You had me laughing talking about your dog(s). How could we live without them? Never could understand how a person could "not like" dogs... just makes no sense to me.
Heel Low ^~~^ ^~~^ ^~~^ Doggone It
- Thread starter JACB Dorper
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micah wotring
True BYH Addict
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XD Same for most critters! XD
- Thread starter
- #13
JACB Dorper
Overrun with beasties
Heel low:
Life would be alot calmer, quieter, more predictable without dogs. D U L L sville...
Do I want mellow...hardly. I thrive on the torment... I have two companions that WANT to be out doing chores...with me... Course they throw a few wing dings in but hey, like never ponder what am I gonna be doing today...I know something or other will pop up and I will feel needed, noticed, wanted. I may be humanly alone most of the day, but never ALONE if you catch my drift.
I made Rick...yes MADE him buy two Suburbans...a summer one and a winter one...for the dogs.
http://i1009.photobucket.com/albums/af211/ratterz/BYC/jul 16 2016 1988 Sub IMGP0738_zps4vmizqvj.jpg
We go for loser laps and stop for ice cream. Ice cream has more meaning when two dogs are waiting in the back in their crates for you to spoon it out. I have quickly learned in the hot summer...bring Rick his ice cream, the dogs and make one more trip for mine...be melted by the time the girls are finished.
Had a consensus lady stop by one time when we had FIVE ACDs. Course knowing Heelers ... they ALL charge the gate and when they can't BITE the one that started the ruckus...they start squabbling between the pack. Bite yer buddy...at least you are BITING something...
The lady was justifiably HORRIFIED!
She is at the front gate, blurts out, "Maybe I should come back at a better time..."
I grab the dogs (I can carry one fifty pounder under each arm and if the two red ones were up and outta it, calm should prevail--sorta).
Trailer Trash
http://i1009.photobucket.com/albums/af211/ratterz/trltrash_zps1kumdvb2.jpg
My reply was quite simple to her...afterall, not ME that wanted to be a statistic and she came calling on us unannounced...she gets what she deserves...we had NO troubles before the unwelcomed, uninvited person arrived here outta the blue.
"It does not get any better than it is right now!"
This is my place...I don't mind a dog jumping up, a dog protecting what they deem is theirs...I know all about proper manners but these are dogs on my land, my farm, joining me forever with their lives. I could get all uptight about it, but when I can count on the fingers of ONE hand (and fingers, not my thumb), how many visitors we get on our place in a whole year...why do I care about how my dogs act past being ACDs...let them live good lives and if'n they do something Rick or I don't prefer, I am quite the adept dog whisper to get them to accommodate us. Would a fellow human lay down their lives to save or protect me from harm...dogs won't even pause to think about laying down their lives for my unworthy carcass. That's an instant given. Heck, they'd even help me bury bodies...hee hee...
I mean at one time, farm dogs were a required commodity AND any country person knew...without a doubt, you go past the farm, the farm dogs would have their fun with you at your expense. Rick talks about riding his bike with his legs over his head...hoping he had pedalled enough speed up to get away without getting bit...too savagely. I mean Fixins once breached our gates (we upgraded then) to bite the Daytons of a biker dude that thought it funny to stop and harass her at HER front gate..."Show you...Biker bimbo!" Grrrr...
Nowadays...good gripers...law suits, yer dogs get put down...so now it is up to US with the dangerous property to contain it inside our property lines. At all costs because it means we lose...and lose and lose again.
Basically, if we lost everything, we would live under a bridge so we could keep the dogs. Hate losing everything else but I'd live in my truck with the dogs if life cast that misfortune upon us. Nothing more devoted and happy to be with you than a dog.
We were loading up straw...very particular we are about the kind and quality of the straw that we use for bedding...a square oat straw bale in a bird pen gives the birds more area, space in the pen...some can sit atop, a picked on can hide round it, or at least tire out a rival before "I" find out and fix the problem. We find waterfowl not messy at all when on river sand topped with a decent layer of oat straw.
So we are loading up squares and a friend of the seller drops by...starts up asking us about this "straw." I think he thought we were doing this for great monetary profit. That we were on to some goose and golden egg scheme. Hardly. We pour everything into this endeavour and would find it rather insulting if someone suggested we did this for financial profit.
I wanted to say, "Honey, no amount of money could ever buy devotion to a losing cause like this!" And I truly mean that. Our lives have purpose because we chose to invest in running a Conservation Farm...it makes one feel good right down to your very soul. How very human to care about other creatures besides themselves, eh.
If I had to hire out for wages, I'd laugh and say, "No thanks!" How can you ever measure
(or lunacy...because I know the SPCA will never come calling...but Human Rights should swing by and declare we humans here are living in "conditions UNfit for humanity"). 
When it quits being FUN...we make adjustments...so far, the funny farm is still FUN.
Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada
Life would be alot calmer, quieter, more predictable without dogs. D U L L sville...
Do I want mellow...hardly. I thrive on the torment... I have two companions that WANT to be out doing chores...with me... Course they throw a few wing dings in but hey, like never ponder what am I gonna be doing today...I know something or other will pop up and I will feel needed, noticed, wanted. I may be humanly alone most of the day, but never ALONE if you catch my drift.
I made Rick...yes MADE him buy two Suburbans...a summer one and a winter one...for the dogs.
http://i1009.photobucket.com/albums/af211/ratterz/BYC/jul 16 2016 1988 Sub IMGP0738_zps4vmizqvj.jpg
We go for loser laps and stop for ice cream. Ice cream has more meaning when two dogs are waiting in the back in their crates for you to spoon it out. I have quickly learned in the hot summer...bring Rick his ice cream, the dogs and make one more trip for mine...be melted by the time the girls are finished.
Had a consensus lady stop by one time when we had FIVE ACDs. Course knowing Heelers ... they ALL charge the gate and when they can't BITE the one that started the ruckus...they start squabbling between the pack. Bite yer buddy...at least you are BITING something...
The lady was justifiably HORRIFIED!
She is at the front gate, blurts out, "Maybe I should come back at a better time..."
I grab the dogs (I can carry one fifty pounder under each arm and if the two red ones were up and outta it, calm should prevail--sorta).
Trailer Trash
My reply was quite simple to her...afterall, not ME that wanted to be a statistic and she came calling on us unannounced...she gets what she deserves...we had NO troubles before the unwelcomed, uninvited person arrived here outta the blue.
"It does not get any better than it is right now!"
This is my place...I don't mind a dog jumping up, a dog protecting what they deem is theirs...I know all about proper manners but these are dogs on my land, my farm, joining me forever with their lives. I could get all uptight about it, but when I can count on the fingers of ONE hand (and fingers, not my thumb), how many visitors we get on our place in a whole year...why do I care about how my dogs act past being ACDs...let them live good lives and if'n they do something Rick or I don't prefer, I am quite the adept dog whisper to get them to accommodate us. Would a fellow human lay down their lives to save or protect me from harm...dogs won't even pause to think about laying down their lives for my unworthy carcass. That's an instant given. Heck, they'd even help me bury bodies...hee hee...
