Wow these house meats are growing like weeds! We really need to get them out of the basement- and get the Paws of Doom in there to get rid of the mice that have appeared. I checked my notes and we actually had meat chickens until January last year. I know that some folks are wondering if having this late-in-the-season meat chickens works....and it does. We'll move them out into the turkey house as soon as we can get Debbie, our last dairy goat, dried out.
Today was the last morning I milked Debbie all the way out. She gave a beautiful bucket of milk and just as I turned to take it out to the chickens.... I dropped it and her precious milk went all over the floor. Ugh! And yes, you can cry over spilled milk. I ended up calling the hens in so at least it wasn't such a waste.
In other news, the pigz are huge. We'll have some cold days coming up.....right after three days of straight rain. Timing is not on our side. Butchering pigs is enough work without having to do it in the mud.
That's the news here - did everyone survive the holiday? No Black Friday for us we have enough craziness in our own barnyard. Altho Nibbles did present to me a detailed list of her Christmas demands. Ha! She'll get some coal in her stocking if she keeps it up.
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I kind of enjoy having the meats out in the late fall. As long as they are feathered out and have some sort of windblock and tarp over the chicken tractor outside, they seem to do just fine in the cooler weather. We butcher ours outside and although it can be a little bit cold for us, there are no flies around and the meat doesn't get warm.
Yep! they look quite a bit bigger to me :o) I'm so jealous of them..I'm wondering how bad would they smell if I kept them hidden in my Studio until they wre large enough for the outside and then where would I hide them :o( The neighbors would probably be looking to help me eat them..
Black Friday or not, we love your barnyard! How impressive that you raise meats so late in the season. Ours were finished in October, and that felt late to us.
I'm waiting to see some more of that bacon in the snow action this year. I found the process very interesting last year, and a tribute to how dedicated you are to making life work for you in the good land, wherever that might lead you.
It's sloppy out there alright.... Do you just have a butchering day for the meat birds and knock them out all at once or is that too much to process. Also - skin or pluck? If pluck, by hand or machine?
Girl I LOVE butchering chickens late like this. We usually order our Arnolds in October so we can butcher in November. It's so much nicer to be whackin chickens when it's cold out. Don't have to fight the flies that way! Glad you had a nice Thanksgiving. We did as well and absolutely NO black Friday shopping for us.
hi Carolyn! Yep - we like late season butchering also. We'll put a heat lamp out for the meats and the building is nice and secure for them.
Ginny - you're neighbors really wouldnt want to eat them if they found out how stinky they are. But ha! The laugh is on them --- this is the kind of bird you buy at the store. hee hee hee
hi Jody! Once they reach a good size they do ok. I'm sure they burn up more feed - but we'll start mixing it with cracked corn to keep them warm and also build up some fat.
Thanks VPak, we just need the rain to break and get some cold days and then it will be nothing but bacon hanging in our garage! whoot!
Hi Dave! We do them in batches - gives us more freezer room, is less 'all at once work', and gives us a variety of sizes. We skin and pluck - by hand. We really need a plucker tho.
Hi GW! We'll have to check out Arnolds - Meyer is close to us so the delivery is next day. easy peasy.
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