We are still surrounded by snow. It is falling still as I type this. We maintain the hope that spring will eventually come, and with springs comes work. Lots of work. Never resting type of work. In addition to planting literally thousands of acres this spring, Knut and his cousin have another project in the works.
Down in the barn, surrounded by decades of old and forgotten equipment, they rummage through wood scraps and bring out the tools to revive an old practice of raising meat chickens the old fashioned way.
We’ve been keeping chickens as pets for a few short years now for the purpose of home-grown eggs. Those are just in an old shed-turned-coop on the far side of our yard.
Inspired by the many books we’re reading from Joel Salatin, Knut and his cousin, in the spirit of staying in front of what is going on in agriculture these days, are experimenting on a very small scale grass-fed chickens. Our 2 families have ordered 50 chicks that will arrive in a few short weeks. 25 meat birds for each family. It’s one of the reason I’ve been doing a big freezer cleanse already. It’s good to do a good defrost and removal of too old food when it is still cold outside to store the food when the freezers are being cleaned out.
Last year we tried butchering roosters ourselves for the first time. Our small family handled the 6 birds pretty easily. 2 families working on 50 this fall? We’ll see.
We’ve spent a good amount of time deciding on which breed to get. The traditional meat chicken is the cornish cross broiler. There are major problems with choosing this bird to be grass fed, and mostly because this commercial grade breed was bred for the purpose of making a really heavy bird…so heavy that it cannot even walk because of the weight when it is near “harvesting time.” Grass fed chickens need strong legs to dig and forage for insects living in the grass. We needed a big breed, but not too big that it’s legs couldn’t take the work out of obtaining the type of food we wanted to offer it.
So we settled on the “Red Ranger” which is almost twice of expensive of a breed, but with good reason. These rangers are bred to forage for their food, not passively take it from a feeding trough.
We are not animal farmers, at least not anymore. We are grain farmers. This is a very small experiment, but one that Knut and Erik are excited about. At the very least, we should get some good meat for our families. From what I’m reading and experiencing with our roosters, grass fed meat looks different, with yellow fat instead of white, and needs slightly different cooking practices as it has a slightly different texture.
Anyway, the work is being done in our old barn. To house the birds, a small structure will be wrapped in chicken wire, and be movable to go all over our yards is being constructed. Scraps of wood for this project are being given new life in this revival project.
Our barn is a pile of things from the past, as well as a parking spot for some of our city friends and relatives who want to put a boat or vehicle that needs a bit of work. The barn will soon be brought back to life a bit this spring with a litter of kittens, but that is for a different, future post.
Recently Knut’s brother put an old vehicle he’s working on out there. I hope he isn’t too horrified in these pictures that my boys are climbing all over it. All I have to say, is that you leave your vehicle in our barn, it comes with this risk of boys climbing all over it. If you don’t like it, come get it. 😉 I mean that in all jest.
Except the part about my boys climbing all over it. I mean that in all seriousness.
I know Knut sees all of this as just some out of commission junk, but the city girl in me can’t help but see this as a pile of treasure. I mean, growing up in the city, we didn’t have an old sleigh hanging out in the garage.
Well, I think the horse sleigh still belongs to Knut’s dad. I hope someday if we get horses again he’ll get the sleigh prettied up for a winter ride.
My imagination is brought to life out here as I wonder about the story about each of these old things. I wonder about the people who made them and built them. I think about the old plows, the old doors, and old troughs. Someone used that. Someone built that. What did their world look like?
Knut told me that the barn siding needs some work this summer…lots. Add that to the to-do list. Also, he tried starting up our lawn mower which gave him endless problems last summer, and it wouldn’t start up. Knut had his mechanically-smart dad to look at it, and he declared it dead. So I think we’re shopping for a new lawn mower this spring too.
I may never get a new kitchen. Keep buying my knitting patterns, people.
Well, if we have to put our money in barn siding etc, I’m determined to make more use of it than just be a junk pile. We need to bring some living creatures back in there.
Candis Berge says
April 12, 2013 at 5:31 pmOkay. Seriously. That sleigh is screaming “Christmas picture”… please! Maybe with some darling matching knit sweaters or scarves or hats…. just saying…
Nicole says
April 12, 2013 at 7:24 pmI love the old treasures you can find in a barn! I am a city girl, too, but when I visit my grandparents (who live in the country), I always love exploring their barn and basement.
