Meat chooks almost there

From this

48 hours.

 to this

Six weeks.

to this

Eight weeks.

Not bad. Now I know I said I would raise them over twelve weeks or so but at this rate I don't think that will be necessary or feasible. So I reckon we will give them another week, perhaps two before putting them in the freezer. I would love to know precisely what cross these birds are but I doubt the breeder will ever give that away. Either way, they eat like kings and grow like nothing I have ever seen before. They are raised on a diet of natural high protein food with no additives as well as greens. If the cow were in milk then they would be getting some of that too.

So next week I will get the plucker out with its new and more powerful motor, boil up some water and have a family day putting the chooks in the freezer. That should be about a years supply of chicken.  

Unkilled meat. Seriously, what the ????

I just had to reproduce this here...

 

This person could actually breed and that scares the living bejabbers out of me!

 

Now I have nothing against killing animals for meat, obviously, but to consume meat or wear wool or leather while remaining ignorant of its origin is a sin. Worse still are those people who deliberately avoid facing the reality of their food yet are still willing to eat it. I am not asking everyone to actually have to slaughter the animal they wish to eat but I do believe they should be cognisant of the process whereby their food was made.

Factory farming, chemical fertilizers, battery cages, farrowing crates. Would any of these things exist if the public as a whole were forced to confront them?

Meat chicks

We are working to have a varied diet at hand, within seasonal limits. I like to be able to go to the freezer and be able to choose from a range of meats just as I like to be able to go to the veggie garden to eat a different selection of veggies most nights. Granted there must be a seasonal variation with vegetables and this is a good thing too as it whets the appetite for variety from the garden and brightens the diet. But where meat is concerned it is a chore indeed to eat a whole beef before a change in diet. To avoid this we try to keep production going and slaughter regularly to keep the freezer stocked with a variety of meats. At any one time I should be able to choose from beef, pork, chicken, duck, turkey, chevon or mutton.
So I intend to raise a batch of fifty meat chooks each year. I was originally intending to breed my own but it is much easier, and cheaper, to just buy the chicks wholesale. They are a meat bird natural crossbreed (We do not permit GMO on the Cloud farm!) and are raised on pure organic food. So what if they take a little longer to mature than the chemically fattened victims from the factory? Our birds taste better and grow at least as large.

They arrive by air freight as day old chicks. Day olds, for those who don't know, can be mailed about the place with impunity as long as they remain warm enough -for when they hatch the chicks still have a yolk sack in their stomach. This supplies them with everything they need for about forty eight hours. To try this with week old birds would almost certainly kill the lot.

So I drove down the mountain to Cairns and picked up a chirping box of chicks.

There I was confronted by a young girl of ten or so and her mother. The young lady was enchanted by the cute little chick but horrified that I intended to eat them. I enquired if the young lady ate chicken and she assured me she did. I then reminded her that all chickens started out as cute little chicks just like these, likewise the wool she wore came from a sheep that was once a lamb and the leather of her shoes came from a cow that was once a calf.

I suppose I am a bit of a bastard really...

Anyway, the chicks are currently in the brooder under a light to keep warm until they are old enough to go out to the fatteners pen. They sure are eating, drinking and growing well.

Mucky days

Well winter is here. We have actually been experiencing some absolutely beautiful blue-sky crisp weather. Cold nights and those clear cold days that are so good to work in. I turned over the veggie garden and dug in a couple of tonnes of compost. Then built a temporary iron fence to keep the bandicoots out- they are dreadful diggers in garden beds and will wreak havoc on seedlings. I managed to get in a couple of rows of winter peas and some carrots before the weather turned.
 Now it looks like the blue skies are gone for a while as the "winter muckies" close in. Good weather for germinating winter seedlings or toasting in front of the fire. I have been doing both.

Today the wind is blowing a gale and visibility ranges from fifty metres to one in a flash. The cold rain comes in horizontal gusts making a good Drizabone (oilskin coat for the non Aussie/Kiwi readers) essential.

Oh yes, the Cloud farm winter ensemble this year features a wide brim Akubra with a tasteful hint of chook feathers and poop on the crown where I hit my head under the roosting perch, A full length brown Drizabone riders coat with mud stained and tattered hem line and matching gumboots in red mud. Finish the whole outfit with a tatty grey jumper and old jeans with red mud on the knees. A perfect and stylish ensemble for those early morning milking's or when stumbling through a muddy chook pen. Not surprisingly it is much the same outfit as featured in last years catalogue.

Don't get me wrong, although it is cold and muddy, I actually love this weather and this time of year. I love the nights beside the fire and sleeping warm under blankets and doona. Drinking wine and eating cheese. Spending a day working outdoors without dripping sweat all over. It is a time of real productivity and fun.

