It's November and it's getting colder around here. The leaves are almost all off the trees now and my chickens are molting.
We sold all of our market lambs and they were all processed last month. Holy cow so yummy! I'm bummed I didn't save more than one lamb for myself! Next year, I'm keeping three for us! We learned a lot from the experience. First, and foremost, book the butcher early! Man, it's crazy how far out they are booked!
We had to make a hard decision to cull some roosters and drakes. It was a sad day, but there was just too much testosterone around here. Our main Jersey Giant rooster who was pretty good to his girls was hunting and attacking us constantly so we made the hard decision to let him go to freezer camp. We also had to let go of two of our Icelandic roosters who were just plain crazy. Definitely not genetics I want to pass on! And two of our drakes were not up to the breed standards. I decided to keep our young drake Nigel, who is fairly correct. He was was raised by a chicken and is very confused about his identity right now. Our former drake Tommy wouldn't let him near the duck flock so he still thinks he's a chicken. Now the problem is we need him to realize he's a duck, not a chicken. The girls have accepted him now so that's a start in the right direction. He seems to enjoy being with them, but he isn't stuck like glue to the flock yet. He wanders off sometimes looking for the chickens. I'm working on it...
Here are some pictures from this morning. The steers next door were good models in the fog.
I'm looking forward to picking up my ewe's from SuAve Katahdin's where they're being bred to a very nice ram named Otis. I'm buying a young ewe and a new ram from them as well. I should be able to pick them up just before Thanksgiving! Excited!
We're hosting our family for Thanksgiving and are serving our home raised, organic turkey and a leg of lamb from the lamb we kept for ourselves. I'm trying to put together a completely organic and mostly home grown meal. Yummy! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Comments