Farmerjan's journal - Weather

[farmerjan]

Just a couple of minutes as my brother came in on his way home from the visit to Fl friends and I was testing yesterday and dealing with this PITA cough.... but I am feeling a little better. Weather was nasty, wet, dreary... sun came out for 2 minutes and was gone again....
BUT... today is sunnier and getting windy. Anticipation of the cold front coming in. Was down to 29 up to 42, and back down to 35, now at 11 a.m.. Tonight is supposed to be in the SINGLE DIGITS... Saturday 30's and 20's night... then back into the 50's, next week. ...... PNEUMONIA weather for sure. The best thing is no rain in forecast for several days. Ought to dry out the ground although we are not near as wet as @Baymule in TX or others....

Got samples to pack and shipped.... worked on a couple of boxes, and stuff to load in truck for dumpster run. Saw a mouse in the kitchen last evening... SOB's.....

 

[Baymule]

When is it going to warm up for you? I hope your crud doesn’t get any worse. At least no rain.
Mouse! Maybe you need a pet rat snake in the crawl space or basement or whatever you have under the house.

I lived in an old house one time that had mouse turds by the dustpan full. Even found a snake skin under the sink in the cabinet, where that snake fattened up on mice and shed its skin! That house also came with a jug of antifreeze by the toilet to keep it from cracking in freezing weather.

 

[farmerjan]

Sunday morning. Going to meet with brother and DS in a little bit. Yesterday was down to 13 when I left to go to test at 3:30 a.m..... COLD..... just cold. Ground was hard though and DS and brother moved all the hay down the hill from the very high up field where we make it, since the ground was frozen... DS hasn't been able to get up there to get it out. Then after I got home from testing, I met them at the barn, we sorted through the cattle and got 15 calves that we took to the sale. Some prices were through the roof on the ones that made the graded pens, the "culls" brought alot less. Sold most of them, the few culls were going regardless, and only brought back one that was off one of my cows since she didn't make grade and can stay on her momma for awhile since the cow is short bred. She is getting some age on her so may not be around for too many calves but she will calve in the fall instead of this spring. But she can keep her calf for awhile and will benefit from the spring grass. Kept the one open one of mine that had a crummy calf and will put some weight on her and sell her in a month or 2 when there are a few more to go.... calf is off.
We saw steer calves in the 4-5 wt range hit as high as 2.20.... most in the 1.90-200 range. We didn't have any steers in the graded pens, just a couple of the cull ones and they were small, and needed to be gone.
Heifers in the graded pens brought in the 1.70's..... that is what we were getting for good steers last year.

Cull cows were in the .80's to 1.00 / lb. Hamburger is going to cost more this year, let alone any good cuts of steaks. If anyone can buy a 1/4 or 1/2 from a local farmer, you had better get it. DS has gone to $6.00 lb on the half but that includes the processing... that has gone up also. It costs $75 / hd just to kill, $.80 to cut etc on the hanging weight and an extra .15/lb for vacuum packing but there is no way would we go back to paperwrap as there is next to no quality loss with vacuum packaging. I am not kidding about the prices.
I used to be able to have a WHOLE animal, killed, processed, vac packed, frozen, and in my freezer for under $300..... TOTAL not counting the value of the animal... (my animal so "free" cost of animal)....
Now you are looking at it costing TWICE that, or MORE, for just one animal....
There is a decided reduction in cattle numbers and it is showing up in the increased feeder prices already.... and we are not into what I consider "buying" season for feeders. Usually by late Feb/ early Mar prices really start to jump on these feeders.
Contacts are saying that 450 lb heifers were $2.40's in the MO/OK area last week. OMG.... It is going to be high for the next 1-3 years as we try to rebuild some cattle numbers from all the drought selloffs... even with people going out as well, there will be a reduced cattle herd for several years.

There was an outbreak in avian influenza and a flock of over 40,000 was killed 1 hr north of here recently. Quarantines in effect for a 5-10 mile radius. There are A LOT of poultry houses up in that area. I realize that no one on here has anything in that sort of scale.... BUT... it will affect the whole availability of poultry products in a ripple effect... as the shortage of eggs and such is showing. When a flock is found to be infected, and the birds killed, that is the beginning of what is a normally followed protocol of 6 months of empty house on top of the disinfections and all that. For turkeys, that is at least one flock LOST to the farmer and lost income. That is that many less in the "pipeline" of the food chain. For broilers (meat chickens)... they are 42-45 days old from hatch to kill..... that is 4 FLOCKS lost.... and 20-40-60,000 birds in a house all according to size....
Lost food in the food chain will cause all the prices to rise..... and shortages, and that will result in more ripple effects......
Regardless of the fact that almost every single person on here will probably never raise more than 10-50 chickens in their flock... the outside influences of the "commercial farming world" is going to be felt....,

And to top that off.... would you believe that the prices being paid to dairy farmers is dropping off???? YEP, the "blend price" set by the gov't has dropped about $1.00 / 100 lbs milk (remember a gallon is 8.5 lbs so about 12 gallons in 100 lbs).... and forecast is to come off another $1-3 per cwt in the next 4-6 months. How many of the small dairy farmers do you think will stay in business with the costs of everything else so high they cannot afford to even fertilize their fields to grow crops....?????

