Meat!

[Bettacreek]

I've butchered chickens so far from this year's endeavors, but now I've got pekin and coturnix eggs in the bator, to raise out into meat birds (the excess males anyways). I found that I couldn't butcher my turkeys that were supposed to be butchered this fall, although, fortunately, there are only two males. I'm debating on whether or not it'd be worth it to raise some for sales as filled out meat birds, or in an attempt to butcher for myself again. The coturnix, I'm thinking more for cat food, though they can easily be added to our diet as well. The ducks, I shouldn't have a problem with them, but I wonder about cooking them, as I know if they're not cooked right, they're disgusting (just try some of the duck at our one chinese place in the other town, it's NASTY). The quail, I know, won't provide much meat, which is why I'm thinking cat food... Easier to skin them out and toss them whole, into a meat grinder and feed raw. I'll have to see if it's okay to feed raw, course ground bones like this though. The turkeys would be the best, less effort to butcher them and more meat, but I just couldn't do it this year. Maybe next year, with numerous poults running around and less chance to get attached to them (with school and everything), just maybe I can butcher some out. They'll be 3/4 broad breasted and 1/4 royal palm, so still a substantial amount of meat, even with that royal palm blood in there.
I'd LOVE to get some rabbits as well, so I could have pelts along with meat (of course, they'd have to be raised longer, but still).
As it stands now, I feel like if I could butcher turkeys, I could very easily feed our family for the entire year, with just what we hatch here. I could do it fairly cheaply as well, with brewery grain to help fill out birds. Of course, we'd still have to put some red meat into the freezer and jars, which only happened with a lamb this year. Hopefully I can get a deer next year to help with red meat.

What's everyone else do for their meat supply? Do the animals you have keep you self-sufficient in the meat department?

 

[k15n1]

If you're having trouble, remember that starting off on something like this is always the hard part. The starting, I mean. Do you have a friend that could show you how it's done? Really helped me. I thought it would be terrible but it's mostly fine. Plucking feathers off a chicken butt is as bad as it gets. And you don't even have to do that with your hands if you don't want. After butchering (cone method) there's no blood, which helps. And everything inside the bird is totally sterile. Still, there's lots of tricks that I didn't get from reading. So have a friend come show you how it's done.

 

[the funny farm6]

we normaly raise a couple pigs every year, along with rabbits and chickens and sometimes a few other projects. but we still buy a lot of hamburger and red meat. this year we are adding ducks, turkeys, and geese. we are also going to be doing quail again. we havent gotten a deer yet this year, but we normaly get a couple. and we will be raising a couple meat goats this next year if things work out. with dh medical problems we didnt do much of what we normaly would have done this year.

i love to eat quail and have found MANY people that have an interest in buying them from me butcherd.

 

[Bettacreek]

K15n1, it's not so much the butchering that I have a problem with. It's the killing of them. My turkeys are my favorites, they're like dogs, except none of the crap I totally hate about dogs (which is just about everything, but they do have a few neat perks to them). They're so sweet and intelligent and each one comes up to you and will sit in your lap. My hennies, they won't let the males breed, but they'll let me breed them... Sounds weird, right? Well, I just let them think I'm breeding them, until Hoover comes in, then I give them some privacy. It's the only way the hennies will let him mount, if I pet them first.

Funny Farm, how much do you typically sell the butchered quail for? The live adults, chicks and even eggs don't turn much of a profit (here or online it seems). I got them purely for our consumption (mostly the kitters), because I couldn't keep them in the black when I raised them before, the button quail had to pay for their feed and stuff. I'm envious of the pork. I wouldn't be able to raise pigs. The stink and the fencing would be too much for me. I'm too anal about animals looking yucky, probably mostly because I raise the meat type birds that everyone calls disgusting, so I feel like I have to "prove" that they are clean and beautiful birds. But, mostly, I'd worry about fencing, since I'm on an extremely limited budget for critters. I don't think G would appreciate smelling pig crap either (nor would I). I have often thought about buying a pig to butcher out immediately, but even that is too costly for me. The lamb, we were fairly lucky, we got him for a good price ($100), and even after butchering fees (I realized that I had no way to kill a lamb), he came up to $3.63/lb, which is cheaper than the cheap ground beef here. About the best I can do is venison, if I can kill one, and possibly butcher out a lamb next year on my own (saving $55) if I get a shotgun to kill it with. I wouldn't want to kill it with my 30.06, and couldn't here anyways, since we cannot shoot guns at the prison, except at the range. It would have set off the prison towers and that would have been a real mess for G to deal with.

 

[mississippifarmboy]

We raise or have raised chickens, guineas, turkeys, ducks, geese, quail, pheasants, pigs, horses, cows, rabbits and probably some stuff I'm forgetting.

We've ate all these except for the horses at one time or another and since I haven't been working the horses are starting to look good.

 

[Bettacreek]

Don't feel bad. I stopped by the horse auction last month just to watch and entertain the boys (okay, I admit, I enjoyed it immensely myself). Full sized horses, fully trained, gorgeous horses, going for under $500, and the ones who weren't ridden in were closer to $250. I really started thinking about finding a way to haul and butcher one! Certainly they would provide more than 2.5x the meat of the lamb that I paid $100 for!

 

[the funny farm6]

i was selling the quail "live" for $4.00 to $6.00 than i would "show how to butcher" cause i didnt want to go threw hoops to have to be inspected. i hatched what eggs i got. untill a coon took care of my quail. and butchering was easy- i would use a pair of scissors, put them in a cone (i used vegy oil bottles), cut of there heads, let them bleed out, cut off the wings (not enough meat to worry about there) then cut off the legs below the meaty part. took the skin off. then useing scissors cut them from neck to rear threw the bones and drop the inerds out. wash and put in ice water.

 

[mississippifarmboy]

I was sorta joking about the horses.

Sorta.

A lot of other countries sell horse meat along side the beef, lamb, pork, chicken and such in the supermarkets. I've ate it and it was good. I will say if things keep going the way it looks to be going in this country...

Horse might wind up on a lot of poor folk's plates.

I'll admit - I'm scared.

 

[BarredBuff]

We aren't as self sufficient in meat as we'd like but we do "okay". We buy half a beef every year, and plan on raising a calf for our selves on a farm near us. We raise and slaughter the chickens, and the rabbits getting cranked up. I plan to raise a little duck and goose this year too. I'd love to raise some piggies, but one thing at a time.

 

[the funny farm6]

i have had horse- its not that bad. it is a very red meat. we also have talked about going to the sale and getting one to butcher. unbroke/unregistered horses are going for @ $300.00-$0.00 kinda depends on looks. we could have bought a nice big gelding at the sheep-goat sale for $2.00 NOT JOKING! there are many free horses around here, but i dont want to take someones pet to eat. from the sale barn-maybe.