I mean at one time, farm dogs were a required commodity AND any country person knew...without a doubt, you go past the farm, the farm dogs would have their fun with you at your expense. Rick talks about riding his bike with his legs over his head...hoping he had pedalled enough speed up to get away without getting bit...too savagely. I mean Fixins once breached our gates (we upgraded then) to bite the Daytons of a biker dude that thought it funny to stop and harass her at HER front gate..."Show you...Biker bimbo!" Grrrr...
Nowadays...good gripers...law suits, yer dogs get put down...so now it is up to US with the dangerous property to contain it inside our property lines. At all costs because it means we lose...and lose and lose again.
Basically, if we lost everything, we would live under a bridge so we could keep the dogs. Hate losing everything else but I'd live in my truck with the dogs if life cast that misfortune upon us. Nothing more devoted and happy to be with you than a dog.
XD Same for most critters! XD
We were loading up straw...very particular we are about the kind and quality of the straw that we use for bedding...a square oat straw bale in a bird pen gives the birds more area, space in the pen...some can sit atop, a picked on can hide round it, or at least tire out a rival before "I" find out and fix the problem. We find waterfowl not messy at all when on river sand topped with a decent layer of oat straw.
So we are loading up squares and a friend of the seller drops by...starts up asking us about this "straw." I think he thought we were doing this for great monetary profit. That we were on to some goose and golden egg scheme. Hardly. We pour everything into this endeavour and would find it rather insulting if someone suggested we did this for financial profit.
I wanted to say, "Honey, no amount of money could ever buy devotion to a losing cause like this!" And I truly mean that. Our lives have purpose because we chose to invest in running a Conservation Farm...it makes one feel good right down to your very soul. How very human to care about other creatures besides themselves, eh.
If I had to hire out for wages, I'd laugh and say, "No thanks!" How can you ever measure
(or lunacy...because I know the SPCA will never come calling...but Human Rights should swing by and declare we humans here are living in "conditions UNfit for humanity"). When it quits being FUN...we make adjustments...so far, the funny farm is still FUN.
Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada
norseofcourse
Herd Master
Welcome from Ohio! Sounds like you are incredibly busy and loving it!
- Thread starter
- #15
JACB Dorper
Overrun with beasties
Heel low:
Thanks for the welcome!
Keeping happily busy means I am not bothering the general public...'specially with all my daft critter stories.
Speakin' of which...here's a helper to any of those persons that would like to endeavour to use as much of the harvesting of their animals as humanly possible. If its gonna lose its life...I think out of common decent respect, we use all we are able to use...waste not, want not!
DOG MATS!
Not bad for a Dorset Romanov cross as far as WOOLness is
Tawing hides. You don't end up with a leather product but a parchment. I added extra things to the original recipe like Ivory Snow (nfi) and Neat's Foot Oil (nfi) for better smell and to deter the end users which included DOGS that may chew on something that smelt more like a rawhide snack than a mat!![:\](/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/side.png "side :\")
When we ex-ray our ACDs for OFA hips...we also ex-ray their elbows and have them certified as OFA hips & elbows--efficient because you are there, dog is too...get it all done up. The breed can get elbow problems so what the hay, best to get the whole deal done and cover some more bases. Knew of one ACD a lady had that had arthritic elbows. Best solution was to have a sheepskin mat for the dog to lay upon. Course, even non-arthritic dogs luv laying on the mats I make...and it warms my heart to know we are using the whole beast. Wool is THE only natural product that when water (moisture) is added, actually generates heat. So a warm (wet?) dog laying on a sheepskin mat will generate a nice warm environment to sooth aching joints. Naturally...purdy!
Now, it is a unforgivable given that I am not your normal gal--don't call me PRINCESS and think I am sitting on the couch tossing bonbons in my face all day. I can be a down and dirty slob...doing jobs that no princess would profess to putting a finger to.
I would be more suited to a normal gal homesteading, make-it-yerself type persons; growing wheat, grinding it, baking yer own bread in a clay oven woman...best suited to...well maybe back in the 1880's, livin' in a teepee or sod roofed kind of hovel--self sustained doing it MY way, eh. My mother always said I would be the most happiest crocheting doilies fur my teepee...ack! But a friend I had, her husband was an avid hunter. So it begged the question, what does he do with his deer and elk hides...nothing...so asked her next time he had a hide, I'd like to try tawing it. Sure enough...living in a one bedroom apartment, Hero comes home from work EARLY...me was in the midst of dehairing (jest soak deer or elk hide and the hair slips!) and de fatting and de tissuing the hide in ready for preserving.
Poor man...poor poor man. I cleaned up as best able, got most of the extra STUFF off the bathroom tiles and he always liked getting clean after a dusty day of work. Envision this...bear of a man, sitting tightly in a ball, all squinched up trying NOT to touch any of the sides of the tub and tiles--utterly miserable in his own castle...mortified and disgusted because he does not want to get any of that brutality ON him...suppose to be getting clean, not dirty. LMBO
So I apologized to exposing him to this side of my personality (yes, I love to butcher and process...but not kill, not a good killer, eh). But I did say to him, you never gave me enough warning...warned me it would be a short work day for you Sweety...otherwise I woulda skipped the hide preparation for another time.
NOW--I always warn him when I am going to process something. I am perfectly fine he is not "into" that sorta thing...he don't like all that gooey gore and stuff...he don't do the animal med things either...preventatives that poke, jab, cause discomforts. He would rather load up the sheep and haul them to the vet to get that done, but economically and stress on the beasts, better done here and by one of us.
But surely is a good thing that ONE of us does do that--that be moi... Find me jumping the corral panel with a syringe of some sort or other in my teeth to do some preventatives like deworm or vac. ONE of us gets to do the nasties whilst the other one gets to clip the grass and dump "num num" greenies, prechewed to rave reviews by the ruminants. If'n the beasts cringe when I come stomping along...it is little wonder why! I love them more because I do the gore!
I promised not to taw hides IN our residence when given an option for some place else...so when we bought our first home...I got my own fleshing beam (my father was a faller, so he provided me with a nice log) and did my ghastly deeds outside.
Our family mix works but now back to me story. I got my deer hide all prepped, used an old plastic garbage can for the alum / salt peter mix (powdered form of each, for a small sheep skin, one ounce of each will do yah). Recipe is one to one and H2O (rainwater is the best kind to use, not gonna be too hard, eh).
Now some words of warning before I move on...alum is a chemical you can purchase from your local drug store, but forewarned you may want to tell yer pharmacist you are "tawing hides" with it...tis used as an antiseptic douche...so if you get several ounces of it, along with the saltpeter (Potassium nitrate - used to cure meats, rumoured to be used by the military to encourage impotence in male soldiers, or as an oxidizer for blackpowder back in the olden days)...you may start up some rather unflattering rumours in the place you live, especially if'n you reside near a small town like I do.
So the components you need to taw a sheep hide to make it into a mat are...
Chemicals/supplies - saltpeter (Potassium nitrate) & alum (potassium aluminium sulfate), cold water detergent, Ivory Snow flakes, Neat's Foot Oil, and rainwater.
