A NU-(bian) Goat


Notice something in this picture? That’s our newest edition to the goat pen. He is comin’ in for a flyin’ leap across the finish line at the goat-Olympics. It is sort of like the Olympics a lot of the time in the goat pen. We picked up our new Nubian buckling Monday night from a friend (the Goat’s name is Buckwheat).


Buckin’ Bronco? Buckwheat is.



To give you an idea of Buckwheat’s size he is about 4 months old and weighs 64 pounds. The eventual idea is to phase Billy the Kid (our other buck goat) out into the freezer and replace him with a milk breed (Buckwheat). We don’t really want to be milking a goat that has a lot of Boer in it as Nanny has a lot of Alpine.











I don’t know how many of you can jump on top of your house, but Billy the Kid can.






The goats have really thinned out the weeds in their pen. Tuesday night we placed some scrap tin on an existing exercise platform to give Buckwheat some protection from the weather since the others don’t really want to let him into the shelter. Nanny is getting along fine. We expect her to deliver by Christmas. We’ve have some egg eating chickens (they’re Buff Orpingtons) and I think that they are going to end up in the stew pot. We’ve giving these chickens several chances and done all we know how to do and they eat more than they produce.

Samuel

COW PATTIES


The day finally came for "RIBEYE" the steer to start on his way to becoming steak and hamburger. The killing went fairly quickly. The first shot took him down, the his throat was cut to let him bleed out. Ribeye tried a few times to raise up and kick Keith as he tried to chain the legs for hoisting. He wasn't quite ready to give up so a second shot was in order. This brought him to a quick end. As you can see from the picture Ribeye isn't half the cow he used to be and it took a lot of guts to get him that way. All four quarters are hanging nicely now in the Allelon Farm basement (see their blog sites for a more complete photo journal of the event). The butchering of the meat will take place after the beef ages for 3-4 weeks. Stay tuned for that adventure.


I think the other cows are looking for Ribeye!


The boys work diligently at preparing the hide for tanning. A first cut (pun intended) was made at fleshing the hide (only the bug chunks). Tomorrow we will get back together to finish the fleshing process and prepare the hide for the next step in the preservation process. If the cameras are ready we will catalog the whole process for future reference and laughs. This has truly been wonderful experience for our families. It is nice to know where your food comes from and that the animals had a good life before they were slaughtered.

I am looking forward to processing our next batch of chickens. They are still a little small but hopefully they will fill out a little more by mid November. We plan on keeping two cornish hens to cross with our buff orpington rooster and hopefully raise our own meat bird stock.

Our Nanny goat is very pregnant. Hopefully we will have some milk in a month or two. We are looking forward to raising the goats and trying our hand at making butter, cheese and soap.

God has been very gracious to us. We are thankful for the circle of brothers and sisters in Christ He has placed us in.

ROOSTER to ROASTER


WARNING...The following blogging entry has photos of chicken processing. If you don't care for seeing how birds are butchered please close your eyes as you read.

The kids told me the other day they were having problems with our Aracana rooster. He was our bonus bird thrown in with the batch of broilers we processed back in June. We had never tried killing a bird the old fashioned way by chopping off the head...So we decided to let the kids give it a try. We have all heard stories of how the birds hop around and generally make a mess.

We took an chunk of a tree we had recently cut down as the chopping block and Joshua sharpened up his throwing axe.

The bird was none too happy about the event and was a bit uncooperative.

Well that bird lost his head over the whole matter and was soon hopping mad...Although seemingly without much direction. Reminds me a lot of the management around where I work. Oh well lets not dwell too much on that right now.



Well after a bit of excitement everything calmed down and it was time to hand the bird up and let him finish bleeding out before we started the plucking process.


Laura wasn't all that happy about where we hung him to drip, but that humming bird feeder hanger was mighty convenient.


Well after we hung the bird up we decided to salvage a few feathers off of him before he went into the scalding pot. And not being ones that like to waste much (the dog really likes our chickens-not in the best way for their health), I had Samuel give the head of the bird to our dog. She generally gets all of the organ meat and has a real liking for the feet, but this is the first we gave her of a head. It didn't take her too long to separate most of the hackle feathers and devour the head.



Next comes the scalding pot. This losens up the feathers and makes them come out relatively easy. The best way we have found to check the readiness of the bird is to try pulling on the pin feathers in the wing. When that comes out easy then it is ready for plucking. Don't leave it in there too long or that skin will come off with the feathers when you pluck it. This bird stayed 2 1/2 minutes in water at 140 degrees F.

This rooster plucked extremely easy. We had a few too many hands involved. It is really a one person job, but all three boys had a desire to participate. It works better when you have more birds. It was good to go back to the old way of doing things, if just for the experience. One can get a bit spoiled by the Bradshaw Bullet Bucket.

Next comes the gutting (if you want the $5 word its eviscerate). This type of bird has a much smaller body cavity, so I had to be a bit more careful make the cuts. Overall it went very smoothly. Didn't get one complaint out of that bird.

The bird dressed out at 2.5 lbs. A bit small but enough for a meal. I can't stress enough how much better these normal birds taste when compared to the standard broiler variety. It takes them a bit longer to grow, but then they don't eat near as much. The skin feels more like a latex, you need a sharp knife to cut it with. But it makes a delicious broth. Now tonight we are going to cook this bird up. He will be our gust of honor at dinner.

All things said, it is good to know where our food comes from and how it was raised and slaughtered. It gives me a better appreciation for life and death.

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. Philippians 4:6