Pork shoulder - can attest to it as the best cut of meat with every fiber of my being. Way better than any other piece of meat. Tender, juicy, flavorful, and easy to prep / cook.
Lol lamb is so very British and part of what we eat regularly. We had lamb burger yesterday and lamb steak, lamb chops or roast lamb is so normal for us!
I love your channel. My family of 9 moved from LA to the midwest three years ago. We've been keeping chickens for eggs. Six months ago we hatched a clutch of eggs and ended up with 5 roosters on top of two roosters we already had. This has been a problem for our hens. I did a ton of research, watched a lot of UA-cam videos and decided to cull all but two roosters. It went well and I was surprised at how easy it was. My husband and I are now talking about buying some meat birds this year. I'm happy to hear that the Cornish crosses are easier to butcher. Some of those roosters were tough. Thank you for posting this video and giving me even more to explore.
@@Homesteadyshow I'm so grateful we got out California just in time. It was truly a blessing. I'll keep you all posted. Thank you for sharing your homesteading experiences. Your family is an inspiration. Have a great day.
In my family a nice Chuck Roast cooked slowly with carrots, potatoes, onions and seasonings until its fork tender is a favorite meal. Not all cuts, especially if the store calls it pot roast, taste as well. Any leftovers get turned into tacos, cooked with noodles in a casserole, as breakfast hash etc. Nothing goes to waste. It's all in the cut and the seasonings like everything else. Its 1 of the most requested meals by my guys.
We had chickens when I was a kid an when dad wanted chicken for dinner I would go out an ring there neck an dip them in boiling water an hang it on the cloth line an pluck them an I had to do it cause my mom was scared of anything with wings, so I learned to do it very young.
I love the lamb commentary, im from New Zealand, and from a sheep farm here. We have some cattle, but its sucj a massive job to butcher a beast where as lamb and mutton is soooooo easy and its in almost every meal. Chops are where its at. Chops and roasts!!!! Beef is 2nd rate in my opinion hahahaha.
We’ve raised lamb and butchered when older for mutton - it’s even better than lamb but can’t buy it from the butchers as it would be too expensive. We’re going to raise some more as the price is really high now. We’re using Livamol Bioworma for the goats and will use it for the sheep :)
Lamb is considered a specialty product in this country and therefore gets the specialty price. Also I think I'm stew meat. I can be a little tough if not given enough time but given that time I provide comfort and warmth.
Love watching your videos! I started a small hobby farm 8 Acres about 5 years ago and your informational videos make me think of a lot of different directions that I can take my farm. Especially on how to make money on a homestead. we have been having open houses every few weeks in the summer months to raise money to buy hay and feed for the winter..Thank you from Jeff and Sandy at the WookieMoo Ranch in Sycamore IL!!
on the pigs we didnt have a large enough vessel to dunk so we ladled hot water on the pig and worked each area ladled and worked great...We raise kune kune...looking forward to trying lamb. thank you for all your information!
Love your content and appreciate the ability to get more indepth information through your pioneer library. Chickens we already do, but we don't do meat only chickens. We simply rotate out our egg laying breeds (bi)annually that serve as a hybrid meat/egg layer. Reduces our refrigeration requirement and we don't have the grasses needed for a chicken tractor in the Arizona desert. Goats are also a better fit for us as they serve multiple purposes from browse control to both meat and dairy. They also do better in the heat for us.
THANKS for being a Pioneer MC! Some great new shows coming to the library this month! Great point about keeping the freezer requirement low by rotating egg layers! Such a good point to consider!
Glad to see another AZ pioneer. I'm way down near the border raising poultry, hogs, and I keep saying I'm good to add a steer or some lambs but haven't yet.
our old biddie hens cook up super tender they finish on milk, grazing, corn smoked jowel pig: landrace/Hampshire X feeder, 4 months dress at 290. feed hay, milk, water, graze . hanging the pig before kill works slick. making slaughter dates a year in advance is best
You know, I like mint in some things -- peppermint patties, mint tea, peppermint ice cream, candy canes. But that green mint jelly that is usually served with lamb is one of the main reasons I got turned off eating lamb! I'd much rather treat it more like beef, and leave the mint jelly in the store.
Gyros haha. Just so you know it's pronounced "Euro". My roommate used to make fun of me for that because I could not get it right. I love lamb, I love shoulder roasts grilled over charcoal. It is so, so good.
I did headshots on my lambs, point blank with a .22 revolver to stun, then bleeding. The real limiter we found was that they couldn't really be eviscerated solo, even when they were smaller (which, unfortunately, we were sort of counting on). I grind the rib meat, no point in trying to cook them on the bone, too thin.
Can I tell you what this did for me? I am awaiting the day when I can live this life and get birds. I was fixated on chickens. All this did is make me crazy about them BOTH! I am all over the place learning about ducks now… sigh… new obsession unlocked 😂
Ham. It's like bacon with meat on it. Recently, I got a ham, because they were marked down after Christmas, as apposed to having sliced ham for sandwiches. Oh, it was great. I unsay fry bacon in the same pan as my Hillshire Farm precooked turkey sausage (I don't the pork, and I don't like Jimmy Dean). Wow, the fat that came from the ham! I didn't like bacon so much when my mom used to burn it. She also originally got thin bacon, so that once you ate it, you didn't know where it went, and had to have more. A few years before she died, she started getting thick cut, which I liked more. Now, I buy and cook it myself, and take care not to burn it.
