Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Getting ready for Fall

My Hubby has been home for three days. We have have been super busy getting ready for fall. I'm hoping to have pictures by tomorrow because every battery in the house seems to have disappeard!
I was working in the garden pulling weeds and getting ready to plant for a fall crop. Of course I had to work between the rain showers, which seemed to arrive as soon as I hung out a load of laundry. I just figure the clothes got an extra rinse.
Hubby and the boys cleaned out the goat pens, swept out the barn/garage, and moved the turkeys to another pen. We are getting ready for our second batch of 25 broiler chickens, which come on the 24th of this month.
I'll be happy with 50 chickens in the freezer.
We had bought 9 turkeys in late June and then had another 17 delivered at the end of July. The first nine are doing well and growing nicely, by getting them a few weeks earlier they should be about 35-40lbs come butchering time in late Novemeber. The Monday before Thanksgiving. These turkeys are grown larger because we are making burger from them. Three of them are being sold to another friend because he feels "the bigger the better". He enjoyed showing off his drumsticks last year which looked like clubs!
The second batch of turkeys are also doing well but we had some trouble with them escaping their enclosure. These were a bit more fiesty than the first group! We would go out to the barn and find the little fluff balls in with the goats. We ended up losing two because they tried to cuddle with Neera and ended up under her. I also sold four of those young ones to another homesteader who didn't want to order the minimum from the hatchery. I sold her 4 poults for 5.50 each. I didn't make much money from the sale but I used it to buy a 100lbs of feed. So now I have 11 turkeys left of the younger group and these I will sell for Thanksgiving. In fact come October I will take orders. We sell our turkeys for $1.50 a pound. Again we don't make money off the sale, we just recoup most of what we spent and offer our friends and neighbors the opportunity to try a home grown fresh turkey. I already have a few sold! Last year we had 16 turkeys and I ended up with 2. Of course the 2 I kept were almost 40lbs each.
Well, now I need to get going and Milk the goats and drop my daughter off at work.

6 comments:

  1. Wow, I guess you have been busy! I loved reading about the turkeys and your friend showing off the drumsticks that looked like clubs!
    Sounds like you have quite a life, and a very happy one at that. I look forward to reading through more of your posts.
    Thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow, I am impressed with your ability to hold turkeys! Do you slaughter them yourself too? That must be the most organic meat ever :)

    Visiting you from Rhonda's link up!

    Blessings,
    This Good Life
    http://this-good-life.blogspot.com/2011/08/on-my-mind-travellers-prayer.html

    ReplyDelete
  3. How busy you are, I cannot imagine having that many turkey chicks to raise. Good luck with it all!! Jumped over from D2E.

    ReplyDelete
  4. That does sound like plenty was accomplished. Good luck with those turkeys!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Goodness you have been busy. Hard to believe you are getting ready for Fall while I'm getting ready for Spring. The wonders of the internet....vbg.
    Popped over from Rhonda's blog.

    ReplyDelete