As I mentioned a few post ago, we have slaughtered the beef steer. He turned out really well and I intend to follow this method of raising and slaughtering in future. The steer was raised to almost three years and slaughtered at "the end of the grass" which is a way of saying he was fat from the summer flush of good grazing and had not yet begun to lose condition as the cold weather came on. The beef was then hung to age for two weeks to fully mature it. This improves the texture and flavour no end. We then cut the beef into useable cuts over two days. Steak, roast, silverside, mincing, chops and cutlets, T bone and blade, rendering fat and finally dog bones.
I cut and the child bride packed. The meat is bagged in meal sized portions and then paper wrapped for the freezer. According to the lady wife, pumpkins make excellent paper weights.

The milk bar is open!

The milk bar is open. It all goes silent apart from some satisfied grunts and the occasional slurp.

 After a big feed they all enjoy a snooze in the sun to digest.
This is how I believe pigs should be kept. They can dig and eat what they find, sleep in the sun and have plenty of room to run about in. No stress or overcrowding and they are only fed on whole natural foods. So what if they grow a little slower than their factory raised counterparts? I know my pigs are happier, tastier and better for you!

All the livestock is raised in a free range environment. Here my free range child is about to get a big lick up the face from the free range cow.

Winter is here

We have just come out of four weeks of absolutely horrible weather, mud and cold constant drizzle. It was a very unseasonal rain. Probably making up for the almost non existent wet season this year. Finally it is dry and our beautiful blue sky weather has returned. Not as cold as most years. Certainly no danger at all of frost yet, we expect a dozen or so frosts most years.

We have been busy on the Cloud farm. We killed Boris the steer a fortnight ago. As I still don't have the frame up so I can hoist a carcasse, I had a mobile butcher come out to do the slaughter. When dealing with this much valuable meat it pays to do it properly.

Butchering in the mud. The hoist on his truck allows the carcasse to be lifted.

I aged the quarters in the cold room at four degrees for a fortnight. It is customary in this country to only age for a week but I prefer the European method of a longer hanging time for a much more tender meat. We began cutting the meat into the various cuts yesterday. The beef is rich and even grained with a small amount of marbling throughout. I cooked a small rump roast last night and I can safely say it was the most tender and flavourful roast I have ever eaten. Today I will cut up the front quarters and mince the scrap pieces. We will then have a freezer full of prime beef that should last us for the next year.
We have also emptied out the poultry from the fatteners pen. Five Pekin ducks, three roosters and one turkey. I finally got to try out the tub plucker I made and it performed very well indeed.

Having said that I will put a larger motor on it before future use. It is modelled on the Whizbang chicken plucker. The plucker takes the drudgery out of killing large numbers of birds in one go. To use it you simply dunk your killed bird into scalding water until the feathers are loosened and then drop it into the spinning plucker. The bottom plate spins and the feathers are essentially wiped off by the rubber fingers. In about fifteen seconds you will have a completely naked bird. What I really like is that it removed all of the downy under layer on ducks which previously I had to burn off. I think our Most-wonderful-and-long-suffering-neighbours were once again disturbed by my maniacal mad-scientist laughter and cries of "It works, It works, Hahahahaaaaaaa".
Ahem, anyway, Now to get in an order of fifty meat chicks and really put some poultry in the freezer.

We've got piggies!

A few days ago I found a happy Mum and a litter of nine piglets. For a first time Mum, not bad at all. Unfortunately she rolled on one a couple of nights after so we now have eight remaining but they are all in rude health and are doing well.

It is still a bit muddy after the rain. We have had a rather unseasonal bout of rain in the time of year when it should be drying off. A good thing the young feller and I shovelled a load of gravel into the pen recently or these piglets would be swimming. Oh I long for the opportunity to cement this pen!

 Sausage is eating like she means it! She has to produce a never ending flow of milk for the youngsters and this means she is always hungry. For a first time mother she is doing very well. She is very protective of her young and I have had to seriously watch my step if I try to enter the pen. Despite this I think it is a good trait for a mother to have.

 Today we have finally had clear weather and blue skies. I spotted this Grey Goshawk perched high up on a dead tree branch. They are usually a very shy bird and I was surprised I was able to get this close.

I also had a visit from a young King parrot. He perched in the elder over the pig pen and had a cackled conversation with us. There has been a great congregation of Kings about today. I counted eighteen of them in one tree over the orchard this afternoon. Odd as I was under the impression they were a very solitary bird and lived in small family groups only.
I am working at a great pace in the workshop, especially when the rain is sheeting down. I have been getting the cold room completely finished in preparation for killing a steer on Tuesday- installing meat hanging rails and general sealing. I repaired and sheathed a power cable against rats for the freezer. We found they had chewed through the last one and the freezer was undergoing a rat-defrost cycle. I have also made a brass dipstick for the milk bucket. We were tired of counting each milking out, one litre at a time, and so I measured the increments in the milking bucket and etched them onto a brass strip. I have also repaired six second hand chairs for use outdoors and cut new followers for the baskets in the cheese press.
It is good to be busy and I am enjoying my energy. Work has been very hard lately and I find keeping busy at home is an excellent way to banish the demons and regenerate before the next round.