Thinning the Flock

Since we purchased our first incubator last year and started hatching chicks from eggs we were faced with the dilemma (if you want to call it that) of what to do with extra roosters we hatch. Do you give them away? Do you slaughter them? Do you collect them and go broke feeding them?

Well, if you give them away most likely your a giving someone a free chicken dinner. There's nothing wrong with this if you don't mind all the food and expense that went into the birds doing down the drain. Sometimes you know the person and you know they really want a rooster to be a companion (or stud!) for their hens. I gave away a cuckoo maran rooster to a family last year to live with the 20 Rhode Island Red pullets they had raised. They are still enjoying this rooster and their four kids just adore him. The rooster I gave away made a friend's life happier so it did not seem like money down the drain to me.

This week I had to cull a few spare roosters. I try putting it off because it does make me a little sad and the laying breed roosters are a little more difficult to process than the meat birds are. They are much more heavily feathered and because they are not broad-breasted like the Cornish crosses, they a have a narrow cavity which I find getting my big hands into a bit more difficult.

I've cleaned birds that I have hunted like waterfowl and wild turkeys dressing out a bird is not totally new to me. I do scald the chickens before I pluck them in 140F water for about a minute which makes them very easy to pluck.
The meat on these roosters is darker than your average meat chicken because of their maturity, more varied diet and the exercise they receive free-ranging. These birds are too tough for roasting or baking so I use them for stewing and make chicken with dumplings with them. They are way more flavorful than the average store-bought chicken.

So, even though it's a little bit of a pain to process them, I am rewarded with the wonder food they provide for us and my hens are grateful that they aren't being chased around by a bunch of roosters all day long.

Here's the Beef!

Remember my little steers that arrived in the Spring of 2009?

Well, they grew beautifully into nicely finished animals. Their hanging weights ended up at 633lbs and 728lbs. I sold the larger one to a family and split the smaller one with another family. Every year there is something new to be learned about growing steers as big as possible in the time frame and doing it as inexpensively as possibly without compromising the quality or sustainability.

The steers are pastured here from when they arrive in the spring into early fall. Every day they are fed a little grain not only to put on weight but to also train them to come when called. I call it "Grain Train". They are not expected to be pets by any stretch but it does come in handy to have them come running when you want to check on them or when one finds a hole in the fence. Shake that bucket of grain and they usually come a running.

Our 20 acres is all pasture of varying quality with the best 5 acres surrounding the house. It is sloping and spring-fed thus stays green from spring into fall. We generally do not have to supplement this forage with hay until mid to late September.

September is when the real graining begins. This is increased every month until the first week of January when the steers are slaughter. Usually the steers are fed a good quality grass hay but this season the hay farmer I purchase from lost his lease on his grass fields and only had alfalfa available.

The great thing about cattle is that you can feed them a lower quality of hay than require for horses. I do not mean lowsy forage that was bailed into hay but good hay that may be at the bottom of the stack and be dirty or slightly moldy on one side. The only shortcomings should be cosmetic and only "skin deep". My hay supplier will generally sell this hay to me at a discount of a third off the price. This year he had beautiful second cutting alfalfa hay that he was selling for $150 a ton and let us have it for $100 a ton.

One ton of hay per steer is usually what is required to feed the animals until their January slaughter dates. Sometimes it's more sometimes less depending on when the pasture gives out.

Slaughter dates have to be made somewhat in advance depending on the time of year. I used to have the steers slaughter in November or December but now we moved it out to the first week of January. This way we are past the hunting season rush at the processors and past the crazy holiday time for us.

The "meat guys" , as my daughter calls them, are always the harshest critics of how well we did finishing the steers. They are kind of like the final exam in the school of beef raising for me and there's no way to cheat to get a better grade. (Not that I would cheat! LOL) But this year I got an A+! The steers were covered with just the right amount of fat and the meat is beautifully marbled.

I have been raising beef every year since 1997 and I think I finally have it figured out. I think! ;)

Meet the Meat Chickens

Hello everybody! I know it's been a while since my last post. We have been shopping for new puppy and it seems like all my time on the computer has been dedicated to this quest. I'm not the great multi-tasker I once was and it seems like all other interests are abandoned for a short while then soon revisited and put once again in the forefront of my mind. I think I must just be getting older.

