The goats are milking like champs, it's hard to believe breeding season is right around the corner again. Our first Linear Appraisal session went well, with several does scoring in the high 80's with Macy, Cammile, Elina and Emilene taking top honors. We learned a lot, by the end of the day I thought my head would explode. The tough part will be applying this newfound knowledge to our future breeding program.
The garden is bursting! Goat and chicken poop have done wonders for our soil. Despite tomato blight and and scary looking red potato beetles, this year's harvest has been bountiful so far. We did realize recently, that our self-proclaimed, "self-sufficiency" goals rely on our freezers. Even with all the fresh produce, meats, etc, I've neglected to learn the art of canning up until now, I'm strictly a blanch and freeze artist. Time to set a goal for 2012. . .
Happy to report that I have 10 less birds tormenting my mornings, evenings and sometimes the nightmares of my friends (you know who you are). The broilers went to "market" last week. What disgusting creatures they are. Fat legs, waddling 2-3 steps then plopping down in their own poop for most of the day. Boy are they tasty though. After eating farm raised chickens for a couple years now, you realize the grocery store brands really don't taste like chicken, in fact, they don't taste like much at all. From eggs to 63 pounds of meat in just 7.5 weeks on just 2 bags of feed. Round 2 coming soon, we have more feed to use up before winter.
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| Save me the comments. . . this isn't gross, they tasted great!!!! |
