To clarify about the young cockerels I process for dog food, feathers are not included. My policy is to allow the baby roos to grow out at least a few weeks, just because I feel they have a right to something of a life. Also, when it isn't sex links, or autosexing breeds, I want to be very sure that I am culling a male. I pluck, or sometimes skin the birds as usual; it is very easy to do because the feathers slide out more readily than they do on an adult chicken. I then pressure CAN them, usually raw pack. They are processed like any other meat, 75 minutes for pints or 90 minutes for quarts after reaching pressure. At my altitude, I must use 15 lb pressure setting and it generally reaches that at 13.5 lbs pressure. At sea level, you can use a 10lb gauge, just like any other food you might pressure can. What I have then are shelf stable jars of chicken ready to go. I used to run the meat/bones through my VitaMix, but have learned that is not really necessary; they just mash very easily. It is not a good idea to pressure can starchy foods, it can be done, and I have experimented with it, but expect a lot of seal failures if you do. When I have leftover rice or stale bread, I stir it in to the mix when I open the jar of meat to prepare the final product. I believe what we get when we use the cooked whole bird is similar to the biological appropriate raw food (BARF) system, it's just not raw. It has worked very well for me for about 4 years now; the dogs are in good health, and I do not need to worry about what may be in the pet food. Sometimes, I add vitamins to my dogs' routine, but that's hit and miss and I never notice any difference.
About the slaughter truck, you just make an appointment and they come out with the refrigerated truck. The animal that is selected is brought down very quickly by a shotgun. The guy that does ours is so good it takes just one shot and the animal never knows that anything's coming. We use a family meat locker business out of Barstow who have been doing this for years. They cater to small holders like ourselves and the hunting trade. I am pretty sure there are services like this elsewhere, but a rancher with a lot of animals would be better off shipping them to slaughter. Anyway, the process is interesting. After the kill, the carcass is drawn up via a truck mounted crane, then eviscerated. The usable parts, liver, kidney, etc. are placed in plastic bags and left for us to deal with and the offal remains on the ground along with the blood that has drained and we bury that. I have a neighbor who will cook and eat ANYTHING, and he takes some pretty surprising parts home to cook and is the only person I know of who will prepare beef pizzle. There is not much waste to this process either. After that's all done, they take the steer back to their locker and process and package it to order. We can have them deliver it back, but we usually go get it.
We are fortunate to be able to feed our calves relatively inexpensively because we sweep up all the fallen hay from the bales at the store as we load them. They calves get to eat horse quality hay which is much nicer than what is generally fed to cattle. We almost never have to break out a bale for them; there is enough waste hay. We do supplement with Beef Builder or something similar, and they get about 15lbs a day of fruits and vegetables from the local fruit market in exchange for fresh eggs that we provide to that family. Here is something interesting about cattle that I did not know until we started this project: they choke easily! Their teeth are very small, and they do not have an agile mouth like a horse. I chop all their fresh food leaving nothing bigger than a walnut. They eat all kinds of waste food and thrive on it: pomegranate, citrus, pineapple, rinds and all- the only fruits or veges they can't have are avocado pits and skin, bad for them as it is for chickens. If we just had to feed our cattle purchased hay all year, this would never "pencil out," but we still might have done it for the fun. We are in the high desert, so grass is very sparse. Hogs are less fun, and never have been as economical, I hope not to do those again. We do all this in partnership with neighbors who wish to be included.
About the slaughter truck, you just make an appointment and they come out with the refrigerated truck. The animal that is selected is brought down very quickly by a shotgun. The guy that does ours is so good it takes just one shot and the animal never knows that anything's coming. We use a family meat locker business out of Barstow who have been doing this for years. They cater to small holders like ourselves and the hunting trade. I am pretty sure there are services like this elsewhere, but a rancher with a lot of animals would be better off shipping them to slaughter. Anyway, the process is interesting. After the kill, the carcass is drawn up via a truck mounted crane, then eviscerated. The usable parts, liver, kidney, etc. are placed in plastic bags and left for us to deal with and the offal remains on the ground along with the blood that has drained and we bury that. I have a neighbor who will cook and eat ANYTHING, and he takes some pretty surprising parts home to cook and is the only person I know of who will prepare beef pizzle. There is not much waste to this process either. After that's all done, they take the steer back to their locker and process and package it to order. We can have them deliver it back, but we usually go get it.
We are fortunate to be able to feed our calves relatively inexpensively because we sweep up all the fallen hay from the bales at the store as we load them. They calves get to eat horse quality hay which is much nicer than what is generally fed to cattle. We almost never have to break out a bale for them; there is enough waste hay. We do supplement with Beef Builder or something similar, and they get about 15lbs a day of fruits and vegetables from the local fruit market in exchange for fresh eggs that we provide to that family. Here is something interesting about cattle that I did not know until we started this project: they choke easily! Their teeth are very small, and they do not have an agile mouth like a horse. I chop all their fresh food leaving nothing bigger than a walnut. They eat all kinds of waste food and thrive on it: pomegranate, citrus, pineapple, rinds and all- the only fruits or veges they can't have are avocado pits and skin, bad for them as it is for chickens. If we just had to feed our cattle purchased hay all year, this would never "pencil out," but we still might have done it for the fun. We are in the high desert, so grass is very sparse. Hogs are less fun, and never have been as economical, I hope not to do those again. We do all this in partnership with neighbors who wish to be included.
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