Sometimes before we bring an animal to the butcher we have second thoughts, doubts or an internal ethical conflict of sorts. This time we were very happy to bring the calf to the butcher. On Friday i had to ring hubby to come home from work early as the calf had escaped and was chasing me around the garden while i was attempting to put laundry on the line. He gave me a good scare. He was charging and charging at me and anything else he could find. My car, a round bale and the chicken house. So we brought him Sunday evening to our butcher and what a relief to see him go.
Mama moo cow is very lonely now that her 7 mth old adopted calf is now gone. She has been bawling since yesterday evening. Hubby and I got up a little earlier this morning to milk her before the kids woke up. We were not expecting much just trying to settle her into a routine again. She came into the milking house very calmly and ate her breakfast while I milked her. She didn't even lift a hoof off the floor or switch a tail. Great old girl! I milked about a cups worth into an old bucket and cleaned her udder and put on lots of balm. The calf had her udder a bit cut up. We hope that in another day or two she will settle down and start letting down her milk again. We don't know how much she is currently producing but fingers crossed I will be able to milk her once a day when she settles.
I am to collect the liver from the calf tomorrow. He had a good life and was reared by a cow for his 7 months and out on grass when the weather allowed. I'll let ye know what weight he makes.
Did any of you slaughter an animal for the table? We would love to hear your stories.
Mama moo cow is very lonely now that her 7 mth old adopted calf is now gone. She has been bawling since yesterday evening. Hubby and I got up a little earlier this morning to milk her before the kids woke up. We were not expecting much just trying to settle her into a routine again. She came into the milking house very calmly and ate her breakfast while I milked her. She didn't even lift a hoof off the floor or switch a tail. Great old girl! I milked about a cups worth into an old bucket and cleaned her udder and put on lots of balm. The calf had her udder a bit cut up. We hope that in another day or two she will settle down and start letting down her milk again. We don't know how much she is currently producing but fingers crossed I will be able to milk her once a day when she settles.
I am to collect the liver from the calf tomorrow. He had a good life and was reared by a cow for his 7 months and out on grass when the weather allowed. I'll let ye know what weight he makes.
Did any of you slaughter an animal for the table? We would love to hear your stories.
We've sent a few pigs to slaughter, we used to raise rare breed pigs.
ReplyDeleteThe first we sent was Betty, a Berkshire sow who just would not get inpig, well you can't do much with a pig that won't get pregnant, especially when you are trying to keep a rare blood line going so we had to move on. We ended up with Middle Whites and Large Blacks and raised and sold lots of weaners from these both for future breeding and for meat production, and kept our own freezer filled too.
The best meat we found was when our Large Black boar got one of our Middle White sows pregnant, the litter was so good we repeated this the following year, much to the boars delight!!
Maybe that is a breed we should try. Were they fatty or leaner than other rare breeds?
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