Misfitmorgan's Journal - That Summer Dust

[farmerjan]

Very true @CntryBoy777 .... and the cost of the slaughter if it is a bigger animal like a beef.... that'll set you back if you aren't expecting it.... but the reality of it going to butcher is a big wake up call.....

 

[misfitmorgan]

How are your pigs doing? Feeder pigs here have hit the stratosphere. No more $50-$60 piglets, prices are $100-$250 for a freaking FEEDER PIG!! Insane. All of a sudden, everybody wants to raise their own, that's good, but I wonder how many will stick with it. Anyway, the slaughter places are now booked a YEAR in advance. I finally found a farm that raises pigs at a reasonable price, an hour and a half away and reserved piglets for March 2021. Now I have to see if I can get a booking date for August or September 2021--for pigs I don't even have yet!

Our pigs are good. We just sold 2 piglets to a friend for $45 each from Sarah. 6 piglets left, we are trading 2 piglets to our friend holly for 30lbs of ground beef from her butcher steer she had done last week. Of the other 4 piglets 2 are being traded last I knew for grain silos to another guy we know(that or he is getting the 2 gilts we have been growing out). The last 2 are suppose to be sold at $100 each but yesterday DH said the guy was not responding to text so we shall see.

We also have a barrow almost butcher weight, he has probly 3 more weeks left.

 

[misfitmorgan]

ALWAYS better to book and then have to cancel.... Even in the "normal times" our local slaughter place would have someone to be able to pick up an open spot from a cancellation. But it is insane for the places to be booked a year in advance. I am going to call the chicken guy on Monday to see how things look with him.... get a few dates booked for all these broilers. If the fox leaves any...... They are staying locked in and I am going to set a few traps to see what I catch. But I want to see how things look for him and get a couple of "regular dates " ..... Never know how many I am going to have and if things go along, there ought to be a big call for killing size chickens at the fall poultry swap since there wasn't a spring one. That would be nice, could have alot to take to sell.... all according to what gets "left behind" at the 2 different farms now. The ones at the closeby friends place will be going out around June 20th he said.... we will talk closer to then and see how they look. He said one house had a virus and they were treating them now.... might not want them.... or there might be alot of "small ones" and they would do okay once I get them out of the houses and in the air too. These are not near any of my purebreds, and probably never will move them to the new house near the purebreds/ and layers..... We will see....

You might see this really crash too when people find out how much work raising some of these animals are; and the amount of money that goes into feed and all. In a year there also might be a few more smaller local type plants to be opening or re-opening.... if some of the proposed legislation goes into effect.... But it just might get some people that have been straddling the fence to get off it and get serious about providing some of their own food..... I think that gardening will stay at an increase...... it is not as big a money investment as animals, and if it fails..... not as big a loss to those that have never relied on it for a good portion of their food.

We were talking about the same thing with our friends a week or so ago. All these people buying chicks most dont realize it is around 6 months until they get eggs. I literally saw people posting on FB about their new chicks and looking forward to eggs in 8 weeks or so. I didnt even bother to reply. Another lady got poults and was asking if they would be ready for butcher for july 4th when her family was coming to visit. It's pretty disgusting all these people buying poultry and animals without a single scrap of basic research. So I figure in a couple months there will be a huge number of people selling all these animals, if they survive.

For those that are "gettin' in to it" the cost isn't realized and the feeding, tending, and protecting is a "warm adventure".....but, it is the 1st slaughter that separates the "serious" and the "curious"....and "reality" sets in.....

I agree. We have had calls from many people wanting us to come butcher for them because they "just cant do it" But dont want to pay for to be done at a butcher. We have not accepted any yet.

 

[misfitmorgan]

In other GOOD news my brother and his fiance moved back from Seattle, they arrived wednesday afternoon. They want to do homesteading type stuff but they are worried about the butchering, if they could do it or not. So I told them they are in luck because we are butchering everything this year and they can come help starting with our meat chickens which should be in 2-3 weeks depending on size. Then a few weeks after that will be ducks, then we have lamb and pig, then way off in the distance around november we have turkeys.

 

[Baymule]

In other GOOD news my brother and his fiance moved back from Seattle, they arrived wednesday afternoon. They want to do homesteading type stuff but they are worried about the butchering, if they could do it or not. So I told them they are in luck because we are butchering everything this year and they can come help starting with our meat chickens which should be in 2-3 weeks depending on size. Then a few weeks after that will be ducks, then we have lamb and pig, then way off in the distance around november we have turkeys.

That ought to help them decide if they want to be farmers or not!

 

[misfitmorgan]

That ought to help them decide if they want to be farmers or not!

Thats the idea!

 

[Bruce]

They want to do homesteading type stuff but they are worried about the butchering, if they could do it or not. So I told them they are in luck because we are butchering everything this year and they can come help starting with our meat chickens which should be in 2-3 weeks depending on size.