Have you ever tried the Rainbow Ranger Meat Chickens…I have been told that they are a pretty good breed to have as meat… I am not too keen on the butchering part myself, I have seen it done but never participated myself. So will probably find someone who is willing to do it for me and give them a couple chickens or rabbits or a whole lamb/sheep if I am doing more than one… Sort of a trade in skills or something like that…
Lamb is exspensive because of the supermarket marketing. In NZ the biggest exporter of Lamb, we might get $6per kg when selling the lamb, sonetimes $9 if its a good market. But the same lamb is on the supermarket shelf for $26 per kg. All maketing!!!
Price is determined by demand. How much money does the grocer make per square foot of “shelf” space. The faster something sells the more that square foot can make in money. Also something that sells fast is less likely to be discounted or thrown away. (That also raises the overall price). So if and when lamb becomes more popular the price will begin to fall.
@Homesteady For someone that hasnt had lamb before and eats mostly beef, what recipes/spices/ways to cook it do you advise for newbies to it? Also how do you handle ground lamb as far as recipes...can it make good burgers??? Thanks.
Ok, best thing to do is buy some from a local source, get some steaks. Grill them up with salt. Done. Get to know the flavor without masking it. Steaks are easier to cook than a roast and if you don’t like it/mess it up it’s not SOO MUCH WASTE. If you pass the steaks, try ground in a meat pie like recipe, a shepherds pie or little hand Meat pies. Then grow from there 👍
In my location all but chicken is very expensive to raise. I have NO pasture/grass. I have dirt like talcum powder. Any animals we get we have to buy ALL their food. I would love to live somewhere where there is grass. So chickens and sheep are the easiest just because we can get the chicken feed and alfalfa easy.
Suggestion. Plant out perennials that can be used for browsing leaning towards bushes and trees. If possible, plant on contour with alleys wide enough to run your animals through. You can come behind and add swales to capture what water you get. Lay down some dry carbon (wood chips, straw/spent hay, cardboard) to collect what comes out the back end of the critters. With time you can create a solid ecosystem. Aim for 40 - 60% mature canopy cover. If you post roughly where you live, I can suggest actually plants.
@@shermdog6969 I've been doing permaculture since the mid '80's and now homestead from a wheelchair in the maritime Pac NW but I know how to do just about everything climate. Temperate rainforests and high mountain deserts are the hardest and I have designed systems for all of them. First thing is to control water, so it doesn't take you top soil off down the road, leave you with a big, or otherwise be a nuisance. It's best if any that lands on your ground can go straight down. If you have enough rain, consider roof rain water catchment (not feasible/practicable in high mountain deserts) and surface water containment like swales (ditch dug on contour where water moves very slowly in and direction but down) and ponds. Grey water to plants is much better than sewer or septic. Then it's plants to hold the soil. Nut, fruit, fodder, windbreak, and pollinators are some of the jobs they do. Fuel, nitrogen fixation, building materials are others. The general pattern is nut tree, two fruit trees, and repeat. Plant a nitrogen fixer in the same hole as each. The nut trees are usually the tallest with the widest canopy, so space them such that at maturity, they will almost touch. The fruit trees will become understory trees. Intersperse bushes like berries, hazel nuts (or climate appropriate shrub that does a job). Then plant annuals to perennial to fill the space. Fast growing short lived things help get the biome going. Mulch heavily, so any water stays put (unless you are in the temperate rain forest, then you plant into the top of mounds and mulch lightly but frequently since it acts like a sponge and will drown your plant. Look at portable electric netting, mobile shelters, to plan alley width. If you have fencing that has posts every 14' but only an 8' wide alley you have a lot of extra unsupported corners to stake out. Additionally, chickens will hop onto their shelter and flutter over the net if given the opportunity. Then you have predators. Hawks are exceedingly agile. We have some that can fly through a one square foot opening, snag a chicken snack and fly out a mature lilac without disturbing a leaf. Do not get me started on my owls or the eagles. A summer we were a fly though poultry nugget stand for every bird of prey withing 5 miles, while we dialed in the tolerances. Again if I know roughly where you are at (this county, near this city depending on how varied the area - I live in the Puget sound region where 100 miles can mean a lot depending on direction) I can direct you to resources more targeted to you, from people to suppliers. Their is an adage I learned from my grans re gardening. "That's great but will it work in the Pac NWet?" I have seen over grazed, washed out talc based moonscapes here that get 40" of rain a year and lush productive farms 20 miles away that may get 12". That problem of talc like dirt means you don't have ribosomal grasses taking over everything. Every problem is a solution in the making (not a slug problem but lack of ducks issue). Another reason I ask roughly where you are is your winter sun amount. That can seriously effect what you can do. Between Nov and Feb, regularly I don't get enough sunlight to charge a fence Energizer yet it's not cold enough for fodder to go dormant. Cows and sheep can starve on green pasture, then we have our summer droughts, meaning traditional we feed hay 6 months a year. Yet if you sown your pasture with 20% cold hardy fodder like radish, beets, or brassicas, you can I over winter with scratch pastures. Something to start doing now is sprouting the grains you feed and if possible let them grow a hand high for fodder. This will give you instant "pasture" while you keep the critters on a dry carbon bedding (straw, wood chips, cardboard) to make compost to start your trees ..... You can do this.