Equipment... a bathtub or sheep waterer tub or plastic garbage can (something BIGGISH and non metal - cleanupable to soak hide in to clean & rinse but maybe NOT the bathtub if your spouse or better half wants to use it to get cleaned up in and there will be a conflict in the making time sharing wise, eh) / fleshing beam (a log tipped up on one side will do yah) / knives (grapefruit knives work kinda nice on some of the fleshing portions...keep yer blades sharp as a dull knife is more likely to cut you than a razor sharp one...usually!) / Jokenly, I might suggest the side of a barn (yeh, literally gonna tack yer hide out on it...no, not like when your father threatened to "tan yer hide to the side of the barn" but something sorta like that) but really truly should suggest this is done on piece of plywood you lay flat / tacks/nails...gonna be tacking your wet hide out flat so it dries flat and keeps a flat shape (not be ironing this one...good gack the stench of hot ironed hide...now that might make me gag and I do "wet dawg" whiffs not too terrible!).
Method to the madness...
Wash hide in cool water and strong detergent to remove foreign matter like blood and mud, veg matter...clean the fleece and flesh side. Hot water would set blood and liquefy fat/cook flesh...so best to do lots of cold, clean rinses.
Flesh hide side to remove fat, meat and connective tissue that would seal out the chemicals meant to preserve the hide. Scraper her...now of course Rick asked me if I was to chew the hide and I gave him the royal BLICK chick grimace. I do lots of things but not chewing no $&^% hide...better set me outside on the iceberg to float away to die, eh...
Placing wool side down, tack on the edges of the hide with lots of tacks, making the hide stretch out nice and flat. The shape you make is more or less the shape the mat will retain as it dries, cut off any obnoxious strips or bits you don't require. Best to do this part on a cool few days...slow drying is better than sudden cooking. You want an even dry as able.
When hide is barely damp, sprinkle one to one mix of powdered saltpeter and alum over the hide. You can rewet areas that dry much quicker...point you want is an all over barely damp surface to sprinkle upon.
When hide is fully dry...I then put on Ivory flakes and oil, smother the surface all over so it is further preserved AND don't smell very DOG tasty...most dogs find SOAP smells, smelling like a pretty flower, not so palatable...kinda. Why so many roll in the poo after a bath...can't sneak up on their quarry smelling all flowerish. Blick!
Now you can sandpaper the surface, use a pumice stone or what have you or just use the mat as is.
Hide side of sheepskin mats
A note of caution...the first sheep skins I got, I never removed off the sheep...so any holes will get bigger, so it is kinda nice the processor does a nice clean job without any nicks. Fun thing about woolled sheepskins...the wool will fluff down and fill in any hide holes quite nicely.
Course there is a story to the first two sheep hides I tawed fur dog mats. I ordered up two lambs from a woman I knew that raised meat sheep...Dorset and Romanov crosses...thinking my memory that it was 2001 er so that I did that...ordered them because was going to travel to meet up with an Aussie friend from the Net...meet her in person on Canadian soils when she delivered some Stumpy Tails here to Canada. Wanted to bring some GOOD roasts of lamb so she had some real food to make her feel welcome, home away from home type thingy plus learn how she cooked and season up HER lamb legs...was delish and made us so happy to feed her right. So I order the lambs, paid the producer for the lambs and the deal was I go to the abattoir to pick up the boxes of frozen lamb to put in my freezer until the visit in the fall time. I give the producer specific instructions that I want the sheep hides too. Got that recipe for sheep mats I wanna try out doing.
So get the call the lamb is ready, so off I drive, three ACDs in the back of my Sunnrunner (four wheel squeal of a tiny vehicle) and off we go. Plan to stop and pick up dog beds on sale, dogs can ride on those home harnessed up in the back seat and as I always seem to notice livestock at large on the highways here...do note that I have an assortment of stock sticks, adjustable halters and such to move poor beasties off road before they get kilt. So off we go. I stop, buy beds, tuck these under pooches, and then make the long drive to the abattoir to get the boxes of lamb and the hides I will be strapping to roof of Sunrunner...tis early spring and snow is on the ground so not like the hides are gonna rot on the way home. Reminds me of the time I was at a pet store with the dog sled I wanted...it was July and I offered them cash, half price--warned them they would be storing the sled till the fall...me take it off their hands. So that be how I ended up driving home in July with a dog sled strapped to roof of vehicle... Man the looks I got...dogs inside, sled on top...where is she going to go sledding, eh?
I get to the abattoir, pay for the processing of the meat (lovely, all in paper wrapped portions with ink stamps of what each one of them be...mouth is watering in anticipation of lovely LAMB delish!) and ask where are the two hides? Oh heavens...is it that these butchery types (me included) cannot stomach the KILL part? Nope, the lambs were killed at a meat place thankfully on the way back home. Drat...but no matter, on the way home...so I call them, ask them if they still had the two hides (Yes, but out back and might be in a frozen lump with some others but still left where they dumped them--be the two on top the pile)...and I reassure them that "YES, I do want them" (imagine that, eh?). Off we go back on the road to home.
I stop and to much choruses of "what you want hides for?" and giggles (dog mats...see the dogs in vehicle waiting on sheepy skin mats?)...I pull the two hides outta the pile covered now in some snow and dirt and bungy strap them to the roof and head finally straight on home.
I did amuse myself as I often do with a wild imagination ... Not for sure I would crash since I got the vehicle in four by to get home but say what if we crashed...and the dogs and I passed in the process leaving no souls to explain the scenario.
What would the first responders find...you think on it and try NOT to giggle...
Herding dogs...one woman...small vehicle...halters, leads and ropes, stock sticks strewed about in the wreckage...boxes of frozen, cut & wrapped lamb...two lamb hides. Was the dead woman the one using the stock sticks and animal wear or was there a second person, the driver maybe that fled the scene...or worse, the dogs used the stock implements?
So what happened...she drove up on a flock of TWO sheep...maybe chased by three ACDogs...hit the two sheep so hard the vehicle clean blew those sheeps outta their hides...and their carcasses, blew up cut, marked, and wrapped & FROZEN into two boxes...yeh, wild imagination but certainly amusing in an only harmful to me and some others foolish enough to have read my drivel this far!
Bwa ha ha...
Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada
Thanks for the welcome!
Keeping happily busy means I am not bothering the general public...'specially with all my daft critter stories.
Speakin' of which...here's a helper to any of those persons that would like to endeavour to use as much of the harvesting of their animals as humanly possible. If its gonna lose its life...I think out of common decent respect, we use all we are able to use...waste not, want not!
DOG MATS!
Not bad for a Dorset Romanov cross as far as WOOLness is
Tawing hides. You don't end up with a leather product but a parchment. I added extra things to the original recipe like Ivory Snow (nfi) and Neat's Foot Oil (nfi) for better smell and to deter the end users which included DOGS that may chew on something that smelt more like a rawhide snack than a mat!
When we ex-ray our ACDs for OFA hips...we also ex-ray their elbows and have them certified as OFA hips & elbows--efficient because you are there, dog is too...get it all done up. The breed can get elbow problems so what the hay, best to get the whole deal done and cover some more bases. Knew of one ACD a lady had that had arthritic elbows. Best solution was to have a sheepskin mat for the dog to lay upon. Course, even non-arthritic dogs luv laying on the mats I make...and it warms my heart to know we are using the whole beast. Wool is THE only natural product that when water (moisture) is added, actually generates heat. So a warm (wet?) dog laying on a sheepskin mat will generate a nice warm environment to sooth aching joints. Naturally...purdy
!Now, it is a unforgivable given that I am not your normal gal--don't call me PRINCESS and think I am sitting on the couch tossing bonbons in my face all day. I can be a down and dirty slob...doing jobs that no princess would profess to putting a finger to.
