Hatching Our Own

Over the years we have tried many breeding combinations in an attempt to breed our own chickens for meat. Once again I am experimenting. I know that there is no way to compete with the efficiency of the CornishX, but it would be nice to be able to breed something that comes close.

In the past we have used the Cornish X rooster with a RIR hen. The outcome was a 0% hatch rate. A few of the eggs were fertile (very few); but none of the embryos developed to hatching. This time we are trying to hatch some CornishX eggs fertilized by our RIR/Americana rooster. As of today we have 4 eggs in the incubator, and will add eggs every 5 days or so. I'll candle the eggs in a few days to see if it looks like we're going to have any success. If we could raise 2 per week we could keep our family in chicken without buying any.

I also plan to hatch out some chicks to keep as layers for next year, but I won't start that project until later in the fall. In the past we have had a 98% hatch rate with our RIR's. We use an old styrofoam incubator....I aquired this one through a trade nearly 20 years ago. We bought a new one a few years ago, but it doesn't work nearly as well. We use the newer one as a hatcher....we move the eggs to it 2 days before their hatch date. We also never use a turner. I hand turn each egg 3 times a day.

I love the smell of propane burning in the morning...

Call me Hank Hill, but somehow it is a comforting smell. I brings back memories of living out in the middle of the woods. Our boys were very small (2 & 4), and neither girl had made their appearance into our family. We had a propane stove and I would get up early to start cooking before the heat of the day.

Back then we had only 1 window AC unit, and it stayed in the master bedroom. We would get our chores done all morning so that once that temp was up in the 90's in the house....we could huddle together on that huge king sized bed that filled the master bedroom. The air conditioner would blow for hours and the boys and I would read, tell stories, and take naps. Long cool naps in the heat of the day. We didn't have tv, or video games. We had the company of each other, woods to play in, and animals to watch. And that big window air conditioner that hummed us to sleep every evening.

The other large appliances in the house, the water heater, clothes dryer, and stove....all ran on propane. I spent a lot of hours in front of that big green stove cooking and canning.

A lot has changed since those days. The boys are grown and out of the house, a house now that has all electric appliances. Cooking on an electric stove just doesn't conjur up those memories for me.. But this morning, before the girls wake up, before we feed animals and milk the does, before we eat breakfast.....I fired up the propane burner. It is hard at work running the canner so that at the end of the day we can enjoy the cool hours of the evening, in front of a window ac unit, and have 9 more pints of milk preserved on the pantry shelf.

Preserving the milk harvest

We started canning milk last year and it has become an important part of our pantry inventory. We primarily use the milk for kids in the spring, but it is also nice to have for baking and cooking during the fall and winter. I use the instructions from the book "Goats Produce Too"...it's a simple pressure canning method.

1. Wash and sterilize jars (9 pints or 7 quarts for each canner load)
2. Filter milk and pour into jars, leaving 1" headspace.
3. Cap jars and place into the pressure canner
4. Add 3-4 inches of hot water to the canner and attach the lid.
5. Bring the canner to a full boil and begin venting steam.
6. Allow canner to vent for a full 10 minutes, then begin building pressure.
7. Bring pressure to 15 pounds and hold for a full 10 minutes.
8. Turn off heat and allow the canner to cool until pressure drops to 0.
9. Open vent and let it sit for 10 minutes.
10. Remove lid from canner and allow the jars to cool overnight.
11. Remove rings from jars, check seals, wash jars, mark and date them and store at room temperature.

The milk will keep for 6-8 months. Our does are in their 5th month of lactation, so I will be getting some milk put up now for the dry months. The canned milk is also good to have if you have a kid buyer that wants the kid raised on pasteurized milk. Any milk left in the pantry past 8 months old is fed to the dogs, chickens, or pigs.

It's That Time of Year...

We are making plans for breeding season. Pending some genetic testing on our new bucks, this is what we anticipate....

Callie to be bred to Manny (we tried this last year, but Callie snuck around the corner of the barn with Satin)

Tina to be bred to Satin

Happy to be bred to Dually

Silly to be bred to Ditto

Angel to be bred to Ditto

And Daydream bred to Ditto...

Of course this is all subject to change...goats will be goats!

Also on the breeding plans...I am going to try crossing our rooster Angus with some Cornish X hens. We are trying to produce a good meat bird without having to buy chicks each year.

Fun With Food

Our piggies have really grown up! We got them in mid-March at the age of about 6 weeks. We have been raising them on excess eggs, goat milk, and pig grower. We are hoping to have a litter of piglets from them in the fall before butchering the boar.
By the end of April the weather was getting a bit warm so we decided to buy them a kiddie pool to help them stay cool. Now that they are approaching 6 months old and the weather is hot...the boar spends a lot of time in the pool, and he nearly fills it! There is no hope to keep these guys out of the mud. Even with cleaning and filling the pool 2-3 times a day, the heat keeps them in the water and muck. By November he should provide us with 150+ pounds of pork.

Goodbye Sweet Boy

We lost our sweet Mansion, aka weenie boy yesterday morning. His genetics will live on through his kids and his brother Manny....but none will replace his sweet lapgoat personality.