Was there a reason Rabbits did not make the list? I thought they were easy, & potentially easier than sheep would be fencing wise. Or were you simply trying to not choose an animal you would need to keep breeders for? Awesome video!
Love you guys and love all your content... Thank you so much for all you do! Your family makes me feel like I am not in this lifestyle alone! LoL Also.....have you ever tried to raise the meat rabblits? I have raised them as a source of protein for over 20 years. Very easy (even with the breeding) and Yum! 🤗
does processing your own meat birds really make sense economically if i'm buying chicks for $4 each? i feel like the cost of feed and the work of processing makes buying an already processed bird a cheaper option.
Its funny that you don't like roast, but like lamb. I get a lamb shank from a local Mediterranean restaurant a few times a year and I think it tastes a lot like a roast.
I use to love lamb but don’t know how to cook it now. My mother used a lot of vinegar to cut the mutton taste but I can’t get it right so I don’t think I like lamb anymore.
Do the Cornish Cross birds make a lot of noise? I have some hens but I am concerned about having an additional 30 birds in a suburban acre. Thanks from Miami🌴🌻☀️
Lamb is only expensive when compared to conventionally raised meats and the main difference is scale. The more people there are consuming and the more people there are producing the cheaper it gets to process and ship.
With the Cornish cross chickens do you raise your own after first purchase or re-order from online every time? I think raising your own is more self sufficient.
Jami, Cornish cross chickens, being a ‘cross’ as the name implies, don’t breed true. So if you do breed them you won’t get a good meat chicken. They are a 1 and done kinda bird. I agree, it is much more self sufficient to raise your own! We do have a meat cross running around our barnyard, if we ever needed to we could ramp up production and have our own farm meat birds, but personally we LOVE the product the Cornish Cross yields, and we love doing one or 2 large batches a year, as opposed to many smaller batches which is what happens if you butcher your own birds from a smaller flock. All comes down to goals, personal taste, and what’s happening in the world at the time 👍
@KuroiMushi one of the reasons we keep coming back to Cornish is the large batch on schedule. Admittedly it is NOT the most sustainable form of meat production a homestead can do, but we have breeds we could ‘switch on’ if need be, but until then we like ordering 100 chicks, raising them all the same 2 months, and hosting 1 big butcher day!
A farmer friend highly recommends Welp Hatchery's Slow White meat chickens -- she says they grow almost as fast as a Cornish cross (maybe two to three weeks slower), but they will survive to adult-hood, lay very well, will go broody and hatch their own eggs, and they breed true! She's kept hers going for several generations now. (We suspect they are a large strain of White Plymouth Rock.)
I was raised on a sheep and wheat farm. We ate a whole lamb every week with 4 kids. Before I left Australia, lamb was the cheapest meat you could buy. Now? It's gone insane like here in the USA. Crazy, because as you know, it can be raised basically for free.
All those freezers brings me to a question I've been thinking about. We have a good sized chest freezer, holds a bunch but is such a pain to find stuff! Would you recommend an upright or chest? Tips on organizing a chest freezer?
Good point. Yes the chest gets a bit messy. We personally have a chest freezer for each meat, a chicken one, a pork one, a beef one, a lamb one, and a venison one. That helps if you produce as much as we do. Then we subdivide with cardboard to make compartments for each type of cut. Chest freezers are more economical and efficient, but yes there is the mess!
We have a small upright and it’s currently unplugged and stored. Every time it’s opened all the cold air is lost and it frosts up and ices from the moisture of the room air. They run constantly. We stick to the chest style. We use colored plastic baskets and color code the meats. We loose power often so we fill any extra space with half gallons of drinking water. The chest will last for several days if unopened. The upright only lasted one day before things began to defrost.
Thinking about doing pigs this year! Any advice for going about finding someone to slaughter & butcher? Don't think I will be taking on that task in the first round lol.
go assist someone or pay them to come assist you. I'm glad to help out if I can with how I do it here, as well as what equipment I use and where I got it.
Start with searching for a local slaughterhouse, even better a “custom cutting” facilities near you, they are non USDA facilities and usually take smaller customers. If you can find one great, if not then sometimes there are people who do deer processing that might be able to help, or a ‘mobile abattoir’ who can come to your farm. If your having real trouble call local farms near you that sell meat and find out who they use. Finally, see if any hunters around you are willing to help you out.
#1 Quail. Eggs AND meat in 6 weeks and only 19 days incubation. #2 Rabbits 8 -12 weeks to butcher. Way easier to skin than a chicken. #3 Sheep Feed them nothing but grass and hay for 12 months and eat them.
