- the life cycle of our turkey

Last summer we purchased 3 turkey poults; only two made it out of the brooder to the field, and only one made it to adulthood.  While we enjoyed having her around, we never lost sight of her real purpose for being on the farm - food.

I had processed quite a few turkeys in the past, but I had never done it at our home...  I knew our lack of proper processing equipment would make things a bit more challenging for us.  I opted to skin her rather than scald and pluck; it went ok, but I hope I don't have to do it that way again.  She turned out fine, but didn't look quite as nice and it took me much too long.

My wife opted to put her in the stock pot and let her simmer for about 6 hours.  This method of cooking allows us to get EVERY scrap of meat off the bird and also makes great stock to be used in other meals.

I must admit that I miss her a little bit; it was always fun to see her come running (along side the goats) when I was moving them to new pasture.  She followed us around sometimes, like a pet and was all-around entertaining, but she is in the freezer now and we are all looking forward to eating her.

It is hard to explain, but it is very gratifying to have raised an animal, taken care of it for its whole life, and then used it to provide for my family.  Knowing exactly how it was cared for, what it was fed, and how it was processed.  One of our goals for this year is to provide all of our own meat, which will be mostly chicken, with an occasional goat and turkey.  I encourage you all to raise/grow your own food if possible; if not you should at least make an effort to find out how your food is being raised and processed - if you want you can come visit our farm and purchase some from us.  :-)

After just arriving at Liberty Pastures

Running free in the field

Protecting the farm against a new "intruder"


Getting ready to "say goodbye"












Beginning to skin













Almost finished processing

The finished product in the stock pot













The 6 quarts of "stock" she produced for us

- new additions

Last week I responded to an ad and purchased two more goats.  These ones are different than our others; primarily because I bought them with the express intent of slaughtering them as soon as they hit the 1 year old mark.  Despite knowing my plan, the children could not resist naming them; they came up with Bud and Temple, I refer to them as Dinner 1 and Dinner 2.

The white one is about 7 months old so he should be ready for me to butcher in the spring, the smaller one is only 4 months old so he has a way to go.  It is a little sad, but amusing to watch them try to fit into the existing order of goats.  As soon as they were placed in the paddock, the head butting began.  It is their way of determining where they will rank in the “pecking order”.  It was also very interesting to watch our turkey (yes, she is still alive) respond to the new-comers.  She puffed up like a Tom and actually chased the new goats around the paddock.  For days, she would run up to the new goats and “challenge” them with all sorts of interesting clucks and trills.  She seems to have accepted them finally, but even today she was challenging them again.

The little goats were treated cruelly, by the older goats, for the first couple days, but every day they accept them a little more.  As for Bud and Temple, I mean Dinner 1 & 2, I hope they enjoy their lives here at Liberty Pastures; at least until it is time for them to fulfill their purpose.  :-)

- managed intensive grazing

We have been utilizing a rotational grazing method for about 6 months, but only recently did I “wake up” and decide to use an intensive grazing approach.

In the past the goats/chickens/turkeys had access to a section of pasture along with their shelter and I would move the whole paddock every day.  This was a lot of work for my children and me, but I felt it was necessary to give them a large grass area and move their shelter daily.  Aside from the hassle of moving the shelter every day, I was frustrated by the fact that they never seemed to eat the grass down very well.  I was constantly faced with the dilemma of cutting the remaining grass (to stimulate growth) or to let it go.

About a month ago, it dawned on me that I needed to force the animals to eat more intensively.  I achieved this by creating a much larger paddock and only moving the shelter every 3 days.  I then use fencing to create a much smaller section within the larger paddock.  Rather than moving the entire shelter/paddock set-up each day, I simply move the fence barrier in the larger paddock every 18 hours or so.

The smaller sections force the animals to eat all the greenery, not just the plants they like.  Liken it to forcing your children to eating their broccoli with their dinner, not just their meat and potatoes.  Not only is this newer system making better use of our land, but the animals all seem to be healthier too.  I also find it interesting how the birds seem to be more "in-sync" with the goats.  When I walk out to the paddock, they all start to go crazy; they know they are getting fresh pasture.  When I move the fence, the birds come running along with the goats.

I took this picture just after moving the interior fence and giving them new grass.  If you look at the photo, you can see the line in the grass to the right of the animals where the fence had been and they had eaten most of the greenery.  You can also see the section to the left where they will be eating in the morning.

