Butching Turkeys

Warning:

don't scroll down unless you want to see dead birds.

When we were at the fair Teen Son’s Ag teacher mentioned the person who had butchered the turkeys in the past was no longer available.  Teen Son found out it was $25  a bird to do the butchering and volunteered.  The problem is we are not real confident of the job we are doing!  So he gathered three friends, borrowed the pot a wonderful friend of ours uses to cook crawfish and got to work.  Well the kids got to work – I took pictures. 

 

The boys put the birds in a cut down traffic cone then cut the veins so the bird would bleed out.

 

One of the FFA girls older sisters knew what she was doing and gave lessons. 

 She sure did make the day so much easier!

They started doing the plucking with a plucker attached to a drill.  

These birds were 25 to 40 lbs and holding them in the air got old really fast.

 

The kids switched over to plucking by hand.

 

Posers!

 

Not to be out done by his big brother.

The first bird gook over 40 minutes and by the time we got down to the fourth turkey the kids had it down to 25 minutes.  4 kids working 25 minutes to earn $25.00 is not a great profit.  Teen son enjoyed doing the work and plans to raise a few turkeys to sell for Thanksgiving.  

Missing Tessa

Tessa was a wonderful dog.  

She was Luca’s leader, the two dogs worked together with her seeming to tell Luca what to do. 

Tessa had the energy to play with Dakota long enough to get him good and tired every morning and afternoon. 

She was the sheep’s alarm, if Tessa barked the sheep paid attention often moving closer to her for protection.  The cat’s enjoyed teasing her to the point that I warned the kids if one of our cats ended up dead I wouldn’t be mad at Tessa. 

 Tessa rarely let a human hand rest without her putting her head under it for a scratch.  She was the perfect loving watchful protective dog.  After Tessa died Stick Boy came to me in tears, “Now the only one I have to tell my secrets to is God”.  Tessa will always be missed.  

Poison

I came home from the fair early my back was hurting and I just wanted to be home.  Darling Husband brought me home and I checked all the animals I had not seen for 8 days then went to take a nap and stretch my back.  The week on the coast had not prepared me for the hot temperatures inland at 5: it was early to feed the animals BUT the fodder room is air conditioned so I decided to go up and hang out in the air conditioned fodder room. 

The last picture I took of Tessa was of her guarding a turtle laying eggs in our driveway.  The turtle was very unhappy with all the attention she received.  

 I stepped over Tessa as I walked up to the fodder room.  A few minutes later she came up to the fodder room with some blood on her mouth but I didn’t think much of it because she is such a hunter.  She leaned against me and I petted her for a few minutes then got back to work getting ready to feed the cattle. Tessa curled up by my feet.   I looked down a few minutes later and blood was flowing out of her mouth and as I called my daughter to bring the car so we could get her to the vet she died. 

Luca home from the hospital.  I am not sure if the cat is guarding me or Luca.

Two days later Luca stopped moving very much.  He wouldn’t come when called or eat so I called the vet we have been using who didn’t have any appointments for a few hours and gave us the number to the emergency vet after I explained what had happened to Tessa.  I called our old vet and when I explained what had happened to Tessa they just said to take Luca to an emergency vet the dr was in surgery. 

Luca happily jumped into the truck, and enjoyed the ride to the emergency office but on the way bruises started to form under his skin.  He jumped out of the truck and happily walked into the emergency vets charming everyone along the way.  I joked with the vet teck that he was faking being sick at home and just wanted attention.  I told them our other dog had died so they took him to be tested.  Luca’s blood had stopped clotting.  The dogs had gotten into poison or eaten animals that were poisoned.  We left Luca with hope that we would be able to pick him up the next day but they made it clear he might need to stay 2 nights to make sure he was safe. 

Luca decided his crate was a comfortable place.  The noise of his wagging tail banging against the side and the cats hissing at him made me go check.

We all kept thinking of Luca all day and finally late in the afternoon I called to see how Luca was doing and they told us to pick him up.  He was doing well enough to come home.  It has been a month.  Today hopefully, was Luca’s last blood test to make sure he is clotting propperly.  He has associated the cow’s pasture with his being hurt and is afraid to go into it but is jumping the fence to visit my neighbor who feeds him hamburger and other treats and back to being his playful self.  

Feeling good enough to play in the water and tease Dakota with a stick.

The Fair

Stick Boy enjoying a caramel apple

Saturday at noon we moved the trailers and other comforts of home to the fair.  The animals had to be in their pens at 2:30 AM.  My back was killing me, so Stick Boy and I decided stay at camp and set up the temporary fodder system and enjoy the fair while Darling Husband and Teen Son went home to load up the FFA lambs. 

This was our temporary fodder set up.

The display that the guys set up.

Fair schedule for the kids is to get up at 6AM go into the fair grounds to clean and feed the animals.  On the days the kids and their animals are being judged the animals need to be washed (cattle are even blow dried) before the fair opens at 10: am.  Teen Son had 2 lambs so the mornings he showed his lambs were pretty stressful.  Then they need to keep all pens clean though out the day so visitors to the fair get to see the animals but not smell them.  The animals are fed usually about 5 pm.  Our FFA group had meetings at 8: pm and after the fair closes one last check on the animals.  It is fun and exhausting. 

The lambs are all walked around being held by behind their ears.

The judge checking out the sheep.  He decided our sheep were too short in the body.