What chicken breed would you recommend if you cant get Cornish cross? I live in Australia and while we have many breeds Cornish x doesnt exist here and isnt allowed to be brought in? I can't find the equivalent, some say Indian game (I believe thats what it was called) but I haven't been able to find anything in the state I live about them or where to get them (western australia)
@@Homesteadyshow Will look into it, hoping to get our property this year and start with chickens and slowly expand as we adjust as you recommend, been planning for this for many years, love watching your videos, thank you for doing this
I think lamb is so expensive because of the fact not a lot of people eat it but the ones that do it's such a delicacy to them they will pay that extra bit of money so to make up for the fact not a lot of people buy it to get there profit out of it they raise the price
Keep your flock limited in exposure to wild birds. Chicken tractors do that for meat birds, or I have an enclosed chicken run as part of my coop. Doesn't mean you cant let them free range, but I am usually outside with my animals when they are exposed to predators or other wildlife to minimize their exposure. At night the chickens put themselves to bed in the coop and the automatic door closes behind them.
Rabbits got bumped from the list because we didn’t want to include anything that needed breeding and year long care, but it would certainly be easy to make an argument that rabbits are an easier meat to raise than pigs with a different set of parameters
I'm the type of person I like pork I can eat it but it's not something that I want to eat on a regular I can live without it if I had to it's not like beef or venison or fish where I can carve it and eat it every week
I really need to get past the idea of harvesting. It just feels so wrong and I hate that. I realize this is where the meat that I eat from the store suffers the same fate on top of a crappy life.
Give thanks to GOD for the animal giving its life for you to eat and in a little while and you will feel honored to serve the animal and care for it honorable. Don't be concerned about the harvest procedure you can take it to a neighbor.
You got a good attitude already, you’ll get there. I suggest watching this video, may help you understand what your going through and get past it better ….ua-cam.com/video/rGDi0mkEatE/v-deo.html
No problem, we have an audio version you can listen to while you do other stuff if you prefer, I personally prefer long podcasts in Audio version myself 👍www.thisishomesteady.com/subscribe-podcast/
I LOVE longer videos just so I can do other stuff while I listen. no having to stop what I am in the middle of doing and look for another video every 15 minutes.😉
I think you guys are for real the most informative animal farmers on UA-cam!
I feed my dogs a raw diet, that’s what first got me started in homesteading. They get the older birds now and all the heads, backs, and feet!
Pork shoulder - can attest to it as the best cut of meat with every fiber of my being. Way better than any other piece of meat. Tender, juicy, flavorful, and easy to prep / cook.
I love a good shoulder
Lol lamb is so very British and part of what we eat regularly. We had lamb burger yesterday and lamb steak, lamb chops or roast lamb is so normal for us!
Love the kids commenting in the background.
We raise dairy sheep. We had one butchered. Best meal we ever had. Lamb is absolutely delicious
I love your channel. My family of 9 moved from LA to the midwest three years ago. We've been keeping chickens for eggs. Six months ago we hatched a clutch of eggs and ended up with 5 roosters on top of two roosters we already had. This has been a problem for our hens. I did a ton of research, watched a lot of UA-cam videos and decided to cull all but two roosters. It went well and I was surprised at how easy it was. My husband and I are now talking about buying some meat birds this year. I'm happy to hear that the Cornish crosses are easier to butcher. Some of those roosters were tough. Thank you for posting this video and giving me even more to explore.
Wow you guys got out just in time! LA to Midwest is quite a change! Good on you guys for getting meat birds this year! Keep me posted!
@@Homesteadyshow I'm so grateful we got out California just in time. It was truly a blessing. I'll keep you all posted. Thank you for sharing your homesteading experiences. Your family is an inspiration. Have a great day.
In my family a nice Chuck Roast cooked slowly with carrots, potatoes, onions and seasonings until its fork tender is a favorite meal. Not all cuts, especially if the store calls it pot roast, taste as well. Any leftovers get turned into tacos, cooked with noodles in a casserole, as breakfast hash etc. Nothing goes to waste. It's all in the cut and the seasonings like everything else. Its 1 of the most requested meals by my guys.
😂 I made that on Tuesday last week.
We had chickens when I was a kid an when dad wanted chicken for dinner I would go out an ring there neck an dip them in boiling water an hang it on the cloth line an pluck them an I had to do it cause my mom was scared of anything with wings, so I learned to do it very young.
I love the lamb commentary, im from New Zealand, and from a sheep farm here. We have some cattle, but its sucj a massive job to butcher a beast where as lamb and mutton is soooooo easy and its in almost every meal. Chops are where its at. Chops and roasts!!!! Beef is 2nd rate in my opinion hahahaha.
Grilled chicken hearts with just salt, pepper and a little olive oil, I love it
We’ve raised lamb and butchered when older for mutton - it’s even better than lamb but can’t buy it from the butchers as it would be too expensive. We’re going to raise some more as the price is really high now. We’re using Livamol Bioworma for the goats and will use it for the sheep :)
Lamb is considered a specialty product in this country and therefore gets the specialty price.
