Chick Update

The new chicks are settling in to the brooder house well, and they are staying snug and warm despite the chilly temperatures outside. We lost 1 of the Cornish Cross, but the others are doing great.

Our holiday birds are growing like crazy. They are big enough now to let out into the chicken yard for some fresh air and exercise.

All in a Day's Work...

We had a busy day today! It all started with an early call from the Post Office, informing us that our chick order had arrived today! YIKES! We didn't expect it until tomorrow, and the brooder house was not near ready. We made the 30 mile round trip to pick up the little peepers and Levi got busy on the brooder house. Here's a shot of them just as we opened the box...81 chicks in all.

We ordered 25 Cornish Cross for ourselves, and 25 for a friend (going in together on chick orders saves shipping). We also got 25 Production Red pullets and 6 Rhode Island Red cockerals. The Production Reds will be next years' layers, and the roos will replace the Red roos we lost this year.
Levi started getting the brooder house ready by shovelling out the composted poo. About 8" deep on the floor had to be moved out.

Next we added a layer of hardware cloth to the existing wire. This will help keep the chicks from finding escape holes, and helps keep predators fom digging in.This is the view from inside, in the morning we will add a layer of lime to the floor and a foot of pine shavings before moving the chicks out there.

Tonight they will sleep in these brooders so that we are sure they are eating and drinking well. If there are any stragglers we will keep them in for a few days before moving them to the brooder house.

While Levi was busy in the brooder house, I was busy making cranberry sauce. The girls and I are working on our Thanksgiving menu and getting ready for the holidays. Cranberry sauce is something that we make each fall and can before the holiday season. Once the berries have cooked, they are run through the food mill.

Once this is done, we add sugar and bring it all to a boil to thicken before pouring into the jars. The jars are processed in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes, then allowed to cool overnight.The result is delicious home made cranberry sauce, and we have enough for the year!

Next I moved on to our wild hog hams. They have been curing for a couple of weeks, and were ready to go into the smoker.

Levi got the roof finished on mom's well house today. He and Bob will finish trimming it out this weekend, but as you can see it is nearly done.

And when he realized I was still taking pictures he gave me his mad face. Hey, I have a hard time getting shots of this kid....he couldn't run this time! On the ground you can see the old well house, you can see why mom needed a new one!

I love this time of year! The bucks are finally out of rut, and now they are keeping each other company again in their big pen...

and the trees across the back yard are starting to lose their leaves...
We stay busy, but I wouldn't change a thing! I thank God every day for giving us such blessings.

Holiday Birds

On Nov 1 I was in one of the local feed stores and happened to spot a chick brooder containing 4 Cornish Cross chicks! It is very hard to find these birds in the feed stores, since they usually just carry either bantams or standard layers. One of the great things about this find is that they are already a week or two old!

In my opinion, the Cornish Cross is the best, most economical way to put home-raised meat on the homestead table. These birds were developed for that purpose, and I believe they have their place. Their feed conversion rate can not be compared, and the quantity of meat they produce is outstanding; especially considering the short length of time it takes to grow them. They can hit 8-10 lbs by 2 months of age.

The down side to these birds is that their bodies are designed to put a lot of meat on a skeleton that just can not keep up with such a rapid rate of growth; therefore they are prone to leg problems. My solution is to grow them over a 3 month time, and allow them to forage. I feed them a lower protein chick starter, and a lot of scratch grains.

These 4 little beauties will be part of our Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. They are about 3 pounds each now and I hope to have 1 of them at 5 pounds by Thanksgiving Day. The others will go along with our ham at Christmas. We have 25 more on their way from the hatchery, but they will be meat for Spring.

Our Goaties

Fall is fully upon us, and will this season comes the annual acorn feast for the goats. Our goats are all fat and happy, the does are all gestating, and the bucks are finally out of rut...or so we think. Of course only time will tell, but we are looking forward to our Spring 2009 crop of kids. I spent a few minutes this morning taking some pictures of our little herd...and decided to introduce them. These aren't glamour shots, but perhaps you can get a glimpse of their personalities and understand why we love them so much.

The girls....

First and foremost, my favorite....Faith Hill. She's a quirky girl, which is part of her charm. She's a great milker plus we've trained her as a pack goat.

Next is our girl Legacy, she is the most quiet and content girl...unless there is food involved; then she is first in line and pushing everyone else out of the way. We nearly lost her last year, but she pulled through and is doing great.