I would be more suited to a normal gal homesteading, make-it-yerself type persons; growing wheat, grinding it, baking yer own bread in a clay oven woman...best suited to...well maybe back in the 1880's, livin' in a teepee or sod roofed kind of hovel--self sustained doing it MY way, eh. My mother always said I would be the most happiest crocheting doilies fur my teepee...ack! But a friend I had, her husband was an avid hunter. So it begged the question, what does he do with his deer and elk hides...nothing...so asked her next time he had a hide, I'd like to try tawing it. Sure enough...living in a one bedroom apartment, Hero comes home from work EARLY...me was in the midst of dehairing (jest soak deer or elk hide and the hair slips!) and de fatting and de tissuing the hide in ready for preserving.
Poor man...poor poor man. I cleaned up as best able, got most of the extra STUFF off the bathroom tiles and he always liked getting clean after a dusty day of work. Envision this...bear of a man, sitting tightly in a ball, all squinched up trying NOT to touch any of the sides of the tub and tiles--utterly miserable in his own castle...mortified and disgusted because he does not want to get any of that brutality ON him...suppose to be getting clean, not dirty. LMBO
So I apologized to exposing him to this side of my personality (yes, I love to butcher and process...but not kill, not a good killer, eh). But I did say to him, you never gave me enough warning...warned me it would be a short work day for you Sweety...otherwise I woulda skipped the hide preparation for another time.
NOW--I always warn him when I am going to process something. I am perfectly fine he is not "into" that sorta thing...he don't like all that gooey gore and stuff...he don't do the animal med things either...preventatives that poke, jab, cause discomforts. He would rather load up the sheep and haul them to the vet to get that done, but economically and stress on the beasts, better done here and by one of us.
But surely is a good thing that ONE of us does do that--that be moi... Find me jumping the corral panel with a syringe of some sort or other in my teeth to do some preventatives like deworm or vac. ONE of us gets to do the nasties whilst the other one gets to clip the grass and dump "num num" greenies, prechewed to rave reviews by the ruminants. If'n the beasts cringe when I come stomping along...it is little wonder why! I love them more because I do the gore!
I promised not to taw hides IN our residence when given an option for some place else...so when we bought our first home...I got my own fleshing beam (my father was a faller, so he provided me with a nice log) and did my ghastly deeds outside.
Our family mix works but now back to me story. I got my deer hide all prepped, used an old plastic garbage can for the alum / salt peter mix (powdered form of each, for a small sheep skin, one ounce of each will do yah). Recipe is one to one and H2O (rainwater is the best kind to use, not gonna be too hard, eh).
Now some words of warning before I move on...alum is a chemical you can purchase from your local drug store, but forewarned you may want to tell yer pharmacist you are "tawing hides" with it...tis used as an antiseptic douche...so if you get several ounces of it, along with the saltpeter (Potassium nitrate - used to cure meats, rumoured to be used by the military to encourage impotence in male soldiers, or as an oxidizer for blackpowder back in the olden days)...you may start up some rather unflattering rumours in the place you live, especially if'n you reside near a small town like I do.
"She bought how much of what?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So the components you need to taw a sheep hide to make it into a mat are...
Chemicals/supplies - saltpeter (Potassium nitrate) & alum (potassium aluminium sulfate), cold water detergent, Ivory Snow flakes, Neat's Foot Oil, and rainwater.
Equipment... a bathtub or sheep waterer tub or plastic garbage can (something BIGGISH and non metal - cleanupable to soak hide in to clean & rinse but maybe NOT the bathtub if your spouse or better half wants to use it to get cleaned up in and there will be a conflict in the making time sharing wise, eh) / fleshing beam (a log tipped up on one side will do yah) / knives (grapefruit knives work kinda nice on some of the fleshing portions...keep yer blades sharp as a dull knife is more likely to cut you than a razor sharp one...usually!) / Jokenly, I might suggest the side of a barn (yeh, literally gonna tack yer hide out on it...no, not like when your father threatened to "tan yer hide to the side of the barn" but something sorta like that) but really truly should suggest this is done on piece of plywood you lay flat / tacks/nails...gonna be tacking your wet hide out flat so it dries flat and keeps a flat shape (not be ironing this one...good gack the stench of hot ironed hide...now that might make me gag and I do "wet dawg" whiffs not too terrible!).
Method to the madness...
Wash hide in cool water and strong detergent to remove foreign matter like blood and mud, veg matter...clean the fleece and flesh side. Hot water would set blood and liquefy fat/cook flesh...so best to do lots of cold, clean rinses.
Flesh hide side to remove fat, meat and connective tissue that would seal out the chemicals meant to preserve the hide. Scraper her...now of course Rick asked me if I was to chew the hide and I gave him the royal BLICK chick grimace. I do lots of things but not chewing no $&^% hide...better set me outside on the iceberg to float away to die, eh...
Placing wool side down, tack on the edges of the hide with lots of tacks, making the hide stretch out nice and flat. The shape you make is more or less the shape the mat will retain as it dries, cut off any obnoxious strips or bits you don't require. Best to do this part on a cool few days...slow drying is better than sudden cooking. You want an even dry as able.
When hide is barely damp, sprinkle one to one mix of powdered saltpeter and alum over the hide. You can rewet areas that dry much quicker...point you want is an all over barely damp surface to sprinkle upon.
When hide is fully dry...I then put on Ivory flakes and oil, smother the surface all over so it is further preserved AND don't smell very DOG tasty...most dogs find SOAP smells, smelling like a pretty flower, not so palatable...kinda. Why so many roll in the poo after a bath...can't sneak up on their quarry smelling all flowerish. Blick!
Now you can sandpaper the surface, use a pumice stone or what have you or just use the mat as is.
Hide side of sheepskin mats
A note of caution...the first sheep skins I got, I never removed off the sheep...so any holes will get bigger, so it is kinda nice the processor does a nice clean job without any nicks. Fun thing about woolled sheepskins...the wool will fluff down and fill in any hide holes quite nicely.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is an elk skin I tawed...never got round to softening it
Hmmm...think the thing is like 30 years or so old...hee hee...time flies, having too much fun!
The elk hide is meant to be soft leatherish...so one day, some day, will wet it with rainwater and work it. For now, it is just folded up and stored...for that time where I have extra time and the want...hee hee...someday, eh?
This is an elk skin I tawed...never got round to softening it
Hmmm...think the thing is like 30 years or so old...hee hee...time flies, having too much fun!
Course there is a story to the first two sheep hides I tawed fur dog mats. I ordered up two lambs from a woman I knew that raised meat sheep...Dorset and Romanov crosses...thinking my memory that it was 2001 er so that I did that...ordered them because was going to travel to meet up with an Aussie friend from the Net...meet her in person on Canadian soils when she delivered some Stumpy Tails here to Canada. Wanted to bring some GOOD roasts of lamb so she had some real food to make her feel welcome, home away from home type thingy plus learn how she cooked and season up HER lamb legs...was delish and made us so happy to feed her right. So I order the lambs, paid the producer for the lambs and the deal was I go to the abattoir to pick up the boxes of frozen lamb to put in my freezer until the visit in the fall time. I give the producer specific instructions that I want the sheep hides too. Got that recipe for sheep mats I wanna try out doing.
