Cheapest way to raise meat to eat

[TanksHill]

ChickenPotPie I have a turkey question. When your Royal Palms set their own eggs how do they go about it?

Do they have their own house? Then you just leave the eggs?

I have Bourbon Reds who just started laying. They live with my chickens and lay in the same nesting boxes.

I would love to do a natural hatch but not sure how to.

Any advice??

You meat production sounds ideal. Great job providing for the family.

g

 

[Shiloh Acres]

ChickenPotPie, you may want to have your kids re-think the color coded hatching unless they have something they want to do that will use up all the extra roosters. Unless you want to grow them out yourself, hatching sex-link chicks pretty much means a lot of extra unwanted roosters that won't sell. If they know it's gonna grow up to be a rooster and it's not one of those fast growing meat birds, not many people want to bother with it. After the "what do I do with all these wretched roosters" is when I came up with the "rooster return" policy. I've got no problem with a grown up rooster, it's those just hatched ones I didn't want to deal with.

Good point. When I was buying local chicks last year, I recognized that someone was breeding sex-links, though they didn't call them that. When I asked if I could choose my chicks, or if they sold cockerel/pullets for different prices, they got real evasive, so I didn't bother. I certainly didn't want to buy a bunch of cockerels.

And I got the distinct impression they intended to hatch everything out and sell off the cockerel chicks to unsuspecting buyers. I'm glad I knew better, since I ended up with about 70% Roos from my other standard chicks as it was.

 

[Jared77]

Had an idea and wanted to float it out there...mind you I've never done it but sometimes I have a hair brained idea thats actually worth something.

Anywway....was wondering about dairy goats. They have to have delivered in order to produce milk so your breeding yearly. Well if you have a young(er) doe and don't need to keep any of the offspring (not replacing does and most folks sell their wethers anyway), why not cross her to a meat goat and get more of a dual purpose goat with the intention of processing the offspring? I know it wouldn't be as meaty as a true meat goat, but it would have more than a dairy goat.

Then when you feel its time start thinking about replacing does or expanding the herd your next breedings on a dairy goat buck and you sort the offspring accordingly.

Just a thought maybe I'm way off the reservation on this (won't be the first time just ask my wife) but I thought Id float it out there.

Another thought Id had was what about pot bellied pigs? They are smaller pigs, so take up less room, less to feed in both cost and volume, they are bred to be fat, would be MUCH easier to process at home, plus they won't fill a freezer like many of the larger more production based breeds do. I know my brother in law bought one at the fair and he gave away pork at Christmas because he knew he and his wife couldn't eat it all. Was a great gift. Could sell some babies, and as OFH pointed out in our email exchange offer a return policy just like the rooster policy mentioned here (which I didnt even think of till she pointed out) and your that much more ahead of the game with free pork ready to process.

 

[Farmfresh]

Had an idea and wanted to float it out there...mind you I've never done it but sometimes I have a hair brained idea thats actually worth something.

Anywway....was wondering about dairy goats. They have to have delivered in order to produce milk so your breeding yearly. Well if you have a young(er) doe and don't need to keep any of the offspring (not replacing does and most folks sell their wethers anyway), why not cross her to a meat goat and get more of a dual purpose goat with the intention of processing the offspring? I know it wouldn't be as meaty as a true meat goat, but it would have more than a dairy goat.

Then when you feel its time start thinking about replacing does or expanding the herd your next breedings on a dairy goat buck and you sort the offspring accordingly.

Just a thought maybe I'm way off the reservation on this (won't be the first time just ask my wife) but I thought Id float it out there.

Another thought Id had was what about pot bellied pigs? They are smaller pigs, so take up less room, less to feed in both cost and volume, they are bred to be fat, would be MUCH easier to process at home, plus they won't fill a freezer like many of the larger more production based breeds do. I know my brother in law bought one at the fair and he gave away pork at Christmas because he knew he and his wife couldn't eat it all. Was a great gift. Could sell some babies, and as OFH pointed out in our email exchange offer a return policy just like the rooster policy mentioned here (which I didnt even think of till she pointed out) and your that much more ahead of the game with free pork ready to process.

Now you are thinkin! Other folks are doing just those things already.

You do have to be careful when breeding a meat type animal (whether goat or cow) to a dairy type animal due to additional problems in labor and delivery. Most dairy breeds of animals are built pretty narrow and most meat breeds are wide built. This presents a problem - trying to get a wide baby out of a narrow pelvis.

As far as the Pot Belly pigs plenty of people accept pet animals that are no longer wanted and simply put them in the freezer. They tend to have a lot more bone and fat than a normal pig, but the meat is still quite delicious.

 

[Jared77]

So is that a common practice then breeding a meat buck to a dairy doe?

And the pot bellied pigs are coming....eventually. Want to do some research on them before I pull the trigger but Ive seen enough of them to think it would definately be a good meal.

 

[Shiloh Acres]

Haha I am STILL thinking about potbelly pigs. On the border of actually planning it, just as a "someday" thing unless they show up free, since I can't build pens at the moment.

I hadn't thought of something like a rooster return policy on piglets sold as pets tho. Good idea there!

 

[Denim Deb]

I see them at auction every once in awhile, but I've been told that people don't really eat them, that there's too much fat. Any truth to that?

 

[Wannabefree]

I've heard there is a lot of fat, but still some meat there too.

 

[Jared77]

My first guess would be diet. Think of all the "treats" and other things that people who have a pet pig would feed it. I mean how many people have obese dogs and cats? Then take an animal thats bred to carry some extra body fat and you give it one of those folks and its going to swell up like a tick.

Could be their set up too. The area for them might not be well set up so they didn't have any desire or any incentive to move (food/water at one end, shelter at the other end of the pen anybody?) that could lead to them being sedentary and getting excessively fat.

It might be an age thing too. How old are these pigs that when processed were excessively fatty? Lot of factors go into that. Might also be that the folks who said that were used to more commerical breeds of pigs that are very heavily muscled and quite lean may not used to seeing a pig with the volume of fat thats could easily be more "traditional like some of the breeds on the ALBC site.

Could also be breeding. Maybe some folks are breeding for a fatter pig thinking its "cute" or whatever their reasoning is.

I don't know if this will work or not. I'm willing to give it a try though eventually. If this fails Ill process what Ive got invested and go 1/2s with someone and get mine from a 4H kid at the fair. Id rather support the youth than Walmart.

 

[Wifezilla]

Since pork fat is GREAT I have no idea how a lot of fat on a pig would be a bad thing.