My mom is a major Kijji girl, she loves that site of her’s and she does find interesting things but I am kind of the mindset if you are looking, you can always find things you want, instead of being content with what you have..
But in the past few weeks I have been checking daily for horse buggies and horse harness, and that means that I am in the livestock area of it..
Ok, I know that there is often free kittens and puppies and lots of those teenager dogs that are turning out to be bigger then they thought and that they loved as a puppy but didn’t have time for as they grew and even sadder are the middle age or older dogs and cats that are just awesome, totally trained etc but they had a new baby and just “can’t” find time to do both.. I expected this to be honest..
What I didn’t expect was there have been free chickens, free ducks, free rabbits, free pigs, free sheep, free goats, free horses of all sizes, the only thing I have not seen in the past three weeks is free calvies or cows.. but I have seen them as low as ten dollars for a calf..
The reason’s are pretty much showing the same thing..
1) They can’t afford to feed them thought the winter and they don’t want to eat them, this would be the chickens, ducks, rabbits..
2) They can’t afford to feed them hay this winter -Sheep, goats and horses
3) They can’t afford to feed them to grow them out- Pigs, piglets, calf’s..
Now I know that you most likely had the same thoughts of either, wow the price of hay and feed is insane and this is just so sad.. and that is there in the background
But really what I am seeing is this huge gap in so many of these small backyard farmers, they put the time and effect to raise these chickens for the fresh eggs but now that winter has come, they would raither given them away then butcher them out and eat them..
A number of them say straight up, born in the backyard, (they don’t have the correct paperwork to go to the butcher) and if you are having trouble raising feed costs, you are going to have issues finding hauling and butcher costs and then you have to be able to can or freeze the meat, and if you don’t have the freezer space, that means freezer costs, as well as power costs etc.
Now I suppose that its possable that if you move the horse’s out of the question, as they are considered by most a pet, although to be honest, lots of horse’s have been eaten in their day but the size really would take it out of the home butcher realm for all but those that are very sure of themselves.
but lets get back to those smaller critters, honestly other then that “disconnect” that comes from never having done it, almost any regular home owner has the ability to put that chicken or rabbit or duck from pen to plate..
I think a kill cone for the birds is a good thing but lets just say that you don’t have one, go the old fashioned way of chopping block and hatched.. don’t have a hatched or a kill cone, fine, go the really old fashion way and do the swing and neck break.. Rabbit, don’t have the kill cone, or the ability to use bolt gun, fine, go back to the old fashion broom stick/break neck..
After that, you need a knife and ideally a good pair of chicken shears or as I tend to use a good pair of hand tree trimmers, and time.. some running water, ideally a bit of salt, and time in the fridge to chill and even if you don’t have a extra freezer, you can cook it off, stripe the meat off and freeze in into very small bags in the freezer part of your fridge.
If you are short on funds for feed, why the heck would you not use the meat on that critter you raised.. the one lady straight up said, I have very healthy chickens, ducks but I can’t bring myself to eat them, so they have to go..
I blame the magazines and the small homesteading books, they show these cute little critters and talk about them like they are pets, and you know what, I am guilty of it.. I name my critters, come on, my big sow is called Miss Piggy, my massive breeding male duck is called Mr. Big named after the hot dude in Sex in the City, my cow is called Girl..
I talk about them at times like they are family members (and they are) but I hope! that I also do a good job making folks understand that my critter are on a true working farm, that means I will breed you, I will raise your offspring and I will sell them, I will eat them, and if I send them for butcher, I have the choice of selling their meat as farmgate sales.
I just went and flipped though three small homestead books and I have to tell you the amount of time given in any of them on the “end” part of these critters is shockingly little..
One says ” after reaching the useful end of your chickens laying life, they make good soup broth”.. That’s it.. chapters on how to get the chicks, raise the chicks, housing, feed, breeding, outdoor pens, use in the garden etc.. and one line about afterwards but no showing butchering or how to safely and humanely butcher them out..
The next ones has a bit more, they refer their readers to books on how to butcher, saying that they do not have room to cover this in their book and so here is links to a number of good books..
They have a point, it does take a whole book to do the subject justice but they also safely and quickly took that part of the process right out of their homestead in your backyard book at the same time.. neat trick huh…
Am I the only one that see’s this “missing” peice in the puzzle?