So get the call the lamb is ready, so off I drive, three ACDs in the back of my Sunnrunner (four wheel squeal of a tiny vehicle) and off we go. Plan to stop and pick up dog beds on sale, dogs can ride on those home harnessed up in the back seat and as I always seem to notice livestock at large on the highways here...do note that I have an assortment of stock sticks, adjustable halters and such to move poor beasties off road before they get kilt. So off we go. I stop, buy beds, tuck these under pooches, and then make the long drive to the abattoir to get the boxes of lamb and the hides I will be strapping to roof of Sunrunner...tis early spring and snow is on the ground so not like the hides are gonna rot on the way home. Reminds me of the time I was at a pet store with the dog sled I wanted...it was July and I offered them cash, half price--warned them they would be storing the sled till the fall...me take it off their hands. So that be how I ended up driving home in July with a dog sled strapped to roof of vehicle... Man the looks I got...dogs inside, sled on top...where is she going to go sledding, eh?
I get to the abattoir, pay for the processing of the meat (lovely, all in paper wrapped portions with ink stamps of what each one of them be...mouth is watering in anticipation of lovely LAMB delish!) and ask where are the two hides? Oh heavens...is it that these butchery types (me included) cannot stomach the KILL part? Nope, the lambs were killed at a meat place thankfully on the way back home. Drat...but no matter, on the way home...so I call them, ask them if they still had the two hides (Yes, but out back and might be in a frozen lump with some others but still left where they dumped them--be the two on top the pile)...and I reassure them that "YES, I do want them" (imagine that, eh?). Off we go back on the road to home.
I stop and to much choruses of "what you want hides for?" and giggles (dog mats...see the dogs in vehicle waiting on sheepy skin mats?)...I pull the two hides outta the pile covered now in some snow and dirt and bungy strap them to the roof and head finally straight on home.
I did amuse myself as I often do with a wild imagination ... Not for sure I would crash since I got the vehicle in four by to get home but say what if we crashed...and the dogs and I passed in the process leaving no souls to explain the scenario.
What would the first responders find...you think on it and try NOT to giggle...
Herding dogs...one woman...small vehicle...halters, leads and ropes, stock sticks strewed about in the wreckage...boxes of frozen, cut & wrapped lamb...two lamb hides. Was the dead woman the one using the stock sticks and animal wear or was there a second person, the driver maybe that fled the scene...or worse, the dogs used the stock implements?
So what happened...she drove up on a flock of TWO sheep...maybe chased by three ACDogs...hit the two sheep so hard the vehicle clean blew those sheeps outta their hides...and their carcasses, blew up cut, marked, and wrapped & FROZEN into two boxes...yeh, wild imagination but certainly amusing in an only harmful to me and some others foolish enough to have read my drivel this far!
Bwa ha ha...
Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada
TAH
Herd Master
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Welcome
Very interesting read. You could probably turn it into a book
Very interesting read. You could probably turn it into a book
- Thread starter
- #17
JACB Dorper
Overrun with beasties
Heel low:
Glad to amuse you.
Thanks but already in book form and near 200 pages (10 entries a page) on sister site BYC in their family life segment (stories, pictures and updates). The wondrous times we live in...allow me to write many "books" and have them accessible to the masses...at the touch of a few buttons. Internet...websites ... these forums.
As mentioned, I wrote the ACD Profiles (done up & given to SPCA in Calgary to help the ACD surrendered high rates drop...learn about the breed BEFORE adopting one). This is how I devoted a whole website, my first website to the ACD!)...and I have also gone to a big box stationary store and made ten copies--phone book thick...cost me serious dough and some time to get completed...and these publications have no colour photos like I post on the Net. So was, I believe $30 a book and bound and all nice but truly...I can't afford the time and money to publish myself and I will not submit myself to all the bother finding some company that would in the end, edit my work and thereby not make it my own. I do not figure I am saleable in the raw...oh my eyes...nope, so I get to write and click and publish...without an editor (can you see the spelling errors the hilarious pop up because there is no one in the wings editing my drivel...barf!).
Dr. Carefoot did the same thing...had himself published thru a lady...he also did not want to be edited to make himself more saleable. I think the moment you take something that brings you & others JOY and submit it for someone to make money on...it loses something natural, free (duh) and joyously happy. Nope, no right proper BOOK...but several "books" in the bestest sense where all may access at will.
My BYC's Pear-A-Dice thread fast approaches 200 pages and is nigh two years old. July 30th, 2014...with over 28,000 views (lots of faithful readers and fans visit these posts--right from the start up too...along for the ride with me and mine) with over 5,500 images...colour photos cost you big time to have replicated for books...hee hee...costs Rick and I too for me to upload them on the Net but I suppose to share, nothing in life is for complete freeness...hee hee...best we keep our jobs, eh!
We love living the rural life and raising our own food. Also to exercise the opportunity to TEST what the big corps would have the masses believe. You know, corporations...and the lies they dish out, quite literally and so many are too lazy to put their claims to the test. The big lie I love to debunk is that somehow, the heritage food we raise ourselves compared to the modern commercial fare is not going to be of LESSER better quality...that somehow, someway, we with heritage breeds cannot compete with the "quality" of the factory farms (what a load of rubbish, eh!). For with the throngs of scientists and paid for studies...how could it EVER be possible that our old timer, antiquity heritage breeds could be BETTER than the scientific frankenmonstrosities humanity has put their supposed best minds on to. Commercializing the domestics...to be more efficient, better production, better at making MONEY. HA...root of most all evil IS money...nyuck nyuck!
Now I DO love science and the scientific method...to prove something is BEST by experiments to record RESULTS...so without further adieu, here's what I learned about raising my family's meat...happy good for all round all meat!
Turkey...
Great food...not just for special occasions but often that is what is done...we celebrate with a nice turkey bird!
Turkey Leader Fixins...Red ACD gal and her turkeys that figure SHE is their LEADER!
I raise a whole host of turkey reeds...nope, won't advocate that turkey's only come in varieties...I raise BREEDS separated from all the varieties because what would one do with the PALM (Ronquière) turkey when you have that turkey BREED and varieties like the Royal PALM...the Black & White PALM...the Red & White PALM, the Tri Colour (Red, Black & White) PALM...but I digress...as I so often do!
Chic and her BOWTIE!
She is a Desert Palm / Sweetgrass tricolour / Yellow-shouldered Ronquière -
Turkey Breed from 1566 - Antiquity Heritage Turkey
Tri-colour Palm Turkey hen with a bow tie (likely a skin tag that grows feathers...kewl, eh!). Her variety is tri-colour and her breed is Palm.
Off my lastest website...on the Turkey Page
So the very first turkey I harvested...was for my son's wedding. A turkey tom and I smoked the breast meat and that was the center piece (besides the homemade fruitcake)...my first homegrown, my first smoked turkey white meat...turned out fine!