Also I think I'm stew meat. I can be a little tough if not given enough time but given that time I provide comfort and warmth.
Oh I like that… stew meat 👌
Love watching your videos! I started a small hobby farm 8 Acres about 5 years ago and your informational videos make me think of a lot of different directions that I can take my farm. Especially on how to make money on a homestead. we have been having open houses every few weeks in the summer months to raise money to buy hay and feed for the winter..Thank you from Jeff and Sandy at the WookieMoo Ranch in Sycamore IL!!
on the pigs we didnt have a large enough vessel to dunk so we ladled hot water on the pig and worked each area ladled and worked great...We raise kune kune...looking forward to trying lamb. thank you for all your information!
Love your content and appreciate the ability to get more indepth information through your pioneer library.
Chickens we already do, but we don't do meat only chickens. We simply rotate out our egg laying breeds (bi)annually that serve as a hybrid meat/egg layer. Reduces our refrigeration requirement and we don't have the grasses needed for a chicken tractor in the Arizona desert.
Goats are also a better fit for us as they serve multiple purposes from browse control to both meat and dairy. They also do better in the heat for us.
THANKS for being a Pioneer MC! Some great new shows coming to the library this month! Great point about keeping the freezer requirement low by rotating egg layers! Such a good point to consider!
Glad to see another AZ pioneer. I'm way down near the border raising poultry, hogs, and I keep saying I'm good to add a steer or some lambs but haven't yet.
our old biddie hens cook up super tender
they finish on milk, grazing, corn
smoked jowel
pig: landrace/Hampshire X feeder, 4 months dress at 290. feed hay, milk, water, graze .
hanging the pig before kill works slick.
making slaughter dates a year in advance is best
That is the three I would go with . I love lamb and chicken . And pork too but not quite as much as lamb.
Been following you guys for awhile. Always love these type of videos and that stash is where its at C'MON
If you're growing lamb you have to grow mint. Mint compliments lamb nicely
You know, I like mint in some things -- peppermint patties, mint tea, peppermint ice cream, candy canes. But that green mint jelly that is usually served with lamb is one of the main reasons I got turned off eating lamb! I'd much rather treat it more like beef, and leave the mint jelly in the store.
Definitely rosemary for lamb.
Prime Rib, baby, right here :) That segment made me giggle so much.
Gyros haha. Just so you know it's pronounced "Euro". My roommate used to make fun of me for that because I could not get it right.
I love lamb, I love shoulder roasts grilled over charcoal. It is so, so good.
I love the jovial happy romantic humor! The what meat are you section is hilarious.
Most lamb sold in grocery stores is imported, mainly from New Zealand
I did headshots on my lambs, point blank with a .22 revolver to stun, then bleeding. The real limiter we found was that they couldn't really be eviscerated solo, even when they were smaller (which, unfortunately, we were sort of counting on). I grind the rib meat, no point in trying to cook them on the bone, too thin.
When I was at a PDC in Montana I had Shoulder bacon.
Very good info with Humor ❤️
Can I tell you what this did for me? I am awaiting the day when I can live this life and get birds. I was fixated on chickens. All this did is make me crazy about them BOTH! I am all over the place learning about ducks now… sigh… new obsession unlocked 😂
😬 would you say you’ve been… Abduckted? 😂
Ham. It's like bacon with meat on it. Recently, I got a ham, because they were marked down after Christmas, as apposed to having sliced ham for sandwiches. Oh, it was great. I unsay fry bacon in the same pan as my Hillshire Farm precooked turkey sausage (I don't the pork, and I don't like Jimmy Dean). Wow, the fat that came from the ham! I didn't like bacon so much when my mom used to burn it. She also originally got thin bacon, so that once you ate it, you didn't know where it went, and had to have more. A few years before she died, she started getting thick cut, which I liked more. Now, I buy and cook it myself, and take care not to burn it.
I wonder if itd be worh it to spatchcock them during processing
Have you ever tried the Rainbow Ranger Meat Chickens…I have been told that they are a pretty good breed to have as meat…
I am not too keen on the butchering part myself, I have seen it done but never participated myself. So will probably find someone who is willing to do it for me and give them a couple chickens or rabbits or a whole lamb/sheep if I am doing more than one…
Sort of a trade in skills or something like that…
You guys are amazing. I truly appreciate your videos and love all the info you provide. Thank you! #juststart
Would love to do this, but I have a problem with the killing. How would one get over that?
Lamb is exspensive because of the supermarket marketing. In NZ the biggest exporter of Lamb, we might get $6per kg when selling the lamb, sonetimes $9 if its a good market. But the same lamb is on the supermarket shelf for $26 per kg. All maketing!!!
Price is determined by demand. How much money does the grocer make per square foot of “shelf” space. The faster something sells the more that square foot can make in money. Also something that sells fast is less likely to be discounted or thrown away. (That also raises the overall price). So if and when lamb becomes more popular the price will begin to fall.
