wow

Did you hand pluck all of those? I guess it is just going to be me doing it. Ross is going to have to be gone for a bit and I have to get rid of these birds. We did 9 today and then heard about him having to leave, so I have actually 86 left to do. I have to do laundry today so he can leave tomorrow and then I will have tomorrow and saturday and how ever many left to do each day. We decided to keep 10 of them to see if we could grow them bigger for holiday use.

You all have convinced us. We are going to try the tongue and the heart. I'm still not sure about it, but we will try it. I guess (and I know this is dumb), I still have the image of this cow licking us and trying to lick us every time we came up, and I am having a hard time pushing past that.

Pony, I guess I'm feeling more positive in some ways. Sales aren't better, and we have kind of decided to back off of that and just put stuff in the freezer and get out from under a lot of it. We'll decide another time whether or not to try to make any money from the farm. Just is not worth worrying about at this point.he

Thanks everyone!

Yes I hand plucked all of them. Some were left whole (gutted of course) and some were cut up. I can now cut up a whole chicken in about a minute! You will get faster as you go. I did about 86 myself last year over the course of about 5 or 6 days. Some days I did more, some days less depending on what else I had going on. At least I was doing mine in November and it was nice and cool!

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Sarah,

If there are no dogs Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.
-Will Rogers

Yeah, I can cut up a chicken in no time flat Its getting those silly little pin feathers out that gets me. On these, I just stuck them in the freezer and I'll pin them when I get them out to eat. Don't like doing it that way, but its got to be this time. I don't mind the plucking, but Ross absolutely hates it. I love the skin though, so its worth it to me.

Our first Holstein steer we had the butcher age 2 weeks and the second 3 weeks and there was a big difference in tenderness. I have had Guernsey meat but never Jersey but from what I have heard it is very, very good.

Well, we were going to have a roast tonight, but since plans got changed, we are having sirloin steak, with mushrooms and onions. I love to cook that meal anyway, so we'll have that for the first meat from this steer. I'll let you all know!

This man that butchered our steer has a very small shop, and not a lot of room for aging, and he is very, very busy, so we were lucky to get the 6 days. Not many butchers around here.

Jersey beef far outweighed our angus as far as taste! Nice healthy yellow(beta carotene) fat! Ours weigh at least 500lbs by 1.5 years(dressed out that is)! Happy eating! Wish I had an appointment with the butcher closer than December for my two!!

Well......How was that steak?

<big grin>

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"They laughed, because he was different"

"He laughed, because they were all the same"

That was the best steak bar none that we have ever had. I was so leary of it being tough, but that was the kind of meat that you hope makes the meal last all night long! You just don't want to stop eating. It was fabulous! Thanks for everyone's help and encouragement on this!

Valorie

Can't wait to get our Jersey into the freezer - won't be until next year about this time though!

It's a good feeling to be eating the food you raised yourself!

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http://homesteadingfamilies.proboards.com/

Oh yes, it is wonderful to be eating our own food. I'm not sure how much we saved by doing this, but I know how much we'll enjoy it! Corn prices have gone up incredibly here and the pastures have pretty well dried up. Hay is exorbitant now too. My husband figures about $6 a day for these steers to continue eating on, (that's the price of a bag of corn), but I think he is a little off on that. There are 2 steers and we also are feeding some of that corn to the ducks and geese and some to the pot bellied pigs, although the steers are the biggest eater of it.

Oh well, I would say the price of this beef is well worth the taste! You will definitely love your jersey!

Awesome!

Two giant thumbs up to you!!!

Now you are spoiled for sure. You'll never be able to eat store bought beef again. LOL!

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"They laughed, because he was different"

"He laughed, because they were all the same"

We had hamburger tonight. There was almost no grease. I made patties, and I couldn't believe it! No grease to have to wash away with soap and hot water. Of course I did wash my hands, but they were not greasy, and there was almost no grease in the pan, and yet it held together like a very fat burger would, and the taste!!!!!! To die for! This steer's name was Askew because he had one horn that went down and one horn that went up, so we called him Askew. I told my husband tonight, we're having Askewburgers!

AWESOME!

We skin our chickens and the wife cuts them up as soon as I bring them in. Just putzing we can do 15 or so in a morning. We don't let them sit too long before freezing either. Still pretty tender.
We ran 12 or so through a plucker at a friends house, gutted them and froze them whole. 4 month old cornishxrocks make nice turkeys!
Got my eye on a used plucker at another friends dads house...maybe one of these days.

We raise our beefers (actually holsteins) to 18 months and butcher. Tried something called tendrlean which is a pellet you feed with nothing but whole shell corn and tried mostly grass fed with a little 14% grain on the side. Both turned out pretty tasty. Both slaughterhouses we used only hang for 7 days. But the second one comes out to the house to slaughter which is nice so we will use them again. Saves a trip with the truck and trailer.

Wonderful that the guy comes to your house to slaughter. Our butcher is about a mile away, but we don't have the trailer or anything to haul these guys in. A friend comes and gets the steers and we keep his family supplied in eggs, so it works good that way for us too!

I have butchered many different breeds of cattle in my 65 years.I feed them pasture, hay, and corn for the last 90 days.All breeds have given me good tasting meat.I butcher them when they are between a year and a half and two years old.They do not have to age over six days to be good.The tongue is my favorite part of the beef.Boil the tongue in salted water, skin it and slice for the best sandwich you could ever have.
My wife and I kill six chickens at a time and do them.We always get all of the pin feathers and singe each bird before gutting and cutting up.We usually do twelve in a day, but we are not pushing too hard.
Pot bellied pigs are not a good animal to butcher.They are nearly all fat, but you will learn that soon enough yourself.
You can really save on the grocery bill and have great tasting vittles buy planting a garden and a couple of fruit trees.Start out with a small garden until you figure out how much time you can spend taking care of it.Gardens are a lot of work, but very rewarding.
Good luck with your country living.

Thanks for the advice! We have a very large garden but hubby was in the hospital after we got it planted this year and had no time to tend it. Next year will (hopefully) be better.

As far as pot bellied pigs, lots of people on the pig forum have said just the opposite, that they have butchered before the pigs get all that fat on them, and I have some pretty lean little pigs out here. I don't overfeed them, so they stay lean. I have 2 old sows that have gotten big, but they produce babies for me not meat in themselves, so I'm not too concerned with them getting a little heavier, although I don't want them terribly fat either.

Thanks for the advice though. I'll keep it all in mind!