October 2009
Now my fam loves a good turkey dinner...with all the fixings... And I got to pondering...hmmm...there seemed to be something that was bothering me about the heritage turkeys I was raising...perhaps, but not sure...there was suppose to be LESS white meat, less of the most choice cut on the heritage turkey as these were NOT Broad Breasted turkeys...when you used the differently shaped (more like the wild turkey form - long lived & healthy, disease resistant, able to forage for its own food, had legs to move, the chest was long and not round and bulgy, so the turkeys in the heritage form COULD replicate naturally...no artificial insemination...doing the birds and bees things on their own without intervention)...so this comparison to the factory farmed BROAD BREASTED turkeys got to really bothering me...so...when something bothers me...I need to investigate it and figure it out.
One holiday dinner afternoon I was opening the can of jellied cranberries and it happened to slip outta me old fingers...I picked it up, upside down and laughed...ROARed so loud I am sure my son and spouse in the living room were too afraid to come down to the kitchen and question whether or not I had gotten deeply into the vanilla extract and was drunk on it...
"Open other end"...truly...the masses HAFTA be instructed that this bottom
won't easily be unleashed with a mere can opener?
So how many enraged phone calls does the company get where
the customer is furious because they cannot open their cans of cranberries?
I will not be like the masses that are like dead headed zombies missing the common sense they should have...and just accept what marketing gurus decide to stuff down our throats as the gospel truth! Inquiring minds want to know...so we go and we show ourselves some facts and the truth and we figure this out for ourselves. The truth shall set us free...eh!
Grocery store Commercial TOM next to homegrown Heritage HEN
So I had processed a Lilac turkey hen...had her in the freezer along with a store bought commercial tom turkey...factory farmed broad breasted turkey.
Heritage Hen weigh raw
Commercial Tom weigh raw
The look of the shape is different between commercial and heritage turkeys...but the benefits of the different shape to the heritage is obvious!
So for the Canadian 2012 Thanksgiving dinner...it was TEST time. Who better to use as lab RATZ than my own family...
Heritage Hen on Left / Commercial Tom on Right
Note the richer colour of the heritage...not bleached white
This hen LIVED a true life...it shows in the darker (and firmer) meat
I weighed the raw products and I cooked the turkeys in the same oven beside each other...tried my very best to do the exact same to both so the results would not be skewed to benefit either.
Turkey Leg Visual Comparisons
Left Commercial Tom / Right Heritage Hen
Taste wise...the turkey leg of the heritage was more flavourful (happy meat, so natch!) and moister...my son who is the turkey leg fan says homegrown heritage was BEST compared to the commercial broadbreasted...easily! The meat held together better, the richness can easily be SEEN...strips of real tasty firm meat...not shredded crumbly less tasty mush...
Turkey Legs Cooked - Left Commercial Tom / Right Heritage Hen
So the biggest revelation was over the choice cut...the breast meat that is the very most coveted part of the TURKEY dinner...for most persons that...white meat is the premium cut in the turkey industry...like tenderloin or porterhouse--the expensive meat portion of the animal.
Heritage Hen on Right / Commercial Tom on Left
The first thing you note, different shape and colour...the heritage hen's white meat is richer...to me it is obvious she lived the better life...she moved, chased bugs, squished mud between her toes, soaked up vit D as in sunshine and LIVED a happy full life...unlike the anemic pale looking commercial male did. Taste wise, better REAL flavour of turkey in the heritage hen. Admittedly, there are some people that do not LIKE the full bodied flavour of heritage birds that lead real lives (some hate REAL poultry eggs too...too much flavour, too firm and tasty...not watery mushish)...they want soft tofu like taste and for them, carry on with buying commercial mush meat ... by all means go with that you have learned to know and love I guess.
But for those of us that remember what REAL poultry use to taste like and then would blame ourselves that our taste buds have gotten weak and we lost the ability to TASTE real food...by all means, try the heritage raised by your own hand happy meat. The flavour BURSTS outs...
So now for the real reveal...the REAL portion that makes me EVER so happy to raise our own foods...truly glad!
Heritage Hen left / Commercial Tom right
When I adjusted for the size of each bird (hen was smaller...she's a hen, hens are that way in the turkey world), and the amount of white boneless breast meat each bird produced (cooked identically at the same time in my oven)...
Commercial Tom - breast meat cooked
Heritage Hen - breast meat cooked
This is the joyous conclusion I came to...
So calculation time!
Beginning weights...
Raw heritage hen was 9.5 pounds (16 oz to the pound) = 152 ozs raw.
Raw commercial tom was 14 pounds = 224 ozs raw.
White meat...
Heritage hen one half was 15.35 ozs. so she had double that in boneless white meat, 30.7 ozs.
Commercial tom one half was 20.85 ozs. so he had double that in boneless white meat, 41.7 ozs.
Percentage White Meat...
Heritage Lilac Turkey Hen - raw weight of 152 oz. compared to 30.7 ozs white boneless breast meat = 20.18 percentage is WHITE MEAT.
Commercial Broad Breasted (HA!) Turkey Tom - raw weight of 224 oz. compared to 41.7 ozs boneless breast meat = 18.61 percentage is WHITE MEAT.
Heritage Lilac Hen had 20.18% choice white meat compared to Commercial Broad Breasted Tom had 18.61% choice white meat.
Heritage hen had 1.57% MORE choice white meat than Commercial tom.
The Heritage Hen had a higher percentage of BREAST MEAT than the Commercial Tom by 1.57%. I was ever so thrilled...what I had thought was going on, was going on...when put on equal terms, the heritage hen mopped up on the commercial tom.
Thanksgiving dinner - October 7, 2012
The heritage hen has more of the most choice cut...so much for the Broad Breasted (double muscled?) theory that the commercial farms and marketing forces had been lying to the masses about. Want better tasting turkey meat...grow your own heritage turkeys...by jove!
Not only do you free yourself from having to buy poults each year (self fertile...naturally) and get to be more self-sufficient, you get more of the choice meat, you get better turkey flavour and firmness, and you can do it yourself...how much pride is there in that you can lay down the celebration dinners that YOU had a personal hand in creating...from virtual start to finish (turkey help not ignored in they did the majority of the work by living, growing and giving their lives for our sustenance).
Christmas 2011 - pan gravy from a 16 month old Lilac Tom processed 25 pounds
Un-coloured gravy...that is the COLOUR of REAL turkey...
Another test I did was to compare a ten month old (around 9 months, heritage turks are ready to be processed for consumption)...and a sixteen month old tom. To see if the flavour improved...and yes, more turkey flavour in the older tom. So to me, who loves having my beasties and birdies around for a nice long time...I can honestly wait for them to be 16 months old and still process a breeding tom knowing HE had a lovely, enjoyable happy life for that long and he does not die at my hand as a waste...he has even more delicious turkey taste!
And yes, it is a tad tedious to process your own food...it takes someone to be able to stomach the kill, the defeather (I dry pluck...no wet dog, scalding, hot fleshed plucking for moi...DRY pluck...wonderful alternative to the other stenchy wet process), the gut, the chill for a few days in the fridge to tenderize (I process on Monday, we eat them on Sunday), we age beef and lamb...to let the meat settle--do the same for poultry please!
