We have continued to enjoy raising our cows and chickens. A couple of weeks ago, we had a little tragedy when we forgot to shut the chicken coop and went out to find one hen completely missing and 2 other hens and a rooster dead in the chicken yard. We suspect coyotes, but who knows. So that put us down to 16 total chickens. This past Sunday we loaded up 6 roosters and headed to the ranch to have a chicken butchering lesson. We kept one rooster who was the runt of all the chicks we got. The girls named him Cuddles. Hopefully Cuddles lives up to his name or he might find himself on the menu eventually, but he'll be good for egg production later, so he got a reprieve. The other six roosters became future dinner. Matt and Ashley( Aaron's cousin and her husband) helped Aaron and I butcher the chickens so we gave them three and kept three. The chickens were pretty small. These rooster were not intended to be meat chickens. We are considering getting some meat chickens in the spring so that we could have some fatter birds to put in the freezer but we'll see. If we did that we would potentially go in with the ranch and they would get some and we would get some. It takes about 8 weeks to raise them so it would not be a super long time commitment or anything.
The girls did not enjoy the process. Kelsay hid in the car the whole time. Maddy watched the first chicken through the window and then decided that was enough for her. She and Kelsay played with Aubrianna (cousin) for the rest of the time. Preston (cousin) was a different story. He had a great time getting to cut off a couple chicken heads and skinned and gutted one bird with minimal help from his dad. He was really proud of himself for his accomplishments. We opted to skin the chickens because it is faster and we had a limited amount of time for the job. Next time I hope to learn the plucking, singing part, etc. We haven't tried a chicken yet. I plan to get one out of the freezer and roast it for dinner tomorrow or Monday.
Yesterday we took the steers to the processor. We were disappointed with their weight. Spotty came in at 1000 which is good for grass fed but Blacky was only 875 and Cowy was 700. Cowy was not a good cow as far as growing etc. Just kind of a runt apparently and a terrible weight gainer. Blacky gained well but we feel like we should have waited another month or two to take them in. But live and learn.
Maddy was pretty sad when she came home from school yesterday that the steers were gone. She drew a picture about them. It is kind of lonely looking out at the empty pen and pasture. We hope to go to the sale barn after the new year and get a couple of calves and a heifer calf maybe. We'd like to have the kids do the whole process from start to finish at least once. We'll see what happens. It has been so dry this year I'm a little worried about what our pastures will support for the next year and a half to two years. Throw up some prayers for a weather pattern change. We need some snows!
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brittany