Great video, thank you guys
@Homesteady For someone that hasnt had lamb before and eats mostly beef, what recipes/spices/ways to cook it do you advise for newbies to it? Also how do you handle ground lamb as far as recipes...can it make good burgers??? Thanks.
Ok, best thing to do is buy some from a local source, get some steaks. Grill them up with salt. Done. Get to know the flavor without masking it. Steaks are easier to cook than a roast and if you don’t like it/mess it up it’s not SOO MUCH WASTE. If you pass the steaks, try ground in a meat pie like recipe, a shepherds pie or little hand Meat pies. Then grow from there 👍
In my location all but chicken is very expensive to raise. I have NO pasture/grass. I have dirt like talcum powder. Any animals we get we have to buy ALL their food. I would love to live somewhere where there is grass. So chickens and sheep are the easiest just because we can get the chicken feed and alfalfa easy.
Suggestion. Plant out perennials that can be used for browsing leaning towards bushes and trees. If possible, plant on contour with alleys wide enough to run your animals through. You can come behind and add swales to capture what water you get. Lay down some dry carbon (wood chips, straw/spent hay, cardboard) to collect what comes out the back end of the critters. With time you can create a solid ecosystem. Aim for 40 - 60% mature canopy cover. If you post roughly where you live, I can suggest actually plants.
@@tjeanvlogs9894 good ideas. Think I'll give some a try. Definitely need to do something. Appreciate it.
@@shermdog6969 I've been doing permaculture since the mid '80's and now homestead from a wheelchair in the maritime Pac NW but I know how to do just about everything climate. Temperate rainforests and high mountain deserts are the hardest and I have designed systems for all of them.
First thing is to control water, so it doesn't take you top soil off down the road, leave you with a big, or otherwise be a nuisance. It's best if any that lands on your ground can go straight down. If you have enough rain, consider roof rain water catchment (not feasible/practicable in high mountain deserts) and surface water containment like swales (ditch dug on contour where water moves very slowly in and direction but down) and ponds. Grey water to plants is much better than sewer or septic.
Then it's plants to hold the soil. Nut, fruit, fodder, windbreak, and pollinators are some of the jobs they do. Fuel, nitrogen fixation, building materials are others.
The general pattern is nut tree, two fruit trees, and repeat. Plant a nitrogen fixer in the same hole as each. The nut trees are usually the tallest with the widest canopy, so space them such that at maturity, they will almost touch. The fruit trees will become understory trees. Intersperse bushes like berries, hazel nuts (or climate appropriate shrub that does a job). Then plant annuals to perennial to fill the space. Fast growing short lived things help get the biome going. Mulch heavily, so any water stays put (unless you are in the temperate rain forest, then you plant into the top of mounds and mulch lightly but frequently since it acts like a sponge and will drown your plant.
Look at portable electric netting, mobile shelters, to plan alley width. If you have fencing that has posts every 14' but only an 8' wide alley you have a lot of extra unsupported corners to stake out. Additionally, chickens will hop onto their shelter and flutter over the net if given the opportunity. Then you have predators. Hawks are exceedingly agile. We have some that can fly through a one square foot opening, snag a chicken snack and fly out a mature lilac without disturbing a leaf. Do not get me started on my owls or the eagles. A summer we were a fly though poultry nugget stand for every bird of prey withing 5 miles, while we dialed in the tolerances. Again if I know roughly where you are at (this county, near this city depending on how varied the area - I live in the Puget sound region where 100 miles can mean a lot depending on direction) I can direct you to resources more targeted to you, from people to suppliers.
Their is an adage I learned from my grans re gardening. "That's great but will it work in the Pac NWet?"
I have seen over grazed, washed out talc based moonscapes here that get 40" of rain a year and lush productive farms 20 miles away that may get 12".
That problem of talc like dirt means you don't have ribosomal grasses taking over everything. Every problem is a solution in the making (not a slug problem but lack of ducks issue).
Another reason I ask roughly where you are is your winter sun amount. That can seriously effect what you can do. Between Nov and Feb, regularly I don't get enough sunlight to charge a fence Energizer yet it's not cold enough for fodder to go dormant. Cows and sheep can starve on green pasture, then we have our summer droughts, meaning traditional we feed hay 6 months a year. Yet if you sown your pasture with 20% cold hardy fodder like radish, beets, or brassicas, you can I over winter with scratch pastures.
Something to start doing now is sprouting the grains you feed and if possible let them grow a hand high for fodder. This will give you instant "pasture" while you keep the critters on a dry carbon bedding (straw, wood chips, cardboard) to make compost to start your trees .....
You can do this.
Such an amazing video Aust and Kay.
Thanks Cyndi!
Was there a reason Rabbits did not make the list? I thought they were easy, & potentially easier than sheep would be fencing wise. Or were you simply trying to not choose an animal you would need to keep breeders for? Awesome video!