Excellent! Yep they will have a chance to learn the process from someone with experience rather than just YouTube videos (which aren't necessarily bad). If they can deal with butchering YOUR animals then they would have to decide if they could handle the job with animals they raised themselves.

 

[misfitmorgan]

Excellent! Yep they will have a chance to learn the process from someone with experience rather than just YouTube videos (which aren't necessarily bad). If they can deal with butchering YOUR animals then they would have to decide if they could handle the job with animals they raised themselves.

I'm hopeful. The only thing my brother has done before is help butcher a deer...once. So pretty big learning curve. Poultry should be a pretty easy first thing.

 

[misfitmorgan]

Everyone seems to be doing well.

All the piglets were sold and left last week, we ended up selling the last 4 for $100 each. Pigs are doing fine. Sarah and Stubby are geting low protein feed to dry them off. DH is going to breed them to our friend Poland China Boar so he can some terminal piglets and retain a gilt so we have a bit of fresh blood for a Sara replacement.

The calves are doing good, Big spot we thought was not growing then we realized he was growing length not width, little spot is growing width. So we are guessing we will have one long lean and one short chunky. We have given them resorb twice, little spot got an infected bellybutton so it got iodine and 5 days of Pen G, he is all good now. Both are eating calf starter like champs now and getting thru 3 lbs a day, and nibbling hay a tiny bit as well as 4quarts of milk replacer twice a day. Calves are a little over a month old now.

The sheep are good, but need sheared, wormed, and hoof trims. Hopefully this weekend we will get some done. DH hurt his shoulder somehow 2 weeks ago so it may be me on a crash course and some really ugly shearing. I've a mind to figure out how to set up the headgate in the pasture and make them stand for shearing, only real thing stopping me is I would probly get the tar kicked out of me.

Also I did tell you guys about our new giant ewe, right? Like really giant....Her head is chest high on my 5'4' self. No clue how I am gonna shear her DH could barely do it the last 2 years we sheared her.

The goats seem fine, we did lose Phoebe a few days before getting the calves, I dont think I told you guys. She got into a 55 gallon barrel of pig food locked in the barn and bloated. The pigs helped, our boar broke his gate, knocked over the barrel and had his fill. Then he was bored so he lifted the garage door on the bar and the wooden fence thats goes outside the door and let himself out. Phoebe let herself in, the other goats did as well but it must have been not long before I found them. The goats have been free ranging on the property for pretty much 2 months now. Since the tag alder forest leafed out they have been steadily clearing out all the underbrush and as far up the bushes/trees as they can.

Our Meat turkeys are doing good...finally. They have been a struggle but we have 9 left, had 10 until I moved them last night and somehow one of the hens broke her wing so she was put down.

The heritage turkeys I only ended up with 6 that survived the shipping. That's 6 out of 25 poults...that was depressing.

The meat heads are at the odd stage where they can be perfectly fine and then you know drop dead or just stop eating. Not doing bad though out of 26 we have only lost 3.

The ducks are good but messy as every and stuff mostly fluff. They seem to take forever to get feathers.

DH also bought 4 adult jumbo pekins and what looks like an appleyard drake. So we have 8 adult ducks, also 3 of the hens are sitting on nests. Hoping to get some ducks in the freezer this year so sitting is great!

DH also bought 30 quail, a mix of bobwhite and coturnix, he has 30 quail eggs in the incubator as well as a few duck.

The garden is doing well, this week is the first weeding for it. Everything came up well except the spring onions and zucchini....oddly. The tomato plants for the first time I can recall got transplant shock but are recovering fine and my peppers have gone yellow though I dont know a cause.

I think thats all i have to report.

 

[misfitmorgan]

Got out brooder Room cleaned out yesterday even though I still have midget white and ducklings in there. Hopefully they will both be moving out this weekend.

I got an email letting me know my Bresse chicks will ship Monday, they were delayed by 3 weeks due to USPS issues on orders before mine.

I'm also ordering 50 more meat birds....trying to decide now if we want to go with more jumbo broilers or try the slightly slower meat bird type. There are many many to choose from these days.

I ordered a drill plucker and heat shrink bags for processing the batch we have. I was going to get a drum plucker but it's $400 and I will see if the drill plucker is worth anything first, it was $24. If we were selling meat birds I would invest in the big plucker but I can justify it for 50-75 meatbirds a year, a few turkey and ducks.

I'm suppose to go today or tomorrow and pick up 5 goslings, they appear to be almost completely feathered out and the people only want $8/each which is way cheaper then i can order them.

The batch of quail eggs DH had in...hatched 1. So we have 1 quail baby in a tiny brooder. The eggs he set were from the guy he got the quail from and the guy wasnt caring for them correctly so I dont think the eggs fresh enough. DH set the eggs they have laid since they got here. They went from 1 egg a day to being up to 5 eggs a day after 20 days. They are on proper wild game bird feed, in a proper sized cage and even have a dust bath they love. After we get the poultry squared away, DH wants to build them an outdoor place to live with a flight cage for the bobwhites.