Got to go hang some clothes in this warmer sunshine.... Supposed to hit 60 by mid week... yesterday never got above 35... NUTS !!!!

 

[Mini Horses]

Beef and chicken and turkey....I see all being more expensive than it has already become. Chicken can rebound faster simply due to faster production and growth time. Cattle -- that's a few years. Can't change that. Will give better prices for producers

The piggies seem ok, for now. Goat & sheep will probably see some sales increase but, already very expensive at customer level. There's a more limited customer base. Often availability, and price, have limited buyers who might try these meats.

Rabbit and duck will probably increase for those who raise them. Neither are a large part of normal customer base in stores. At least in most of USA.

Backyarders will be in decent shape with their provisions -- although considered weirdo by many. Just let those naysayers  smell the BBQ grill sizzling the steaks, ribs and chickens.

 

[canesisters]

I'm going to ask another of those 'uninformed' questions.
At the local farmers markets I see plenty of beef, lamb, pork, chicken, sometimes turkey - never have I ever seen goat. Or sheep. Or maybe it's there under some other name?? But I can't remember seeing anything at my favorite stand and not knowing what it was...
I've not ever eaten either one that I know of - and would have to google how to cook it. But I don't know how I would go about even getting some other than contacting a farmer directly. And then I'm not sure how it would work? Would I have to buy a whole goat and take it to the processors? With steers, often several folks get together to buy halves or quarters or even splitting a quarter and they just meet at the processors with coolers & pay for whatever they have arraigned to pickup. How does that happen with goat or sheep?

 

[Margali]

Not a uninformed question. Virginia is prime sheep & goat country. Goat may be labeled cabrito (spelling?)
I would look for local facebook sheep and goat groups people often list there when they go to process animals.
Another method is search for "Custom Exempt" processors in your area and let them know you are looking for sheep or goat meat. These are the smaller butchers that process the animals. They can probably get you in contact with the sellers. It's win-win for them.

 

[farmerjan]

Sometimes sheep meat is called lamb or mutton... but mutton is an older animal.... I just don't know about finding any for sale but to contact any local processors... they usually know someone that has an animal that didn't get spoken for, or a 1/2 or 1/4 of beef that didn't get spoken for or someone backed out on... same on hogs... I don't do much facebook but you might find a local farm on there that has sheep or goats and contact them directly....
Locdal processing plant charges $150 for complete processing of a lamb or goat... you will get only about 1/2 of the live weight if lucky so only about 25-50 lbs meat on a 50-100 lb live weight.

 

[Ridgetop]

You won't ever find anyone advertising "mutton" which is any sheep over 12-18 months old. Mainly because mutton is tougher, has a much stronger flavor (sometimes unpleasant) than lamb, and was never very popular. When we kill an older sheep, we have it ground up instead of cut into chops and roasts. When I was in boarding school in Ireland, we had mutton every day. That was a long time ago though, and the convent raised their own.

Goat meat is available, but you have to find an ethnic supermarket. Goat (cabrito is kid, or chivos) is very popular with Mexicans, Cubans, Mediterranean and Middle Eastern ethnicities. Look for specialty Mexican and Middle Eastern markets for goat meat. Goat meat lacks the heavy fat cover of traditional wool sheep breeds and has a lighter taste. It is similar to hair sheep. It has also been compared to venison but without the gamey taste. You might have to order it at the market because it is not always available. Here the Costco that sells mainly to restaurants sells goat.

 

[Mini Horses]

Lamb is available at most grocery stores. Limited cuts and almost all I've seen was NZ or Aust. Goat -- almost never! Actually saw a small amount of frozen goat at a Walmart once. Was cubed with bone. Looked to be a leg portion. Nothing like what many would buy. Mine I cut into ribs, leg, chops, etc. It is red meat and very lean. Honestly, I made a stew an it tasted very beef. Breed, age, feeding all make a difference in taste of processed meat.

Around areas with larger ethnic populations, grocers usually carry more selection. Often ethnic grocers will carry meats that the chain stores don't.

From Richmond north into DC area seems to have a lot of buyers...based on what butcher buyers tell me.

 

[Ridgetop]

Our family loves goat meat - as long as it isn't an old intact buck! lol We actually had someone request an old intact buck for slaughter though once. He was an African immigrant and said that people from his area in Africa preferred the taste of older intact bucks.

We prefer eating young wethers. One summer we took lamb and goat to my in-laws camp for a family do. Hearing that we had brought goat meat our nieces made faces and declared that they would not eat any yucky goat and would only MAYBE try the lamb. DFIL grilled the goat and lamb and we all went to the table to find that my nieces had eaten all the goat meat before anyone else even sat down! My kids were annoyed that they did not get any goat since they preferred it to lamb. LOL