Love you guys and love all your content... Thank you so much for all you do! Your family makes me feel like I am not in this lifestyle alone! LoL Also.....have you ever tried to raise the meat rabblits? I have raised them as a source of protein for over 20 years. Very easy (even with the breeding) and Yum! 🤗
Yes, we have! They were close to making the list, but the breeding kicked them out!
does processing your own meat birds really make sense economically if i'm buying chicks for $4 each? i feel like the cost of feed and the work of processing makes buying an already processed bird a cheaper option.
@Homesteady What is the brand name and model of the shelter at 45:20? Is 3 the maximum number of pigs it can accommodate?
That is an IBC tote converted to be a little warm house for animals, and you could probably fit a few more little ones in tgat
Its funny that you don't like roast, but like lamb. I get a lamb shank from a local Mediterranean restaurant a few times a year and I think it tastes a lot like a roast.
I use to love lamb but don’t know how to cook it now. My mother used a lot of vinegar to cut the mutton taste but I can’t get it right so I don’t think I like lamb anymore.
Shearing doesn’t matter when you’re raising feeder lambs that are being culled by 14 months anyway. Support wool breeds!
Do the Cornish Cross birds make a lot of noise? I have some hens but I am concerned about having an additional 30 birds in a suburban acre. Thanks from Miami🌴🌻☀️
Nope. A very quiet breed!
Lamb is only expensive when compared to conventionally raised meats and the main difference is scale. The more people there are consuming and the more people there are producing the cheaper it gets to process and ship.
With the Cornish cross chickens do you raise your own after first purchase or re-order from online every time? I think raising your own is more self sufficient.
Jami, Cornish cross chickens, being a ‘cross’ as the name implies, don’t breed true. So if you do breed them you won’t get a good meat chicken. They are a 1 and done kinda bird. I agree, it is much more self sufficient to raise your own! We do have a meat cross running around our barnyard, if we ever needed to we could ramp up production and have our own farm meat birds, but personally we LOVE the product the Cornish Cross yields, and we love doing one or 2 large batches a year, as opposed to many smaller batches which is what happens if you butcher your own birds from a smaller flock. All comes down to goals, personal taste, and what’s happening in the world at the time 👍
@KuroiMushi one of the reasons we keep coming back to Cornish is the large batch on schedule. Admittedly it is NOT the most sustainable form of meat production a homestead can do, but we have breeds we could ‘switch on’ if need be, but until then we like ordering 100 chicks, raising them all the same 2 months, and hosting 1 big butcher day!
A farmer friend highly recommends Welp Hatchery's Slow White meat chickens -- she says they grow almost as fast as a Cornish cross (maybe two to three weeks slower), but they will survive to adult-hood, lay very well, will go broody and hatch their own eggs, and they breed true! She's kept hers going for several generations now. (We suspect they are a large strain of White Plymouth Rock.)
Plus meet that you raise yourself taste better
So... I think I have listened to this at least 8x all the way through ... Just because 🤣🤣🤣
I was raised on a sheep and wheat farm. We ate a whole lamb every week with 4 kids. Before I left Australia, lamb was the cheapest meat you could buy. Now? It's gone insane like here in the USA. Crazy, because as you know, it can be raised basically for free.
All those freezers brings me to a question I've been thinking about. We have a good sized chest freezer, holds a bunch but is such a pain to find stuff! Would you recommend an upright or chest? Tips on organizing a chest freezer?
Good point. Yes the chest gets a bit messy. We personally have a chest freezer for each meat, a chicken one, a pork one, a beef one, a lamb one, and a venison one. That helps if you produce as much as we do. Then we subdivide with cardboard to make compartments for each type of cut. Chest freezers are more economical and efficient, but yes there is the mess!
@@Homesteadyshow subdivide with cardboard hmmm, will have to try that! Thanks.
We have a small upright and it’s currently unplugged and stored. Every time it’s opened all the cold air is lost and it frosts up and ices from the moisture of the room air. They run constantly. We stick to the chest style. We use colored plastic baskets and color code the meats. We loose power often so we fill any extra space with half gallons of drinking water. The chest will last for several days if unopened. The upright only lasted one day before things began to defrost.
Try making your pot roast with french onion soup. Slow cooked
How about cold beer for when the Cornish-cross get hot? Or cold wine?
Thinking about doing pigs this year! Any advice for going about finding someone to slaughter & butcher? Don't think I will be taking on that task in the first round lol.
go assist someone or pay them to come assist you. I'm glad to help out if I can with how I do it here, as well as what equipment I use and where I got it.
Start with searching for a local slaughterhouse, even better a “custom cutting” facilities near you, they are non USDA facilities and usually take smaller customers. If you can find one great, if not then sometimes there are people who do deer processing that might be able to help, or a ‘mobile abattoir’ who can come to your farm. If your having real trouble call local farms near you that sell meat and find out who they use. Finally, see if any hunters around you are willing to help you out.
45:00 it smells so bad because their digestive tract is extremely similar to ours so their poop smells the most like ours.
Bwahaha I find it hilarious there was just a beyond meat advertisement on this episode
In my state, in Brazil, we roast the hearts over charcoal fire.
Am I chopped liver, or duck feet?
Spot on bear scream 😂😂😂
#1 Quail. Eggs AND meat in 6 weeks and only 19 days incubation.