Just another Day on the Farm 
I see what you mean. I call it having an ostrich point of view. Willing to eat meat but not willing to admit how meat happens. 😦
and I get that when it comes to folks that are buying their meat at the store where its even been deboned so that you can’t even be reminded of really what part you are cooking and eating but how can it still be so big when they have raised the animal and live with it on a daily feeding/watering etc.. At that point, are they at, I can eat meat but just a critter I have looked in the eye?
Just not a critter I have looked in the eye, (missed the not on that sentence, said it in my mind)
I see the problem as well. The truth is hard to swallow 🙂 Freddy the sheep is still in the barn while I procrastinate about buying tags and getting him to the butcher…I am part of the problem at this point but I know the truth is Freddy’s gotta go. That’s why we do what we do. That is the end result.
I always say people can have their opinions but if you want to have one about meat you better be a vegetarian. (I was one for 20 years) When this “hard” task is one we leave to big business because we can’t handle it we really need to rethink our meat eating. I for one am totally ready to take that next step and do the backyard butcher but it would be nice to have someone in real life show me what to do. Youtube videos are great but real life is better.
I wish I was closer, I would be willing to give a helping hand, althought I have found out that when I help teach someone else about chickens and rabbits that having someone watch me takes me out of my zone a bit.. but if I can just talk and do I do better then if I have to stop and answer questions.. Not that question are not good but I have learned to say, just watch and listen on the first one and ask your questions and I will answer on the second one..
Good luck on Freddy, I finally got my sheep tags in mysef, and so now have a butcher date for ten sheep and Marty in Jan, both DH and I have been trying to spend the past time since oct getting used to the idea that he will be heading out but still to have the date makes it hard to a point. Still I need to get the amount of hay being eaten down cause it really is being gone though like mad around here..
Speaking of critters, have you or do you use protein lick tubs with your sheep/pasture critters? I had always used loose minerals, salt blocks and baking soda but the more I was researching it appeared that I needed a protien lick for the expecting cow and the horse health, I got one that all the pasture critters could use, and they have been going crazy about it.. I swear the first day the horse was either at the lick or at the hay.. now that they have had it for a few weeks they are settling down on the daily amount but I can already see some improvements in certain things, I just wish I knew why..
I have another huge tub and I have a lead on a guy about an hour away that carries it year round, where as I bought the local feed store out when they brought it in special for the big Black Friday sales.
Na! They’re just gutless, that’s all; )
You (keep on) go(ing) Girl!!
I have been struggling with this a bit lately, though more in the context of selling goats. We butchered chickens, and have (finally!) found a butcher for the bucklings, but I have a hard time with the idea of selling off goat babies for some stupid reason. I was raised the get a pet and keep it until it dies – I had a cat that I got when I was 19 that just passed away last spring…that’s my internal expectation, somehow – if we get a critter (say, for instance, an alpaca), we keep it forever. I know this is not realistic, but there it is. Damn city kids moving to the country…
I had not thought of that angle of it, but yes there has been a public education that when you take on a animal that you have it for life, and I get that in terms of “pets” but when it comes to farm animals, that is a very hard thing to do..
I will admit that I struggle with this issue myself, Butterscotch was a perfect example, I bought a “old” sheep with a excellent lamb on side, she lived very well into sheep old age (four to five years past the time any sheep breeder would have shipped her off to the sale barn) and even into the time space of “old” for a sheep, the last year, she needed to be not bred, she needed extra care, extra feed, to have everything in the barn to help keep her out of the winds, her teeth floated etc..
She was always so happy and full of life that I had that “ah”, I knew that she was going down hill with old age but I was applying “pet” owner mentality to her, instead of farmer, would you think less of me if i admit that I said to her a few times over the last months, would you please just go to sleep and not wake up one of these mornings! But as with most things in real life its never that clean.. the truth was that despite grains, extra feed, shelter and medical care, she got to the point of not being able to keep her weight on, and that was when we had to make the hard choice of what needed to be done..
Looking back on it, I don’t regret the extra time with her but we did have a couple indepth talks about having to figure out how to find that middle ground, the main thing we figure out is that we need to send older middle age sheep to butcher for hamburger instead of allowing us to get caught in a “pet” mind and keeping them to long.
Good luck on selling those kids, and getting those bucklings to the butcher..
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