Coffee anyone ?

[Baymule]

Good to hear from you, thanks for checking in!

 

[Blue Sky]

Black Friday sale starts today at Tractor Supply. Dog beds will be half off. I have to get the big ones, they are $50, so $25 is a deal! Drinking coffee, y’all have some!

Baymule I started using blue moving blankets folded for dog beds. I think we paid $9 for one. Just a thought.

 

[Baymule]

TSC dog beds on sale still weren't big enough for my dogs. Trip, male Great Pyrenees and Carson, black Labrador and Great Dane cross, sleep on the porch at night. I wound up getting another 3'x5' rug, already have one, for them to sleep on. Usually they are outside, but in real cold or rainy weather, they come to the porch. Sentry and Sheba, Anatolians, stay with the sheep and sleep in the barn in bad weather.

Good morning. Up at 4:00, made coffee and cornbread. Coffee for me, cornbread for Thanksgiving dressing. Gonna go stick the turkey in the oven and got to make a hashbrown potato casserole. Take with me tomorrow and heat them up.

 

[Mini Horses]

A cold 23 out there!! BRRRRRR. Did someone flip me Into January???

I'll deal, just not happily. . I see a lot of hot coffee happening today.

Still haven't decided what cooking adventures to have for tomorrow. I'm thinking maybe a Boston butt, as I can make BBQ from it the next day...I think there's 4 in the freezer. Not in ham mood....DD just finished off a turkey. So fortunate to have the choices, for which I'm thankful! Pumpkin pie is for sure! Really wanting that.

 

[messybun]

Whole industrial chickens go on sale for less than a dollar a pound. No way I could raise chicken that cheap. I’ve bought a lot of those on sale chickens before, budgeting to feed my family.

Pork chops go on sale for $1.88 per pound. Slaughter charges are $65 kill fee plus $1.15 per pound, hanging weight. I can’t raise pork for $1.88 per pound.

Poor people and most middle class people can’t afford to pay the price I have to charge for the meat I raise. Industrial meat feeds this country. Us as farmers may not like the methods, but it is needed.

I’ve actually sold birds and gotten store bought chicken. 5 birds could get 10-12 store bought chickens that were, quite frankly, larger and better for eating. It’s unfortunate about not being able to compete with mass producers, but it’s good that we have them imo.

 

[messybun]

I did not call your children artificial.... I said you got pregnant by artificial means. Which you did, whether it was through an embryo transfer or by artificial insemination of your own eggs.... it was not an "all natural" conception. And I have friends that have gone through artificial means to get pregnant and I am glad that they got to experience being parents.
If you are saying that we have to consider the ethics of creating an animal that cannot breed naturally or live longer than a few years in comfort, then you need to really look at the ethics of any and all types of breeding and promoting any other forms of reproduction. There is a place for many different types of animals. As well as a place for different types of farming.
A normal life for the AVERAGE turkey is 4-5 years, regardless of what the "experts" have said is 10 years. If the BB ones only can live 2 years then that is fine. I never said that we should only consider BB or only consider heritage breeds. There is a place for many different breeds and ways to raise them. Maybe you are from a long time farm/ranch family. You are not the only one with farming heritage in your blood. And if they had that successful a past to enable you to be able to afford to do what you do then you should be thankful too. If you feel that you should not support the BB breeds or other things like that, it is your privilege. But you should not say that it is disgusting or immoral for someone to use the most modern technology available because you simply do not agree with it. You talk like "heritage breeds" are the better breeds..... they would not survive without breeders that also believe they are preferable. Yet they have been developed over the years from the basic wild turkey.... If you look at many of the turkey breeds, they have been "manipulated" as far as being bred for a purpose. Midget turkeys are considered a heritage breed now, on the list of endangered breeds... yet that particular breed was purposefully bred for the smaller "table bird"...... white for the purpose of cleaner picking of pin feathers.... so there is constant breeding for certain purposes.

Most heritage breeds are more suited for free range type situations. Will forage more in many circumstances. But believe me they are not the do all, end all. They also have their limitations. I am not one to say I prefer the current practices of commercial confinement raising of animals. But, there is something to be said for the protection of animals from predators too. I raised "free range" layers... provided 30-50 DOZEN eggs a week..... until I started dealing with the #@&#@ bald eagles here. I could not legally shoot them. I could not protect my flock from them and still have them free range. Financially I could not afford to put up fencing and run LGD's to keep the eagles out on rented land, because the return on the eggs could not justify it. I finally got out because I was just tired of fighting a losing battle. Once I get my place here fenced, to where I can have a dog for protection, then I will consider if it is worth the money to have more than enough hens for myself and to keep the various breeds I have at healthy breeding populations. I will be fencing also so that I can protect my, soon to be moved here, fruit trees from the over population of deer we have. A dog will hopefully help with that.
What I am trying to say is that you should not condemn farmers for using the available tools to try to make a living. Promote all the heritage breeds you want. But it is not a one size fit all and it is not fair to label a certain type of animal, or the farmer that raises it, because of what you think is ethical.

I’m sorry, this is off topic, but do LGDs seriously protect your birds from eagles? I’m asking because every year we have a hawk come and nest in a tree right across the road (different hawks) and while my geese do fantastic I still get concerned over my birds.

 

[Baymule]

I’m sorry, this is off topic, but do LGDs seriously protect your birds from eagles? I’m asking because every year we have a hawk come and nest in a tree right across the road (different hawks) and while my geese do fantastic I still get concerned over my birds.

My female Great Pyrenees would leap in the air, teeth chomping, at hawks. Had to put her down no too long ago, old, down in her back legs and in pain. None of my other dogs do this. Where I bought 2 registered ewes, they keep an Avbash LGD in each pasture because of eagles killing lambs. So yes, LGD's can protect your birds from hawks and eagles, but only if they consider them a threat.

 

[Cecilia's-herd]

cornbread for Thanksgiving dressing.

I’m just learned what dressing was yesterday! It sounds delicious, do you chop up the cornbread like you do stuffing?

 

[Jesusfreak101]

i have a shepard lab mix and she wont let large bird near our animals. she hate vultures and hawks. also had pigs that would chase down hawks for coming near the chickens.

 

[Alaskan]

Corn bread dressing:

Cook selected giblets in huge pot with an onion quartered, parsley, and celery in chunks, bunch of sage. Cook for forever.

Cook cornbread, real.... so stick of butter melted in cast iron pan and use 1/2 corn meal and 1/2 corn masa, no wheat.

When cornbread is cooked and cool, break up into bowl, add a couple of eggs.

Take neck and any other beloved giblet bits out of pot, also take onion and celery, some parsley (yes, all limp and over cooked) dice it all fine and toss into bowl with cornbread and eggs.

Take a casserole dish and melt a stick of butter in it.. swirl it about to grease the dish, pour most of the melted butter into the bowl of broken up cornbread.

add salt and pepper and a bunch of sage, little thyme to bowl of cornbread.. mix it with your hands... start adding liquid from the pot of giblets etc. You want it super moist, but not dripping.

Get your casserole dish, ... gently drop in dressing, do NOT pack, be gentle

Cook until hot all the way through.