Fun, fun, fun. We are currently down to one animal, a jersey steer, and he will be off to be processed in the next week or so. I will be ordering chicks in the near future, to replace the laying hens we dispatched from this world last fall. It will be rather odd once the steer is gone, it will be the first time in years that we will not have feeding chores to do. It will only be a short break though, as we plan to get two calves in late spring.
We might order some additional broilers as well, we only have ten and that is not going to last us long plus we want to replace some ornamental chicks that died in shipping.
I really want to get a dairy cow, a Jersey or a Brown Swiss, but that is a big investment of time and money...
We have never had a dairy cow, or a goat, so have not had to do milking. Steers are fairly easy to raise and a freezer full of beef is a wonderful thing. I do know that a dairy cow will give an awful lot of milk, so much milk that it becomes difficult to know what to do with it all. Fresh milk is excellent for making cheese, and a good way to use up milk, it takes 1 gallon of milk to make approx. 1lb of cheese. With 8 children I am sure you go through the milk, we have 4 and when they were all home we went through a gallon or more each day, however milk or water were the beverage options, we never did pop or koolaid.
6 comments:
Congrats on the animals!
We love taking care of God's creatures who were created to help sustain us.
Paula
Fun, fun, fun. We are currently down to one animal, a jersey steer, and he will be off to be processed in the next week or so. I will be ordering chicks in the near future, to replace the laying hens we dispatched from this world last fall. It will be rather odd once the steer is gone, it will be the first time in years that we will not have feeding chores to do. It will only be a short break though, as we plan to get two calves in late spring.
Bean,
We might order some additional broilers as well, we only have ten and that is not going to last us long plus we want to replace some ornamental chicks that died in shipping.
I really want to get a dairy cow, a Jersey or a Brown Swiss, but that is a big investment of time and money...
Arthur,
Makes me homesick for a time long ago.
We have never had a dairy cow, or a goat, so have not had to do milking. Steers are fairly easy to raise and a freezer full of beef is a wonderful thing. I do know that a dairy cow will give an awful lot of milk, so much milk that it becomes difficult to know what to do with it all. Fresh milk is excellent for making cheese, and a good way to use up milk, it takes 1 gallon of milk to make approx. 1lb of cheese.
With 8 children I am sure you go through the milk, we have 4 and when they were all home we went through a gallon or more each day, however milk or water were the beverage options, we never did pop or koolaid.
I like the pic of the kid, the horse and the jackass. :)
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