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The chickens have been working overtime. I try to tell them to relax, take a break, but they just can’t. They love their work! WE HAVE SO MANY EGGS.
Chicken at work in the corner of the goat house.
Chicken thrown off the job so I can collect eggs. Pink and blue and green and white. I love my Easter-egger layers. (Little red hen notwithstanding. This is a widely-shared nest.)
Goats attack me the entire time. Blurry photo as I attempt to make my escape.
Glory Bee, right behind me, THIS CLOSE. Her eyes are so big, I fear I may fall into them.
Fleeing to safety under hot pursuit.
Meanwhile, Beulah Petunia is spitting out milk like she’s got 20 babies to feed instead of none. It’s wonderful to be swimming in milk and cream and butter again. It’s too much, of course. A family cow can supply a big family. As I wean Glory Bee and get used to having so much milk again, I have to adjust my mindset to deal with the plenty. It’s the same thing as when I have dozens of eggs or even when I look at the bags and bags of herbs I’m already harvesting in my garden. I have to remind myself that it’s okay if I can’t use it all. We are, most of us, brought up in the notion of waste not-want not, and that is a high priority here, too, but there are different variables. When purchasing food, most people try to purchase an amount that can be used before it goes bad. You wouldn’t go out and buy eight dozen eggs then give three-fourths of them away because it’s more than you need. Nor would you buy 10 or 12 gallons of milk a week and slop some to your pigs or chickens or dogs. But even on a small farm, you can easily produce far more than you need in the process of trying to live self-sustainably.
By the way, having a lot of chickens means I never run out of eggs in the lean winter months, either, when they aren’t all laying. It’s similar to the way I will pack the freezer with milk and butter to get through the winter when BP is dried off awaiting the next birth. Planning so that I’m never out of milk and eggs goes hand in hand with sometimes having too much.
I use milk in every way I can–cheese, butter, cream, ice cream, etc. If you can make it out of milk, I make it! And then I have to remember that it’s not really wasteful to share it with the animals when there’s excess. I also share cheeses, eggs, and so on with family, just as I share canning or bags of herbs or other garden goodies. One of the side benefits of producing for yourself is being able to share. Even as winter is over, I still have canned and frozen fruits and vegetables. I haven’t run out of my dried herbs from last year before I have fresh herbs again. The new season of abundance is upon us, and we haven’t yet run through all of last year’s store.
I’ll never make absolutely everything we use–that’s almost impossible. Even in the old days, they would trade what they had for what they didn’t have, exchanging with someone else who grew or raised or made what they didn’t. Living in a self-sustainable mindset doesn’t mean you have to make or grow or raise everything. In fact, no matter where you are, you can live in a more self-sustainable way. Start with baking a loaf of bread. You don’t have to go to the extreme of living on a farm or getting a cow to pursue a more organic relationship with your food.
Dilly Bread, except without the dilly. I used fresh oregano and chives instead of dried dill.
Other than the episode of the pigs, the main vacuum in our more “extreme” course of self-sustainability has been producing our own meat. As I plan BP’s upcoming “romantic encounter” and the next calf, I know that will change. Glory Bee is the heir to the dairy crown here. Subsequent calves will serve a different purpose. One good calf a year, raised to butcher, will provide us all the beef we need. We will probably do pigs again, though we haven’t yet. (Not sure if we will do it this year or not. We have no piglets at the moment.) We have never eaten any of our chickens, but I have regularly contemplated buying some chicks specifically for butchering. A batch of heavy-breed meat chicks can be ready to butcher in a few months. Meat birds are a short-term project. I buy chicken at the store. And THAT doesn’t make sense. It’s important to remember that the chicken at the store didn’t come into this world pre-packaged.
Yesterday, I ordered a batch of meat chicks!
I’m so excited! I can’t wait to taste my fresh home-grown fried chicken. Right after 52 puts them in styrofoam packages!!!! Oh wait…. FYI, they are ALL ROOSTERS. They sell meat chicks in rooster packs. They grow faster and bigger. And there’s not much else to do with them anyway…..