Poor Darling Husband spent most nights at home but often would come to the fair for a few hours then drive home.  

Kids showing animals can only have one animal go to auction so we had to barn sell one of the animals.  Auction price is by the pound so Teen Son decided to sell the largest lamb at auction and find a buyer for the fodder fed lamb.  He had several ofer so he ended up making a profit on both lambs.  

 

Enjoying the fair.

Grandpa came to the fair and gave the boys money for a treat.  When the rest of the kids came Stick Boy shared his treat with them.  Teen Son was too tired to join them.

Buyers Letter

Part of getting ready for fair is writing a “Buyers Letter”.  It is a hated job but it is to attract interest in your animal.  After much grumbling from Teen Son and threats from Mean Mom, Darling Husband even had to step in and became Lay The Law Down Dad.  And the Buyers Letter was done. 

                                Fed grain ↑                                        Fed fodder ↑

My name is Teen Son (16) of FFA and I am raising two sheep for this year’s County Fair on completely different feeds. One sheep, Oh-bla-di, is feed the normal Show Maker Lamb Slam found in almost any feed store. However, as an experiment, Oh-bla-da (a twin to Oh-bla-di for optimal test results), is fed with something quite different entirely.  It’s called fodder, grown on our property in a 40ft cargo container set up specifically for growing fodder. The simple process starts with soaking seeds (barley seeds in our case) for 12 hours, then spreading them out on plastic trays, with holes in the bottom so water can flow through, and placing them on racks. After being watered there for about 5 days, the seeds grow into grass.  At this point we rip the fodder up into pieces small enough for our cows to handle and feed it to them. One tray of fodder is set aside for Oh-bla-da, ripped up into slightly smaller pieces and then fed to him with a handful of Alfalfa hay. Meanwhile, Oh-bla-di is fed the usual grain and hay.  Also, my Fair sheep, along with our other sheep, get to free range our 17 acres during the day, eating naturally as sheep should while gaining added exercise and muscle tone. All while being carefully watched by the dogs that protect them from dangers such as coyotes.

Free ranging sheep

  

                   

The Fodder Racks       Good daily crop        Top row for final day

When I bought these two sheep from my breeder, they were only five pounds apart, and otherwise identical. As of now, Oh-bla-di (being fed average grain) seems more muscular while Oh-bla-da (fed fodder) seems to be a little more round in his stomach area. Both are very energetic and are seen running, jumping and skipping quite often. I can hardly wait to see what their differences will be when the Fair comes around and I greatly hope, when sold, they go to the same people so I might get some feedback on whose meat was better. As you can see from the attached page, I pay about four times more to feed Oh-bla-di grain as Oh-bla-da’s fodder diet even if it does take a little more work. This could possibly be the future of feeding live stock both more efficiently and economically. It all rides on Auction Day, June 5, 2014, to see if it was all worth it and if fodder could be the key to less expensive and tastier meat for all.

Two Sheep, Two Feeds

Sheep, two triplets:       Oh-bla-di            Oh-bla-da

Feeds:                   Store bought Grain      Home grown Fodder

 Crude Protein:   17.7%                                      20.2%

Crude Fat:           4.2%                              4.3%

Crude Fiber:                  5.5%                              11.3%

Ash:                      7.2%                              N/A

Calcium:              .192%-1.3%                            .15%

50lbs bag=$20     50lbs cost $15.

50lbs=9.5 days     50 lbs of seed = 30 trays        

5 1/4lbs per day   1 tray per day

1.5 lbs of seed per day

$2 per day of feed         $.50 per day for fee

    

If a thousand sheep are needed to be fed, and you had the option of two thousand or five hundred dollars a day, which would you choose? Say you feed them strictly on these substances for a year. That’s an option of $730,000 or $182,500; a possible savings of $547,500 or being able to raise an extra 3,000 sheep that year.

For more information about fodder please visit: http://www.foddersolutions.net/. Want to know more about our ranch? Visit the blog at 

I am very proud of the finished product.  He worked very hard on it and it couldn't have been easy because Darling Husband and I kept giving him different advice.  I had trouble transferring it over to the blog so his letter is much better.  

A New Gate

When we put up the fencing so we could keep dogs and sheep in I begged Darling Husband to put in gates.  He promised he would but …. “Later, lets get the fence up then worry about gates”.  Later!  We cut the fence for the Cub Scout Crossover and tried to do a temporary gate using hay string.  So, the happy sheep discovered our neighbor’s horse hay. 

When we moved here I found a cool door that I wanted to use on something.  For the past 9 years it has been getting even more weathered.  So I suggested we use the door as the gate and Darling Husband agreed.  

Shearing Attempt

We started sheering the sheep for the long hair sheep to just not be so yucky and the show sheep to get ready for fair.  

Dot's baby isn't happy, "My mom is being messed with, aren't you the dog that protects her?"

We had been busy and my back was killing me so we started with the smallest gentelist sheep.  All went well with Dot then we started on Blackwell.

Resting my back while Teen Son tries to fix the shearer.

Wouldn’t you know ½ way through trimming Blackwell the Shearer’s blades quit working.  We borrowed the school’s sheers and bought a used pair to finish the sheep for the fair.  We have not finished Blackwell or the rest of the sheep but it is on the short list, hopefully tomorrow (I said that 2 days ago and the day before that).  Poor Blackwell looks really funny, a man came on the property  to check our power lines joked he was going to report me to Animal Control for allowing her self esteem to be hurt.