS I was looking at you website and Im drooling over the turkey's!!

 

[KatyTheChickenLady]

Quote:
You are mental!
sonew123 sounds so temporary, you've been around long enough for us to get to know your true personality; I think you should change your name to RoadKillQueen.

xoxoxo

 

[Raiquee]

Steve) thanks for the picture! By judging them compaired to your thumb, I don't think they'd be over 1lb dressed out, which I don't think any quail gets over a pound. Although I could be wrong, I haven't gotten any positive answers about Jumbo Bobwhites.

 

[ChickenPotPie]

Quote:
I hope you have a LARGE freezer. That's a LOT of meat!

My husband and I made it our goal to not buy any of our meat from the grocery store for our family of 6. We decided to accomplish our goal by the end of this year. Of course, we want/need variety in our meats. Well, we're already at the point where we're set for the year.

We had one pig that the kids raised to at least 275lbs in the deep freeze. Even if it's a 50% dress out, that's a ton of meat. It has taken us forever to get through it all.

We process our extra show birds (RIRs) but that is not many so we bought meaties (Freedom Rangers) to give them a go. 25 birds plus extra unwanted cockerels that folks gave us for the table = 1 chicken every two weeks for the entire year! Considering one chicken could potentially be a few meals, that's more than enough chicken.

I have begun a conservation project of heritage turkeys (small, self-reproducing birds). I bought a trio last year and had what I'd call a great hatch this year. We sold extras and kept a few. 1 female will be added to our breeders and we'll process the other 3. We'll cook one up for Thanksgiving and I'll likely make ground turkey of most of the rest since that's what I'd buy at the store. That's a lot of turkey for the year. I may have to give some to neighbors.

We have a few dairy goats. Any male kids born will be processed. Extra meat will be given to friends. A few kids is a lot of meat so between the chicken, turkey, and goat, we're already set with enough to share with friends.

If that were not enough......I have a habit. A rabbit habit. I show Jersey Wooly rabbits locally and nationally. It's my thing.

I cull hard. For me, that means we have another source of meat. A highly nutritious source of meat. While any rabbit is edible and we do eat even the teeny breeds we raise for show (Jersey Wooly and Polish), I also have a soft spot for conserving endangered livestock so I picked up some rare American Chinchillas - a meat breed. My trio at 70 days old were 4lb, 4.5lb, and 5lb live weight. Rabbits dress out at a high percentage so those are at least 3 lb carcasses from a 5 lbs animal. Oh, and rabbit is more filling than other meats so you naturally eat less of it. The breed I have are good mothers/milkers, does weigh 12 lbs, have about 9 kits per litter, kindle (have a litter) 4x/year on an easy breeding program, and kits dress out at 9 - 10 weeks of age. I have a trio and have the potential to get over 200 lbs of meat on non-commercial breeding program. THAT'S A LOT OF MEAT! Just think if I processed them at adult weight.

Haha! Okay, just kidding, that's a Cichlid

BUT...I do like to go fishing a few times per year, so we've got occasional fish. Much more if I make just one deep sea fishing trip.

So, that's chicken, turkey, goat, rabbit, fish.....did I mention we live on a cattle ranch?

We're not even going to purchase any beef from our landlords as we have too much already. Meat is just one small part of our diets, really. I'm going to scale it down a bit and sell extra rabbit as BARF diet for pets.

Anyway, my point is that you really don't need to have a lot of animals to keep you in meat for a year. Try raising a flock of meaties or whatever your most commonly eaten meat is for your family, and then go very small scale on the others or specialize in one or two and trade with your neighbors that raise other types of meat. Just my thoughts.

ETA:

Sonew123, I kid you not, my husband called me just this morning on his way to work to tell me that there was "fresh turkey" in the road just a few miles from our house just in case I wanted to go pick it up. I told him, no, I'd just let one of our neighbors get it like last time.

Unless I hit it with my own car, I'm not eating it.

Good for you for being so quick in thinking!

 

[jossanne]

Quote:
LOL My husband tapped a turkey hen (BBB) with his car when she was butcher-size, and she died. TAPPED. Seriously. He was pulling his car around to the front of the house before work, maybe 2mph, and didn't even notice her step in front of the car, from behind our van. He parked, came in the house, and a minute later our son came in and said, "Dad, did you see what you did to the turkey?" We went out in time to see the turkey in its death throes. The front tire was on a few wing feathers. There was no mark on the head, no bruising on the meat. So we started to butcher her in a hurry, in the rain no less, so he could get to work on time. In the process of cutting the wing tip off, he sliced open his thumb and had to call in sick to work so I could take him for stitches after I processed her! LOL She was delicious!

Dumb turkeys!

 

[treldib]

ChickenPotPie, I must take advantage of your knowledge of Rabbits

. What is the best meat breed? Which is fastest growing? Largest? Has the most offspring per year? Etc.
Thanks.

 

[Raiquee]

ChickenPotpie) Thank you for your response! I know it sounds like a lot for us, but in retrospect we have a lot of family that want to eat family raised animals. The current count is 11 others, not counting ourselves. That doesn't even count the friends that have said they'd split a cow/pig with us!

Luckily I have a lot of options, but I do assure you, pigs and cattle will come later on once we figure out what we are getting from our chickens/ducks, before we even move onto sheep and goats. My main idea is similar to yours, we don't want to buy really anything from the grocery store anymore! Don't get me started on my current garden

It's amazing for the space I have! And right now, I can only give enough away for my father, I can't wait until I can give the rest of the family veggies too. I do hear you on bartering with neighbors, and we might do that for pigs. Although I'd really like to have cattle, for the benefit of the milk. I really want to do cheesemaking, and well having a milk cow is awesome news! The calf to raise up for meat is kinda like a bonus, ya know? We could always sell the calf if we still are good on meat, or raise to slaughter age and sell that way too. I think what you are doing with the rare breeds is awesome, espessially the turkey. I could never raise turks, I think they are too ugly!! (i'm sorry!) haha. Hubby wanted to do rabbits, I told him no. lol I heard they taste good, but he could always just hunt them.

Good news?: We have 2 large freezers, then the one on our fridge, plus hubby wants to pick one more up

Plus we got a food vac sealer!

(I love those things!)

Jossanne)

poor turk! That's pretty funny tho. They are delicate big birds I guess!

 

[Steve_of_sandspoultry]

Quote:
Corturnix quail. To be honest I have never weighted them dressed. We normally skin them and just take the breast and leg 1/4's to save freezer space.

Buffalo quail leg 1/4's always amaze people. lol

http://i244.photobucket.com/albums/gg37/sandspoultry/misc/QuailBuffaloWingssortof.jpg

Steve

good grief how long did it take you to process all those tiny suckers? Oh PS I was looking at you website and Im drooling over the turkey's!!

You would be suprised, it takes less than a minute per bird to dress. You tear the skin right down the breast and around the leg 1/4's, fillet the breast halfs off and cut off the legs. Sometimes we will do the whole bird stuffed but that is kind of a pain. On a quail after the legs and breast there isn't much left to eat. What you get is very very good. Quail and pheasant is our fav's here.

Steve