Our famous kid........

Kid1 has found herself on page 17 of the premier issue of FROM SCRATCH.

Butchering a bull

Starting over with our farm has left our freezer pretty empty. Last fall we started looking around for where to buy a whole or a half of beef, boy is it expensive. I am not saying it is not worth it but we could not afford $1500 for a processed half.

We then had another idea we would look for a steer (neutered) that was old enough for us to keep him for a few months then we would butcher him ourselves. We looked but finding steer that were raised up to our standards became quite difficult. Then we found a place close by that was selling Scottish highlander bulls, 100% grass-fed.

Shaggy this fall while on breeding duty

Many people say that meat from a bull (not neutered) will be tough or have a strong unpleasant flavor. However I read several comments that this is not true of Dexters or Scottish Highlanders. So we bought a 2+ year old highlander bull, put him in with our Dexter cow. A kind of two for one deal, that is if he bred her and if the meat tasted the way we were hoping.

Last weekend we slaughtered the bull, which went okay. This is the first time we have done all the work ourselves. There are many things that if we had would have made the job easier, like a tractor. But we made due with what we had.

Then we let the quarters hang in a lean-to type building. The weather has been beyond cold so the butchering needed to get done, and that is what we started yesterday.

We have 3 more quarters to process, one is in the kitchen at this very moment- warming up. We have always done the slaughtering on the farm, with help, but never have we butchered a cow. To say it has been a learning experience would be an understatement.  We have a couple books that have been helpful Whole Beast Butchery and Basic Butchering. And having butchered some lambs and a goat has been somewhat helpful. After today the two back quarters will be cut, packaged, and placed in the freezer.

Meningeal Worm Update

I just wanted to give a quick update on Almond. She is doing amazing! Yesterday I let her and the other girls outside to roam around. I can tell that she is still tender on her back legs but she is recovering. When researching meningeal worm and goats some said that even if the treatment works the goat might still have some type of limp. Others said that their goat had a limp that eventually went away.

Almond and the girls making their way out of the barn

This is a good shot of the hair loss on her neck.

Not the best picture but you can see that she walks with a swagger.

Treating Meningeal Worm

It has been five days since I started treating Almond. Today I gave her the last of the morning dewormer. After reading many things on the internet and talking with friends the treatment plan that I started with was 5 days of Safeguard for goats at a dose of 1cc per 7 pounds and 3 days of Equimax at a double-ish dose.

Equimax is a horse dewormer that is a combination of ivermectin/praziquante. Goats have a very fast metabolism so it is important to get a high dose into them so that some actually goes to work. The Equimax tube is like a drench gun, it has notches on it that allows you to set it to the dosage you want. Every other notch is marked for 220 pounds of horse. I was not sure the exact dosage that I should have given some said 3 times the dose while others said 2 times. So the first day I gave 3 times the second day I gave 1 dose and the third day I gave double to dose.

Almond trying to get up

I could have given the 3 doses of Equimax first and then started with the Safeguard, however I had Safeguard at home. What I did was give Safeguard in the morning and Equimax at night.

Here you can see her back legs are not cooperating

She is really trying to stand. This picture gives you a look at the hair loss on her neck.

I have kept detailed notes about what I gave her each day and how she looked. Sometimes when you are in the middle of it all you think you will remember what you did, and you might, but I know that I wont. I wanted to be able to look back in a year or two and know exactly what I did.

And up- you can see that she has not lost any weight. One of the symptoms of Meningeal is loss of appetite we have not see that with Almond which makes us hope that we caught it early enough.

We don't do turkey

Two legs on a bed of leeks, carrots, rosemary and sage

I know thanksgiving is all about turkey but we just don't like it. We have tried smoked, fried, baked, store bought, organic, homegrown, free range- you name we have tried it. And still it just is not our thing. Last year we decided to go against the Thanksgiving grain and make rabbit. It was amazing! This year we decided to have goat. Now I know some of you maybe in shock, or even horrified, maybe even grossed out. I could throw all sorts of statistics at you about how goat is the worlds most popular meat (and milk for that matter), but I wont.

Rack of goat

When we first jumped into the whole goat world we decided any males born would be meat. We have a few friends that have ended up with a large portion of their herd being males. It is totally understandable, goats have great personalities and the thought of killing and eating something that has the personality of a pet is hard.

Elan tasting the meat- yes it is raw

If you like lamb- you will like goat. You may even like it better. I made leg of goat for Thanksgiving dinner, and although it was good- I would not say it was amazing. I think that had more to do with the recipe then the meat. A couple days later Chuck made an amazing french rack, and some little medallion things.

Goat hanging just after Chuck clean it

The goat we butchered was not big,  I am not even sure we got 25 pounds of meat but he was on the small side anyway. Our goal is to be able to do all the processing ourselves. A week before Thanksgiving the goat was slaughtered and prepared for aging. One of the nice things about doing all this at home is we have complete control, nothing goes to waste.