Tuesday 22nd November 2016
Filling the freezers
Amongst the chaos of torrential rain and mud yesterday we had Steven Burrows on site dispatching poultry for us (first mentioned back on 17th).
We had three turkeys, five ducks and thirteen chickens for him to do although as the day progressed we rescued one duck (our single female who we decided was just way too small to be eaten) and two chickens (Jack decided they were just far too pretty, plus they were hens and as a friend pointed out who was here with her own turkeys for Steven to do, ‘chickens lay eggs Jack!!’).
We do of course have the problem that we are keeping daughters of our current cockerels/ drake (in total we have kept seven chickens and one duck) and as such should not really hatch any eggs from them but father/daughter matings in poultry aren’t too frowned upon genetically and in all likelihood we will be eating a lot of the offspring anyway.
The pretty chap on the left became a very handsome cockerel and he and a brother gave us 3kg carcasses each: not bad for free range Heinz 57 crosses! One of the turkeys was a whopping 7kg.
We were thrilled that the birds were done on site as it really minimised the stress levels. Steven noted that the turkeys our friend bought over were much harder to pluck due to the stress of their journey (albeit just 15 minutes) really toughening up their skin!
We also waved goodbye to both of Mrs White’s lambs yesterday as they headed off to an abattoir in Taunton. It will be interesting what weights they come back as!!
We had three turkeys, five ducks and thirteen chickens for him to do although as the day progressed we rescued one duck (our single female who we decided was just way too small to be eaten) and two chickens (Jack decided they were just far too pretty, plus they were hens and as a friend pointed out who was here with her own turkeys for Steven to do, ‘chickens lay eggs Jack!!’).
The pretty chap on the left became a very handsome cockerel and he and a brother gave us 3kg carcasses each: not bad for free range Heinz 57 crosses! One of the turkeys was a whopping 7kg.
We were thrilled that the birds were done on site as it really minimised the stress levels. Steven noted that the turkeys our friend bought over were much harder to pluck due to the stress of their journey (albeit just 15 minutes) really toughening up their skin!
We also waved goodbye to both of Mrs White’s lambs yesterday as they headed off to an abattoir in Taunton. It will be interesting what weights they come back as!!