It takes a number of years to start a farm from scratch and become self-sustainable on numerous levels. We’re still growing our fruit trees and bushes, for example. But it’s easy to see how farmers, even in the Depression era, were living “high on the hog” (literally) even in a time of economic hardship. The same is true today. And while you can’t put the hens on hiatus when you have too many eggs, or cut a cow in half when you have too much milk, it’s better to have too much than not enough. My father grew up on a farm in West Virginia (a hop, skip, and a jump from our farm now) in the Depression, and he remembers it this way: “We had chickens, cows, geese, ducks, guineas, turkeys, sheep, and hogs. We raised a garden and canned a cellarful of fruit and vegetables every summer. With hogs to kill every fall and all of the eggs and milk we could use, we never wanted for anything.”
Now that’s living!
Posted by Suzanne McMinn on May 6, 2011
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Granny Trace
http://www.grannytracescrapsandsquares.com
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I’d like the hear more about the ornery neighbor again too!
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I always feel that since I eat meat I really should have a go at raising my own meat, because I love animals and I feel it’s hypocritical of me to eat meat but not be able to raise animals for meat. I can’t do it where I am now, and I always wonder how I’d go with it…I always have such trouble killing things and I get attached to anything. I admire people who can raise their own meat. It’s the only way to truely know exactly how the animal lived and died. Do keep us updated
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May I suggest also that you not get Jersey bull calves as they are VERY HARD STARTING and you can lose them in the first couple of weeks from pneumonia etc. I’m sorry if this needs to be flagged, it is only a suggestion.
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MN Mona
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Abundance is certainly a reason to be grateful! Reminds me I need to harvest herbs already and Give Some Away!
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We usually raise our own beef also. I don’t currently have any cows, but I have a frezer full of meat. We have also done pigs, but we don’t eat as much pork.
My grandson raises chickens and then we sell them. I have never eaten any of our own chickens only because I am too lazy to clean them. I will have to check with our butcher to see if he processes chickens like CasieD talked about. I would love to be able to eat chicken that I know is fresh and hormone free.
As long as I know from the beginning that an animal is for food, and not to get attached, I don’t.
You will do great with the calves. And the beef is so much better, you will never go back to store bought.
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Good luck Suzanne! You’ll do a great job with them, I’m sure!
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They will have to be separate from the hens and rooster.
What sort of place have you all arranged for yours?
We did it years ago and haven’t really had great tasting chicken since! There is just no comparison to home raised.
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The best of luck to you with the weaning and the meat birds. You are brave to take all of this on, along with all the other responsibilities you have!
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Do you have your hens and roosters all mingling together? In other words, do you eat your fertilized eggs? I’m sure you probably do. I want a rooster but have a little bit of a mental block thinking about eating fertilized eggs. But from reading, they say all it is, is a few extra cells in the eggs. Did you ever have any issues with this?
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Izzy, I posted about the pigs a few times, though not always strictly in posts in the Barn section. They grew up and were then ultimately in the freezer.
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Did you get someone to kill/process the pigs for you? Will you do that with the cows and chickens?
I think either way is good, I’m just curious!
And did it help you not get attached to the pigs by knowing what they were there for from the very beginning? Like you are going to do with the future calves and roosters?
Just, as I said earlier, I get attached to anything I have to look after, so am trying to work out if I was ever in a position to raise my own meat if I’d be able to make it easier on myself if I avoided doing more than I had to with them and knowing that’s what they were there for from the beginning
It is something I’m interested in trying some day, I just hate not really knowing where my meat comes from, face it the supermarkets can call it what they want but we never know for sure how it was treated when it was alive :(
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I would love to do chickens, but the coyotes here are ridiculous. We get plenty from neighbors anyway, who like you are swimming in eggs. I have 4 dozen in the fridge right now, lol. I love that we share as a community.
As always, love your blog, love to tune in and see what you’re up to now. It’s been great watching your farm grow.
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I tried raising the heavy meat variety, I had the hardest time getting the “meat” off the bones…stuck on their like glue. Anybody else have this situation??? I have raised the Cornish Cross and am doing so again this spring. Congrats to you Suzanne, I know this is a big step for you. You do love your chickens! Its not the easiet thing to do, processing animals. I take mine to a processor… I always give thanks to the animal(s) for what they have given. In some weird way, it helps.