Anyways, I wanted to share with you all my first experience raising a few meat chickens. Yes, all chickens are made of meat but the bird of choice for the poultry industry and backyard farmers is the Cornish Rock Cross. They are a hybrid of the Cornish bred to the Plymouth Rock and from what I have learned so far is that parents of these crosses are specifically bred themselves to produce the desired qualities looked for in their hybrid progeny.

The purpose of these Cornish Rock birds is to grow fast...really fast. To be a nice frier/ broiler size within 6 to 8 weeks from hatching. Along with this fast growth comes the risks of their body weight growing faster than their legs can suppose them.

I really wasn't planning on getting meat birds this year but I was thinking about it. I was especially inspired by the wonderful blog The Deliberate Agrarian . It's a great place to not only learn about raising and processing chickens but also living self-reliantly in a spiritually inspired way.

My buying three meat chickens was a little of a impulse purchase though all three cost about the same as venti mocha at Starbucks. I was at the feed store the first week of June when they had their last shipment of chicks arrive. They were all pre-sold meat chicks but in one of the brooders they had 3 big one-week old meat chicks and they were available for $1.30 a piece so I bought them. I figured it was an okay deal since they had an entire week of feed and heat lamp already invested into them.

My goal for these three birds is to raise them to roaster size which is a little larger than a frier/broiler chicken. So, I'm experimenting with allowing them to grow at a slower rate by feeding them a layer food and taking it away at night. They do have interesting personalties though. Very calm and docile birds but they seem perfectly comfortable with pooping while still laying in front of their food dish! Definitely couch potatoes!
Currently I get my friers either from Costco (already processed of course!) or from my extra roosters that are a byproduct of hatching our own heavy brown egg layers. Here's one pictured above. I slaughtered a couple yesterday that were Buff Orpington crosses. These birds are young and tender but do not have the broad breast the Cornish Rock Crosses possess. I'll probably end up slaughtering some of my Cuckcoo Marans roosters, too. They are supposed to be a good table bird and they mature a lot faster than the Buff Orpington crosses.

Here's the Beef! All Two of Them!

In my former life as a Californian there is one thing that I never would have guessed I'd be doing in a million years and that is raising my own beef cattle. I do not fancy myself has a true rancher of beef because I only raise 2 or 3 steers a year. We raise one for ourselves that we usually end up splitting with friends or family. The other ones are sold to friends , too.

We purchased our first heifer out of necessity right after we purchased our home here in North Idaho. Our property taxes are reduced if we have some sort of consumable livestock grazing on it. So, we could raise cattle, sheep, pigs or goats to have our place designated as "dry grazing" land.

At first we thought we wanted to breed our own beef cattle and purchased a hereford heifer from a local rancher. Part of the purchase price included a breeding back to his angus bull. After we had her for a few months he picked her up and pastured her with his herd. She was returned to us pregnant and the next spring gave birth to a baldy bull calf that we castrated ourselves. We raised that baldy steer and he was our first home raised beef.
We leased a beautiful hereford bull in trade for pasture when our hereford cow was ready to breed again. The bull stayed with us the entire summer and we thought for sure we would be raising a new calf the following spring. Unfortunately, our cow did not get pregnant and we had an entire summer with no beef calf to raise for ourselves.
So, this is when we changed our plan: Instead of breeding our own beef, we would sell our cow and purchase beef steers in the spring and slaughter early in the winter after the big fall rush at the meat processors. This has worked out well for us and it makes most of winter easier by not having to worry about feeding any livestock during the coldest monthes.
We have been blessed to meet a wonderful neighbor and his family that raise locker beef and pork for a living. Mike has become our supplier of steers and he has made purchasing them so much easier by shopping the auctions and picking out reasonably priced animals for us that have a gentle temperment and are not too flighty.
Also, we have a few loyal customers that purchase these animals from us at the end of the season. Last year, we raised 3 steers and kept one for ourselves. We are only a family of 3 so one steer that has a hanging weight of 600lbs can last us a couple of years or more quite easily. So, these two new steers will be sold to other families in January.

Raising your own beef is truly fun and satisfying. It's wonderful to have animals that can take acres of grass and turn it into food for your family. We do not have to buy hay until almost October if it is not too dry out to keep the grass alive. And with the cost of hay and grain this year it's nice to have to buy hay only for the last three months of the time that we are raising the steers.