I guess if I were to be an intensive grazing purist, I would be moving their shelter every time I gave them new pasture, so that they were never on the same grass for more than a day.  This seems to be a good balance for us right now, they eat fresh grass every 18 hours, but we don’t have to hook up the shelter to the tractor and drag it around every day.

not supposed to be funny, but...

I had to laugh when I watched this video.  It made the news because NBC refused to allow it to air.  I am sure that my response is not what PETA was hoping for, but I could not help it.  Even if you think that PETA is nutty, you need to understand that if you bought a turkey from a store, it was most likely raised/treated just as this advertisement describes.  What I don't understand is how their only answer to avoiding factory raised turkeys is to not eat turkey at all... like there is no other alternative. 

I have a novel idea; how about turkeys that are raised naturally, allowed to forage on pasture, are not pumped full of hormones or anti-biotics, and are slaughtered in a clean, humane manner.  Oh wait; we are already doing that at Liberty Pastures.

I also find it interesting that I am agreeing with PETA on anything, but we have very different foundations for our reasoning.  They think that animals are as valuable (or more so) than humans, whereas we think that animals were created by God for our use, but that we still have a duty to treat them respectfully.  We also believe that Happy Animals make better food.   :-)

Contact us if you would like to find out more or if you would like to pre-order your turkey for next year.

how far I've come

As we hit the one year anniversary of moving to our new home (also our 12th wedding anniversary) I have been reflecting on how much my life has changed since fleeing southern California and starting a new life in southern Indiana.  I thought I'd go through a list of things that I never thought I would be doing:

     Riding my old farm tractor instead of my police motorcycle
     Watching my son drive our riding mower and cutting our grass by himself
     I had to cut the head off of my daughter's "pet" chicken
     Working on my 1962 John Deere
     Raising my own chickens/eggs
     Raising my own goats
     Breeding goats for the purpose of meat
     Raising turkeys (well only one now that the other two died)
     Planning to slaughter the remaining turkey myself, for Thanksgiving dinner
     Going out to check on my animals at midnight... in the rain
     Shooting pistols with my wife in our backyard
     I had to instruct my wife, over the phone, how to dispose of a dead goat (I was away with USMC)

Last night we went to a friends house for dinner and in the course of our conversation he asked me if I was glad we had moved to Indiana.  I will tell you the same thing that I told him: I have never regretted our decision; I know we did the right thing.  I think that we would have been joyful and content in many places, but I love where we ended up and I am grateful that the Lord led us here.

As previously stated, I never would have imagined that I would be living on a small farm in the mid-west and rasing goats, but I have to say that I love it and I am curious to see what I end up doing over the next year.

rainy night, full house

It has been raining (seemingly) non-stop for the past 3 days.  Our goats typically spend their evenings out in the pasture, but on nights like this they take full advantage of their mobile shelter.  The shelter is 128 square feet; there are 13 hens, 1 rooster, 2 turkeys, and 8 goats.  There is plenty of room for everybody, but they are not all accustomed to being so close together.  If you look closely, you can see one of the hens attempting to roost on one of the goats in the foreground.  It will be interesting to see how they all do once it starts snowing again in a few months.

Turkeys Making New Friends

A couple of months ago we adopted a pair of young sibling kittens for the purpose of rodent control around the farm.  We were a little concerned that they wouldn't last, but they have fit right in and have been earning their keep ever since.  Hank and Hunter routinely kill mice, gophers, and rabbits (adults and babies).  Of course they usually leave a bloody carcass in the garage for me to clean up, but I am glad to have them around.  The cats have however put a damper on the bird watching on our back deck, as the bird feeder seems to just make it too easy for the cats to catch Blue Jays and Mourning Doves.

Several weeks ago, I allowed our two young turkeys to roam around on the lawn and had to be very careful because Hank and Hunter made it very clear that they wanted the turkeys for dinner.  Yesterday, I brought the turkeys out again and turned them loose for a little while.  I kept a close eye on the cats, but things have changed now that the turkeys are close to the size of a small chicken.

The turkeys had no idea that the cats were predators and actually seemed oblivious to the cat's very existence.  The cats on the other hand were very curious and followed the turkeys around for more than 20 minutes.  At first Hank and Hunter were in "stalking" mode, but quickly decided that it was not a good idea.  As the smaller turkey walked near Hunter, he acted like he was going to strike, but instead turned and ran away.  Hank just casually accepted the turkeys and lay still as they walked around him.

I am just glad to see everybody getting along for now.