Erin says
April 12, 2013 at 9:15 pmI am incredibly envious of that beautiful barn full of treasures! We have a newer barn as my parents bought this place only three years ago, and it was only ten years old then. So not much in the barn-other than four cows with their calves! That sleigh!! OH MY!! My husband and I have been talking about building one from scratch, because to buy it would be over 5000$. My mother in law has a wood working shop and my husband knows how to use them-so maybe someday lol!
Hope you enjoy raising your chickens! We did ours for the first time last year. We have buff orpingtons and barred plymouth rocks. Which are both dual purpose heritage breeds. However we did not get them to grow as big as we wanted, and they took way longer than traditional broilers would, so they cost us more than we sold them for. BUT lesson learned, and I still have 75 hens laying a gazillion eggs a day lol!
Enjoy!!
BLessings
Erin
Katharine says
April 12, 2013 at 9:26 pmHere’s to big plans! The birds sound exciting as do kittens. We’re on an animal strike around here but I might convince the hubs to allow me some bees next year. A girl can dream.
Mom says
April 12, 2013 at 10:26 pmI think you should add an item to your bucket list…write a book about the secrets in the barn.
Or maybe Silje could write it as a school assignment. Each item could represent a story from the past. Ooh, that would be a fun read!
I also agree with Candis that you need a family picture in the sleigh sometime!
tiffany says
April 13, 2013 at 4:24 amWhat beautiful pictures and what a lovely space! It is fun to see into your world–thank you for allowing us that privilege. Savor the last days of ‘winter’ and I will remember you as spring’s work plows full steam ahead once the snow is gone (pun intended 😉
Blessing and joy!
bookworm-Mary says
April 13, 2013 at 4:13 pmI love hearing about life on your farm! I will be keeping an eye on your chicken situation- my fiance has big plans for a mainly self-sustaining lifestyle once we establish ourselves, and he really wants chickens for both eggs & meat. I definitely appreciate all that you share with us in regards to your farm, family, etc. Thanks 🙂
Cristy says
April 13, 2013 at 7:08 pmDont read if you are have a problem with the way life is on a farm. Butchering isnt exactly a clean project. You have been warned.
A couple different years we went to my grandmas house to help butcher both her and our chickens. She grew up doing it and loves it. Here is how we processed a large number of chickens quickly. First-put on grubby junk clothes. VERY important step.
We would put loops of twine all over the clothes line. Then we would walk along and put the feet of the chickens into the loops so they were secure. She would walk along the clothes line and as she came to each chicken she would grab its head and slice the head off-throwing the heads to the side for the dogs. This way the chickens could bleed out. We would walk along after her and remove the chickens after they were done bleeding out and then would toss them onto a trailer to bring to her basement garage door. There we would dump the chickens into boiling water to loosen their quills and then take them over to the chicken plucker. What a great machine! After each chicken was plucked we dropped their carcass into a huge drum that had a hose feeding cold water into it constantly. It would run over into the big drain outside. Chilling the chickens quickly was important. After that we went over to the processing tables. Essentially they were sawhorses set up with sheets of plywood and then that was covered with sheets or tarps. I forget which. We would set up assembly line style. One person would grab a chicken out of the cold drum and pass it to the next person who would start the gutting process and we would pass the bird along to the next person would would double check the work. Another person would chop off the legs and the next group would pack into bags. (BTW, the legs were not thrown away. We knew people who considered the legs a delicacy so we would pack them up for them too) Both sides of the table were their own assembly line. The very last group would toss the bags into the freezer right away. Sometimes there would be so many chickens in the freezer that the freezer would have a hard time keeping up-so someone would run to town for some ice and drop a couple bags in to help.
What a messy job. We did LOTS of chickens this way. I forget the exact number but we easily did at least a hundred chickens this way in one year. (this would have been my siblings, my mom and my grandma doing the work so….7 people. The babies played in the basement where we could hear them from the garage with one of my siblings watching them.
Cristy says
April 13, 2013 at 7:10 pmLOL. THe way I wrote that makes it sound funny. We butchered HER chickens and OUR chickens.