Another busy week. Work, homework, working on our homestudy for fostering purposes, picking up fresh lamb (yum)!
Each year I aim to ship the boys at 90 pounds. Last year (my first year) they ended up at about 105 and 120 pounds live weight. Oops. And "over-conditioned" (a kind euphemism for FAT).
This year, I did not pour the feed into the ram lamb. He has basically been grass fed only. Plus, being half Shetland, he is smaller. I took him in last Wednesday, fearing again that he might be too big. We do not have scales. There is a way to guesstimate based on heart girth measurements etc. which is quite interesting; every year I contemplate doing this in order to compare to the results after slaughter. Every year, time gets away from me, and I just wing it. (I just looked for the link and it appears to have disappeared from internet-land!)
Kev picked up our frozen lamb today. Total weight of lamb home is 42 pounds, which is ROUGHLY a live weight of 84 pounds. So this time, I sent him a little early. Oh well ... still closer than last year, and this meat will be even that much more melt-in-your-mouth tender.
We are also doing a "first" this time around. No photos though. We are currently salting his pelt, drying it out fully to get it ready for processing. Lamb skins are incredibly expensive to purchase, so we thought we'd try it once. I imagine we'll ship it to a processor rather than doing the tanning ourselves.
More farm news. Our most recent flock of black sex-link chickens was donated to the local food bank (via a kind gentleman who processes them for free!) and we have been busily readying the coop and pen for the new small flock. Originally we were going to take the winter off and get layers in the spring. It seems like a great idea ... until we look at store bought eggs. The ones that look like our eggs (but not quite as nice) are up to $5 per dozen (hello???). Then, I noticed a post at the Eastern Ag News board advertising ready-t0-lay Barred Rock hens. Well. Even the boy who does the majority of the chicken chores is excited again about having chickens, because he has always wanted Barred Rocks! Iain and I head out tomorrow morning to pick up eight new laying ladies, while Alison is working at the barn and Kev and Claire are at an "Annie" practice. Photos tomorrow!
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