#2 Rabbits 8 -12 weeks to butcher. Way easier to skin than a chicken.
#3 Sheep Feed them nothing but grass and hay for 12 months and eat them.
Doesn't the price have to do with the big companies that own the feed lots and grain farms and the subsidies that the government provides for that
Interesting, makes sense
You can't call your wife shoulder. Also it's pronounced "Year-O" and not "Jeye-ro" ... ☺ Great episode! Loved it!
What chicken breed would you recommend if you cant get Cornish cross? I live in Australia and while we have many breeds Cornish x doesnt exist here and isnt allowed to be brought in? I can't find the equivalent, some say Indian game (I believe thats what it was called) but I haven't been able to find anything in the state I live about them or where to get them (western australia)
Are you able to find anyone to teach you to make capons?
@@Homesteadyshow Will look into it, hoping to get our property this year and start with chickens and slowly expand as we adjust as you recommend, been planning for this for many years, love watching your videos, thank you for doing this
I think lamb is so expensive because of the fact not a lot of people eat it but the ones that do it's such a delicacy to them they will pay that extra bit of money so to make up for the fact not a lot of people buy it to get there profit out of it they raise the price
I've found what I thought were lambs (skeletons and fur) in my back pasture. Neighbor has sheep.
I love chicken hearts and gizzards! But how do you deal with the emotional aspect (disgust, fear, sadness, any others?) of your first slaughter?
what about the bird flu how do we handle it?
Keep your flock limited in exposure to wild birds. Chicken tractors do that for meat birds, or I have an enclosed chicken run as part of my coop.
Doesn't mean you cant let them free range, but I am usually outside with my animals when they are exposed to predators or other wildlife to minimize their exposure. At night the chickens put themselves to bed in the coop and the automatic door closes behind them.
That mustache might knock you out of the bacon category 😂🤣😂
And yet you keep coming back Candice 🥸😝
Austen is absolutely bacon!!! BTW…my boyfriend’s dog’s nickname for me is Pot Roast. 😆
😂
lamb is xpensive because they are small and do t harvest as much meat as other grazers that tend to be harvested full grown.
What kind of knife
Look up sheepishly Me on You tube another all indoor lamb production in Canada 🇨🇦
Getting ready for this big crazy economy shift. Can we afford this meat in the future
I’m ground lamb. 😅
And he is totally ham. Haha😂
18:45 glitch in the matrix 20:06
I'd say rabbits and lambs are the two easiest
Rabbits got bumped from the list because we didn’t want to include anything that needed breeding and year long care, but it would certainly be easy to make an argument that rabbits are an easier meat to raise than pigs with a different set of parameters
Ham Yummy, Pork roast
I'm the type of person I like pork I can eat it but it's not something that I want to eat on a regular I can live without it if I had to it's not like beef or venison or fish where I can carve it and eat it every week
Just guessing lamb is not as widely raised and processed in US as pigs, cattle, chicken.
Leg of Lamb for me...
Rich and distinct 😉
@@Homesteadyshow Why thank you! 😁
Mini highlands are pets . I’ll buy yours get another type of cow
Canada has much much more lamb sales for meat.
I’m the complete opposite from you guys. I suck at raising and processing meat but I am good at growing all kinds of veggies and grains
The world needs both of us 💪
#MeatHeals #MeatRx #Revero
#carnivoreCure #AlanSavory #CharlieFoundation
I really need to get past the idea of harvesting. It just feels so wrong and I hate that. I realize this is where the meat that I eat from the store suffers the same fate on top of a crappy life.
Give thanks to GOD for the animal giving its life for you to eat and in a little while and you will feel honored to serve the animal and care for it honorable. Don't be concerned about the harvest procedure you can take it to a neighbor.
You got a good attitude already, you’ll get there. I suggest watching this video, may help you understand what your going through and get past it better ….ua-cam.com/video/rGDi0mkEatE/v-deo.html
Rabbits Rabbits Rabbits
The only drawback of hogs is cutting them when castrating.
"rich and distinct". "keep looking". looool
I will take a nice thick pork shoulder steak over any other meat any day!
I prefer goat meat to lamb
I think lamb it's expensive because a predator can kill half of your herd in one night. That's my opinion.
I am the small part of humanity that hates bacon. 😂😂
Lols: "everybody loves bacon" - every Jew and Muslim is like... nope 😉😋 but as a Christian, I totally agree 😁
It’s not GY-ro it’s pronounced Yee-ro
I'd have to go vegan.
Thank you for not take the easy way out and saying rabbit! lol
Sorry, don't watch hour long videos
No problem, we have an audio version you can listen to while you do other stuff if you prefer, I personally prefer long podcasts in Audio version myself 👍www.thisishomesteady.com/subscribe-podcast/
I LOVE longer videos just so I can do other stuff while I listen. no having to stop what I am in the middle of doing and look for another video every 15 minutes.😉
He has a non trustworthy mustache... Hmmm I don't trust him
😄😄😄😄
I’m personally making it a goal to legitimize the handlebar again, sorry snidely whiplash!