We had a very nice time yesterday at a friend's house for Thanksgiving. Always a good time and good food. Calli even managed a sleepover. For us peons its time to work. I have a very long list of things to do today.It wasn't supposed to be much and all of a sudden its ballooned to a dozen HAVE to get done to day items. I need to call the extension office to inquire about grants for a Mobile Processing Unit. I want to buy a setup for processing chickens, turkeys, ducks, quail, etc easily at home rather than carting them to Janesville to have them professionally done. This setup includes a plucker - most important piece, a scalder with thermostat to get that perfect scald, a dunker and cones. I was thrilled this Fall when we did 25 in 4 hours. Supposedly you can process 25 birds in an hour, and with the plucker I believe it. De-feathering is the most time-consuming part. With the processor charging $3.50 a bird, the original cost of the bird at least $1 + shipping you have $5 into the bird before you feed, heat or anything else to them. And of course we never include the cost of labor (eye roll). It is very cost prohibitve to have someone else process. We want to buy this equipment for ourselves and to rent out to other small time farmers like ourselves. I think a lot of people would benefit from it. In truth I do not have to call the extension office today, but I need to stop procrastinating on it.
I need to call a friend about calves. Its time to get 4 of them. If we are lucky we can go pick them up today too. Which also means I have to make sure the calf pens are ready. That includes creating 1 more pen so we have 4 pens right by the front of the house. The more we walk past the calves the more attention they get, and the sooner it is we'll spot anything going wrong with them. Catching things going wrong with calves early is the key to keeping them healthy. This call does need to happen today, and if she has calves ready we MUST pick them up today. On that note, it also means we have to pick up some milk replacer from the feed store also.
I HAVE to measure pigs. We have someone interested in buying some of the weaners so I need to know what weight we are at so I know what to charge. This isn't as easy it might sound. Pigs don't just stand for you to be measured. It takes a little bit of finagling. I must admit putting a tape measure around a pig's chest is easier than putting it on the scale. Then we need to move the weaners. Could be 5 minutes, could be an hour. Then I can refasten the gates to the pigpen that the pigs thought were unecessary. I happen to disagree, so back up they will go, and electrice fence will come down. We also need to call the processor about butchering a sow. We are trying someone different this time and we aren't exactly sure of their timeline so we really need to make the call.
I should seperate 2 of our ram lambs from the rest of the flock. They were not doing their job, probably because they were too young, so we brought in a seasoned ram. Well apparantly the young rams just didn't know what to to do because now we have the old ram, the 2 young rams, and a wether (castrated boy) chasing whatever poor ewe is chosen. No one is actually breeding because they are too busy fighting and knocking each other down.
I need to work with our dog Bear. I haven't worked with him all week. Oh my, was it really last Friday the last time I did training with him. Not good. 15 minutes is plenty for both of us. But it HAS to be done. Speaking of dogs, dog food is on sale at Farm & Fleet until 1pm. It would be a very good thing to get there and take advantage of the sale. While we are there we can buy a new blade for our circular saw. We need to cut up some more pallets.
Finally we need to get some wood in the house. It hasn't gotten too cold in here yet, but we know its coming. Its good to have soome wood waiting in the house ready to burn instead of traipsing out in the rain or snow.
Did I forget anything? Oh yeah we'll have to pick up Calli at some point, and what will we have for dinner? As long as nothing else comes up we should be ok.
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