YES it costs WAY more to grow your own food but it is the better and in my opinion, more correct thing to do. It costs more for a premium product and I like to think of what the alternative would be...and the value placed on that. Thankfully there is a website where it costs one $249 US to get a 20 to 25 pound heritage turkey shipped to your door step (in 2015 pricing). So this makes me grin, ear to ear that every turkey bird that I process, to start off before I make them into dinner would have cost us $250 US to get to our door step! How's that for making you dance with joy...at the value it is to have it replaced by someone else...every turk dinner I create, before cooked has a value of $250 US ... now THAT is living high falooting, eh.
Another aspect when you raise your own meat past the fun of living day to day knowing what you eat is having a life...that you as a real meat eater ARE involved in the whole process...not just the food part is yours...the processing offers up values too past the shear eye candy of seeing the happiness in the flesh, bone and feathers by living amongst the birds & beasts.
Because we raise heritage turkey breeds & varieties...some of the turkey feathers are out of this world BEATUIFUL...how's that for a fist fulla gorgeous?
Not all toms...who has the EYE for the hen...Gerri the girl turk is drumming too?
Black Bart & Louise
Royal (Black & White pattern / Ronquière jaspee) Palm pair...yeh, both genders KNOW howta strut their stuff!
So not only do I get to have fun raising our meat...I also have proven to myself and my fam...that the products WE choose to raise are by far and large BETTER, a premium product than what the factory farms produce. Happy meat, no artificial chemicals (NO antibiotics) to make mush meat taste like it should, we produce MORE of the better choice cuts...better flavour, firm happy meat taste that got to live the REAL life...better for all involved.
We LOVE what we do and the love is what makes it all so much better! 
Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada
Welcome
Very interesting read. You could probably turn it into a book
Glad to amuse you.
Thanks but already in book form and near 200 pages (10 entries a page) on sister site BYC in their family life segment (stories, pictures and updates). The wondrous times we live in...allow me to write many "books" and have them accessible to the masses...at the touch of a few buttons. Internet...websites ... these forums.
As mentioned, I wrote the ACD Profiles (done up & given to SPCA in Calgary to help the ACD surrendered high rates drop...learn about the breed BEFORE adopting one). This is how I devoted a whole website, my first website to the ACD!)...and I have also gone to a big box stationary store and made ten copies--phone book thick...cost me serious dough and some time to get completed...and these publications have no colour photos like I post on the Net. So was, I believe $30 a book and bound and all nice but truly...I can't afford the time and money to publish myself and I will not submit myself to all the bother finding some company that would in the end, edit my work and thereby not make it my own. I do not figure I am saleable in the raw...oh my eyes...nope, so I get to write and click and publish...without an editor (can you see the spelling errors the hilarious pop up because there is no one in the wings editing my drivel...barf!).
Dr. Carefoot did the same thing...had himself published thru a lady...he also did not want to be edited to make himself more saleable. I think the moment you take something that brings you & others JOY and submit it for someone to make money on...it loses something natural, free (duh) and joyously happy. Nope, no right proper BOOK...but several "books" in the bestest sense where all may access at will.
My BYC's Pear-A-Dice thread fast approaches 200 pages and is nigh two years old. July 30th, 2014...with over 28,000 views (lots of faithful readers and fans visit these posts--right from the start up too...along for the ride with me and mine) with over 5,500 images...colour photos cost you big time to have replicated for books...hee hee...costs Rick and I too for me to upload them on the Net but I suppose to share, nothing in life is for complete freeness...hee hee...best we keep our jobs, eh!
We love living the rural life and raising our own food. Also to exercise the opportunity to TEST what the big corps would have the masses believe. You know, corporations...and the lies they dish out, quite literally and so many are too lazy to put their claims to the test. The big lie I love to debunk is that somehow, the heritage food we raise ourselves compared to the modern commercial fare is not going to be of LESSER better quality...that somehow, someway, we with heritage breeds cannot compete with the "quality" of the factory farms (what a load of rubbish, eh!). For with the throngs of scientists and paid for studies...how could it EVER be possible that our old timer, antiquity heritage breeds could be BETTER than the scientific frankenmonstrosities humanity has put their supposed best minds on to. Commercializing the domestics...to be more efficient, better production, better at making MONEY. HA...root of most all evil IS money...nyuck nyuck!
Now I DO love science and the scientific method...to prove something is BEST by experiments to record RESULTS...so without further adieu, here's what I learned about raising my family's meat...happy good for all round all meat!
Turkey...
Great food...not just for special occasions but often that is what is done...we celebrate with a nice turkey bird!
Turkey Leader Fixins...Red ACD gal and her turkeys that figure SHE is their LEADER!
I raise a whole host of turkey reeds...nope, won't advocate that turkey's only come in varieties...I raise BREEDS separated from all the varieties because what would one do with the PALM (Ronquière) turkey when you have that turkey BREED and varieties like the Royal PALM...the Black & White PALM...the Red & White PALM, the Tri Colour (Red, Black & White) PALM...but I digress...as I so often do!
Chic and her BOWTIE!
She is a Desert Palm / Sweetgrass tricolour / Yellow-shouldered Ronquière -
Turkey Breed from 1566 - Antiquity Heritage Turkey
Tri-colour Palm Turkey hen with a bow tie (likely a skin tag that grows feathers...kewl, eh!). Her variety is tri-colour and her breed is Palm.
Off my lastest website...on the Turkey Page
So the very first turkey I harvested...was for my son's wedding. A turkey tom and I smoked the breast meat and that was the center piece (besides the homemade fruitcake)...my first homegrown, my first smoked turkey white meat...turned out fine!
October 2009
Now my fam loves a good turkey dinner...with all the fixings... And I got to pondering...hmmm...there seemed to be something that was bothering me about the heritage turkeys I was raising...perhaps, but not sure...there was suppose to be LESS white meat, less of the most choice cut on the heritage turkey as these were NOT Broad Breasted turkeys...when you used the differently shaped (more like the wild turkey form - long lived & healthy, disease resistant, able to forage for its own food, had legs to move, the chest was long and not round and bulgy, so the turkeys in the heritage form COULD replicate naturally...no artificial insemination...doing the birds and bees things on their own without intervention)...so this comparison to the factory farmed BROAD BREASTED turkeys got to really bothering me...so...when something bothers me...I need to investigate it and figure it out.
One holiday dinner afternoon I was opening the can of jellied cranberries and it happened to slip outta me old fingers...I picked it up, upside down and laughed...ROARed so loud I am sure my son and spouse in the living room were too afraid to come down to the kitchen and question whether or not I had gotten deeply into the vanilla extract and was drunk on it...
"Open other end"...truly...the masses HAFTA be instructed that this bottom
won't easily be unleashed with a mere can opener?
So how many enraged phone calls does the company get where
the customer is furious because they cannot open their cans of cranberries?
I will not be like the masses that are like dead headed zombies missing the common sense they should have...and just accept what marketing gurus decide to stuff down our throats as the gospel truth! Inquiring minds want to know...so we go and we show ourselves some facts and the truth and we figure this out for ourselves. The truth shall set us free...eh!
Grocery store Commercial TOM next to homegrown Heritage HEN
So I had processed a Lilac turkey hen...had her in the freezer along with a store bought commercial tom turkey...factory farmed broad breasted turkey.
