Wisconsin "Cheeseheads"

[CherMoz]

I hope to make it to the Mother Earth News Fair sometime. Glad you had a good time!

 

[jvls1942]

Took a drive to the Mother Earth News Fair today. It was a lot of fun! I got to drive a tractor for the first time! So many fantastic ideas..... and no land to do any of it. I did come home with a purse made from old mail and seed bags, a basket woven in S Africa, and a book on cordwood construction.

I guess I will keep playing the lotto.

Mel, if you win the lotto, you could hire someone to live in the country for you.

today is till the cukes day
Annie has both rows of beets hand weeded, so I can carefully till those, too..
soon I will spread straw around the cukes and squash..

then if I feel ambitious, I will do the corn one more time. it is growing nicely now. went from calf high on the 4th of july to waist high on the 8th.. have to be careful about being in the patch when it gets this high,, a guy could get poked in the eye when it grows so fast..

.I weed whacked some tall weeds that were shading my pepper plants..

my tomato plants are still quite short, but they are getting tomatoes on already..

the jury is still out on the DE application to the potatoes.
Annie will have to give me her opinion ..

///////////jiminwisc//////////

ETA / Annie reported only ONE potato beetle on the row of potatoes I dusted with DE..

I was going out to do the rest of the rows (6) but it is raining. that was not supposed to happen until at least Tue or Wed
I might still be able to do some tilling, though...

.........jiminwisc.......

 

[3dognite]

Hello
I'm new here! We are in Walworth, don't laugh at me because it's just barely WI! May as well be IL, right?

We have 4 French Black Copper Marans, 4 mix Marans Olive Eggers and 9 Midget White Turkeys. We are very new to keeping chickens and so far so good. But I have sooooo many questions!

I have just recently come to terms with the fact that most of my little flock of chickens are roosters, just 2 hens out of the bunch. So I am looking for some advice about what to do with all these roosters?!?

 

[jvls1942]

Hello
I'm new here! We are in Walworth, don't laugh at me because it's just barely WI! May as well be IL, right?

We have 4 French Black Copper Marans, 4 mix Marans Olive Eggers and 9 Midget White Turkeys. We are very new to keeping chickens and so far so good. But I have sooooo many questions!

I have just recently come to terms with the fact that most of my little flock of chickens are roosters, just 2 hens out of the bunch. So I am looking for some advice about what to do with all these roosters?!?

.and to the cheeseheads .

we do not discriminate, anyone is welcome.

I personally eat extra roosters.. others try to rehome them. that is not an easy thing to do because hardly anyone can, or wants to, keep roosters..

a few of us can, because we live way out of town and are really not BYC'ers.
I have one rooster. I did not choose to have him,. a friend just dropped it off here because he had too many , and couldn't stand it because I had none..

.........jiminwisc..........

 

[3dognite]

We may end up doing just that. We are also rural so it's not really of matter of whether or not we can keep them. I would just prefer hens for the eggs. I suppose I have enough room to separate them when I need to and then I can be patient about rehoming them.

So this may be a silly question but everyone says "soup". Do you really have to make soup out of roosters or is that just a joke?

Also, it sounds like you have a really nice garden going on!

 

[bigzio]

Welcome 3dog.... You can roast them too....however, I find them on the tough side if you grill them....butcher them when they are about 6 months old or sooner if the are large enough. They do make wonderful soup though.

Just came in from the garden...the rain chased me in...I did manage to eat a few small zukes first.

bigz

 

[corewassen87]

Almost time to start butchering. Just waiting on the scalder to get up to temp. Once they're done they're going into a cooler of ice water. How long should I wait to bag em and get em in the freezer??

 

[jvls1942]

Almost time to start butchering. Just waiting on the scalder to get up to temp. Once they're done they're going into a cooler of ice water. How long should I wait to bag em and get em in the freezer??

by the time I answer this, you will probably be all done.

we bag ours and freeze them as soon as they are cooled off in the water.

I have read where some people put them into a cool place for a day or two..

we do everything on the same day,, except if we do so many that we are too tired to finish them, then we keep them good and cold , usually in ice water, overnight..

how many are you doing ?

do you use a plucker ?

..........jiminwisc..........

 

[corewassen87]

by the time I answer this, you will probably be all done.

we bag ours and freeze them as soon as they are cooled off in the water.

I have read where some people put them into a cool place for a day or two..

we do everything on the same day,,  except if we do so many that we are too tired to finish them, then we keep them good and cold , usually in ice water,  overnight..

how many are you doing ?

do you use a plucker ?

..........jiminwisc..........

I had only 5 to do. 1 roo and 4 hens. I did the dreaded hand pluck but the next batch I'm gonna get some sort of a plucker setup. The roo dressed at 8.2 lbs and the hens from 5-6. Birds are still on ice in the cooler. Thinking on how to package them.

 

[jvls1942]

Quote:
you know you can borrow my plucker any time..

we put our whole chickens into large freezer ziploc bags.
but if you want to save space, cut them up .

you will end up with drum sticks, theighs, breasts, backs, wings
necks..

when we are going to cut them up. we cut the backs off when we are gutting them, makes the job so much more easier.

we package a few backs together for soup.

we have a recipe for drum sticks, so we make a few packages of drum sticks and/or thiegh.

you can bake a chicken in pieces just the same as if it were whole.. we don't bother stuffing our chickens..

to squeeze the air out of the bag, dip the bag of meat into a pail of cold water. just don't let any water into the bag.
this works on all types of plastic bags.
you won't get any freezer burn in the plastic bags.

............jiminwisc.....