Sustaining

I'll spare you the photos of this next post as most of you, I imagine, may be pretty disgusted at reading about it.

We left out pretty early yesterday morning after morning chores and went up to the Jo's and Franks. Back in the early spring they had bought a Nubian/Boer whether (castrated male goat) for fall butchering. His time had kinda come. Well, it hadn't kinda, it had. They also had about 8 roosters and 8 is just too many. One is plenty.

Jeremiah, the kids and I made the 90 mile trek up and butchered the goat. Well, Jeremiah and Frank butchered...actually, it was more like Frank...Jeremiah helped hold the carcass still but really, 2 people is too many when it comes to knife wielding.

We butchered 3 roosters as well. I wasn't looking forward to this scalding bit as my Grandma says to this day she cannot stand the smell of a scalded chicken. To be quite honest, I didn't smell a thing and after Jeremiah's tweezer plucking incident with that wild turkey he shot 2 years ago, I can honestly say that scalding is the way to go! Those feathers come off so easily and after about 7 minutes worth of work, ya gotta clean bird!

Admittedly, I would rather pluck a birth (scalded of course) than smell goat blood. Which brings me to my discussion on goat's meat. So many people love's goat's meat. It's much leaner than beef and it's eaten more around the world than beef.

Jeremiah and the neighbor butchered one of their meat goats last Spring and after tasting it, I thought surely my dairy goat raising was going to be an issue because I just couldn't stomach it! Which is kinda funny in and of itself, because Jeremiah BBQ'ed the thin meat from the stomach of that goat. Anyway...it wasn't that it was bad, at all. It wasn't the greatest meat we've ever had either. Both of us agree that "Cookie" the cow's t-bone steak was hands down the best meat we've ever eaten.
For those of you who don't know, "Cookie" was the same neighbor's angus that was butchered last sprig.

At any rate, as I said, it wasn't that the meat was bad. I was there for the butcher and something about the smell of the blood really soured me to goat's meat I think. I didn't agree with the neighbor wanting to hang it to rest (like a cow) for 24 hours either but I tried the meat anyway and the taste of the same smell of blood lingered and it just wasn't something I wanted to try again. It may have just been me. Jeremiah said it was good, tough, but good.

So, after that incident, I figured the best thing to do was to try to find someone to trade the culls with for home raised meat or take them to auction for the cash. We wouldn't need much of the meat since I didn't like it.

However, after last night's BBQ of the ribs and tenderloin, I can honestly say that goat IS good. I am just assuming that letting the goat hang last spring may have made it taste stronger. The tenderloin we had last night was fresh, hours old, and tasted like mild beef...not gamey, not overpowering, nothing like that. So, we're back on with keeping more of the meat whethers. I would still love to be able to trade some for home grown beef as I refuse to have a cow but that can be figured out next year.

I can honestly say there wasn't a whole lotta meat from this goat. He was perfect butchering age and probably wouldn't have gotten much more out of him if he was older. I think we figured on 35 meals, how much weight it yielded I don't know as we didn't weigh it but we figured it came out to about $2.22 a meal for the meat, possibly less as she may get left overs. I think all in all we got 7 different roasts and 35 portions of ground meat. A lot of it went to ground meat. It's not that bad I don't guess as they did pay for the whether when he was a youngster and paid for feed and what not. It would be much more economical to not have to buy one. Buying goat meat in the store, which I've yet to see here, is quite a bit more expensive so all in all, it was economical nonetheless.

On sort of that same note though, I may have found a pig farmer to buy my milk. Interestingly enough, it may also be a source of alfalfa and beef as well. Selling milk to a pig farmer really delights me as we may both benefit handsomely.

I've been debating on when we should get chickens and I had thought it may be best to wait 'til spring when it warms up so I wouldn't have to keep chicks alive in the cold weather but actually, I think we may go ahead and buy some online.

I've gone back and forth on the free range chickens vs. not in regards to the goats and I think it may be best to allow them to coexist. If the chickens start getting into the goat's feeders though, I draw the line there and will have a completely separate area for them...somewhere.

I have done some research on breeds and I think we're gonna go with 6 Buff Orphington females and 1 male, 76Barred Rock females and 1 male, 6 Rhode Island Red females and 1 male, a couple banty hens (because they are GREAT setters of anyone's eggs) and a couple guinnes. God knows, I HATE guineas, but with the amount of ticks we've had, even to see if the guineas will help cut down on the number, I will live with the noise. Plus too, the neighbor has those barky dogs and I just love having loud and annoying "out of the ordinary" animals to piss him off (like guineas, and goats in heat). I don't know if it actually does. But the simple thought of knowing it may makes me smile. The three main breeds I've chosen seem to be very good dual purpose (egg and meat). The guineas (if female) also lay edible eggs and the bantys will also be egg producers though I doubt would yield very much meat. I think banty roosters are nearly as cute (from a distance of course) as baby goats and we may get one of those. Jeremiah says I have a few too many roosters for my number of hens but I just have this thing with un-purebred or is it interracial...interbred (?) chickens. I'm sure in a few years I just won't care :o)

You may be laughing wondering how I will be getting male chickens and how I will keep all the breeds seperate if I plan to free-range...if I order them online they are sexed and guaranteed. I can also order something called a straight run which is a mix (extras per say) but I don't want to chance getting a lot of males because they will just end up in the pot and spending more than $1 for a male chick I'll still have to raise doesn't really make a lot of sense.

I wonder to myself how I expect to keep the breeds separate since I do plan to free range them. It's not like they are picky about what breed of the opposite sex they breed with. I guess my biggest concern is having a free for all and end up with some funky cross bred chickens but I've got a plan for that! I don't know how good of a plan it is but all I can do is try. Jo's had chickens for a number of years. She assures me banty's are excellent setters and excellent mothers. The plan is when I'd like more of one breed, pen that specific breed together for a week or so and keep all the fertilized eggs, stick 'em under a banty at night and she will set them and I'll end up with a purebred chicken. Every other egg we can eat but to keep the breeds "pure" that will be the plan of attack. We'll see how that goes. We could also incubate them in an incubator and we may but that's some other time.

Just thoughts for now...the goat's are screaming at me for dinner. Best I go.