Heritage Hen weigh raw
Commercial Tom weigh raw
The look of the shape is different between commercial and heritage turkeys...but the benefits of the different shape to the heritage is obvious!
So for the Canadian 2012 Thanksgiving dinner...it was TEST time. Who better to use as lab RATZ than my own family...
Heritage Hen on Left / Commercial Tom on Right
Note the richer colour of the heritage...not bleached white
This hen LIVED a true life...it shows in the darker (and firmer) meat
I weighed the raw products and I cooked the turkeys in the same oven beside each other...tried my very best to do the exact same to both so the results would not be skewed to benefit either.
Turkey Leg Visual Comparisons
Left Commercial Tom / Right Heritage Hen
Taste wise...the turkey leg of the heritage was more flavourful (happy meat, so natch!) and moister...my son who is the turkey leg fan says homegrown heritage was BEST compared to the commercial broadbreasted...easily! The meat held together better, the richness can easily be SEEN...strips of real tasty firm meat...not shredded crumbly less tasty mush...
Turkey Legs Cooked - Left Commercial Tom / Right Heritage Hen
So the biggest revelation was over the choice cut...the breast meat that is the very most coveted part of the TURKEY dinner...for most persons that...white meat is the premium cut in the turkey industry...like tenderloin or porterhouse--the expensive meat portion of the animal.
Heritage Hen on Right / Commercial Tom on Left
The first thing you note, different shape and colour...the heritage hen's white meat is richer...to me it is obvious she lived the better life...she moved, chased bugs, squished mud between her toes, soaked up vit D as in sunshine and LIVED a happy full life...unlike the anemic pale looking commercial male did. Taste wise, better REAL flavour of turkey in the heritage hen. Admittedly, there are some people that do not LIKE the full bodied flavour of heritage birds that lead real lives (some hate REAL poultry eggs too...too much flavour, too firm and tasty...not watery mushish)...they want soft tofu like taste and for them, carry on with buying commercial mush meat ... by all means go with that you have learned to know and love I guess.
But for those of us that remember what REAL poultry use to taste like and then would blame ourselves that our taste buds have gotten weak and we lost the ability to TASTE real food...by all means, try the heritage raised by your own hand happy meat. The flavour BURSTS outs...
So now for the real reveal...the REAL portion that makes me EVER so happy to raise our own foods...truly glad!
Heritage Hen left / Commercial Tom right
When I adjusted for the size of each bird (hen was smaller...she's a hen, hens are that way in the turkey world), and the amount of white boneless breast meat each bird produced (cooked identically at the same time in my oven)...
Commercial Tom - breast meat cooked
Heritage Hen - breast meat cooked
This is the joyous conclusion I came to...
So calculation time!
Beginning weights...
Raw heritage hen was 9.5 pounds (16 oz to the pound) = 152 ozs raw.
Raw commercial tom was 14 pounds = 224 ozs raw.
White meat...
Heritage hen one half was 15.35 ozs. so she had double that in boneless white meat, 30.7 ozs.
Commercial tom one half was 20.85 ozs. so he had double that in boneless white meat, 41.7 ozs.
Percentage White Meat...
Heritage Lilac Turkey Hen - raw weight of 152 oz. compared to 30.7 ozs white boneless breast meat = 20.18 percentage is WHITE MEAT.
Commercial Broad Breasted (HA!) Turkey Tom - raw weight of 224 oz. compared to 41.7 ozs boneless breast meat = 18.61 percentage is WHITE MEAT.
Heritage Lilac Hen had 20.18% choice white meat compared to Commercial Broad Breasted Tom had 18.61% choice white meat.
Heritage hen had 1.57% MORE choice white meat than Commercial tom.
The Heritage Hen had a higher percentage of BREAST MEAT than the Commercial Tom by 1.57%. I was ever so thrilled...what I had thought was going on, was going on...when put on equal terms, the heritage hen mopped up on the commercial tom.
Thanksgiving dinner - October 7, 2012
The heritage hen has more of the most choice cut...so much for the Broad Breasted (double muscled?) theory that the commercial farms and marketing forces had been lying to the masses about. Want better tasting turkey meat...grow your own heritage turkeys...by jove!
Not only do you free yourself from having to buy poults each year (self fertile...naturally) and get to be more self-sufficient, you get more of the choice meat, you get better turkey flavour and firmness, and you can do it yourself...how much pride is there in that you can lay down the celebration dinners that YOU had a personal hand in creating...from virtual start to finish (turkey help not ignored in they did the majority of the work by living, growing and giving their lives for our sustenance).
Christmas 2011 - pan gravy from a 16 month old Lilac Tom processed 25 pounds
Un-coloured gravy...that is the COLOUR of REAL turkey...
And yes, it is a tad tedious to process your own food...it takes someone to be able to stomach the kill, the defeather (I dry pluck...no wet dog, scalding, hot fleshed plucking for moi...DRY pluck...wonderful alternative to the other stenchy wet process), the gut, the chill for a few days in the fridge to tenderize (I process on Monday, we eat them on Sunday), we age beef and lamb...to let the meat settle--do the same for poultry please!
YES it costs WAY more to grow your own food but it is the better and in my opinion, more correct thing to do. It costs more for a premium product and I like to think of what the alternative would be...and the value placed on that. Thankfully there is a website where it costs one $249 US to get a 20 to 25 pound heritage turkey shipped to your door step (in 2015 pricing). So this makes me grin, ear to ear that every turkey bird that I process, to start off before I make them into dinner would have cost us $250 US to get to our door step! How's that for making you dance with joy...at the value it is to have it replaced by someone else...every turk dinner I create, before cooked has a value of $250 US ... now THAT is living high falooting, eh.
Another aspect when you raise your own meat past the fun of living day to day knowing what you eat is having a life...that you as a real meat eater ARE involved in the whole process...not just the food part is yours...the processing offers up values too past the shear eye candy of seeing the happiness in the flesh, bone and feathers by living amongst the birds & beasts.
Because we raise heritage turkey breeds & varieties...some of the turkey feathers are out of this world BEATUIFUL...how's that for a fist fulla gorgeous?
Not all toms...who has the EYE for the hen...Gerri the girl turk is drumming too?
Black Bart & Louise
Royal (Black & White pattern / Ronquière jaspee) Palm pair...yeh, both genders KNOW howta strut their stuff!
So not only do I get to have fun raising our meat...I also have proven to myself and my fam...that the products WE choose to raise are by far and large BETTER, a premium product than what the factory farms produce. Happy meat, no artificial chemicals (NO antibiotics) to make mush meat taste like it should, we produce MORE of the better choice cuts...better flavour, firm happy meat taste that got to live the REAL life...better for all involved.
We LOVE
what we do and the love is what makes it all so much better! Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada
TAH
Herd Master
- Joined
- Feb 15, 2016
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You should start a journal? You would be very good at writing one I think everyone would enjoy reading it.
- Thread starter
- #19
JACB Dorper
Overrun with beasties
My Dearest...GO here...it is already thar...
http://www.backyardchickens.com/t/9...iggins-rat-ranch-conservation-farm-in-alberta
Tara
MrsKuhn
Loving the herd life
I second the journal I am loving reading your posts. Oh and welcome 