Our only Boer is Nikki. She is actually a Boer/Nubian cross, but she's marked like a traditional Boer. Nikki is Ben's goat, and is the most mischievous goat in the entire herd. Coincidence? I think not!

Our 2008 first fresheners...

First is Angel. She is Legacy's daughter, and Stephanie's goat. She is the "teenager" in the herd...and always has something to say. She is proving to be an excellent milk doe, and is out producing her mother at this time.

We bought Callie this year as a first freshener. She was already in milk when we bought her, and had some behavior issues. She was very skitzy when we first got her, would not lead at all, and was a nightmare on the milking stand. It took a few weeks, a lot of patience and training...not to mention animal cookies...but she has proven herself to be an excellent milker. She has settled down and is not spooky any more and will lead.

Next is Blessing. She is a yearling doe, Faith's daughter...and I think the prettiest goat in the herd. Her striking markings remind me of a flashy horse. She is not the biggest producer, but she is the best behaved. She has always lived up to her name!

Blossom is our other yearling first freshener. She is another Legacy daughter and is very much like her mother. She is very quiet and unassuming, well mannered and a good milker. She is a sweetheart.

Our 2008 keeper kids....Clover and Cilly (Pronounced Silly). Clover is a Faith daughter, and Cilly is a Legacy daughter. Clover is the herd brat, and Cilly is as quiet and sweet as her mother and older sister.

Da Boyz...

Tucker is our oldest buck, he was our bottle baby a few years ago. Although we didn't use him for breeding this year, he is certainly worth keeping. He is one of the sweetest, most gentle bucks you'll ever meet. He is Blossom's dad.

Our next oldest boy is Satin. Words can not describe how sweet and adorable this guy is....he is such a mamma's boy!

Yes, we are crazy enough...we don't have just 1, not 2...but 3 intact bucks (not to mention the 2 boys in our sister herd!). Our boys are all easy keepers (except when in rut-but then they are just hard on fences) and they all have excellent bloodlines; what can I say? I just can't get rid of them. Besides, we like to have genetic diversity....and keep all our options. Yea, that's it!

Manny is our newest boy, and I think he will be our largest. He is 7 months old and already tipping the scales at 100+ pounds.

Last is Rebekah's wether, Roadie. What can we say about Roadie. He's a goofball. He's trained as a pack and cart goat, so he's not completely useless.

Sausage...and other fine meats...

Today our big project was getting the sausage done. We took this beautiful pan of wild hog chunks.....

And ground it into this....

We ground 10 pounds of the pork, and turned 3 pounds into breakfast sausage. Unless you are making links, breakfast sausage is the easiest sausage to make. It amazes me when I see the price in the grocery store! I didnt get any pictures of the process, not that there's much to see. We had a friend stop by to visit while we were grinding, I pulled out a couple of pounds, seasoned them, and wrapped them into 3 packages. Of course our guest got a pack of breakfast sausage.

Come to think of it, we frequently give door prizes here. If you show up on chicken butchering day, you might go home with a fine home-grown bird ready for the oven . . . But most of the time I guess the door prize is something you step in while you visit.

But I digress...

The remaining ground pork had the honor of becoming perhaps the world's finest East Texas Smoked Italian Sausage. Wrap your brain around that for a minute. This is east Texas wild hog, seasoned with the finest Italian ingredients to make a beautiful sweet Italian sausage....and then smoked over pecan wood. The process is pretty simple and straight-forward...the flavor is out of this world. Here is the process:

First, you give birth to an adorable child that loves to help in the kitchen. This first step is very important because despite what others will tell you, it is IMPOSSIBLE to stuff sausage in the home kitchen with only 2 hands.

Second, buy some casings. I use hog casings mostly, because that is the size we use for smoking most frequently (Italian sausage, smoked country sausage, keilbasa, etc). Sheep casings are a great size for breakfast links...but we just make sausage patties rather than going through the extra work.

These are packed in salt. You only want to pull out what you need; it makes it go much longer. 5# of ground meat makes about 5 feet of sausage. This of course depends on the type (are you going to tie each piece into a link?)....but typically we don't tie links, we twist them and smoke them. That way you only use excess casings for a knot at each end.

The casings have to be rinsed very well in cool water. Once rinsed, they need to sit in warm water for about 30 minutes (I change the water every 10 mins or so to keep it warm and to wash more salt away).

Now for the fun part! Stuffing that luscious seasoned meat into the casings to create the finest sausage on the planet.