Difficult tasks/lessons learned on the road to independence

Lumpy

DIFFICULT THING NUMBER ONE FOR TODAY:
Today we castrated a pig - our first time ever, although we raised two females to slaughter weight last year.

Castrating a pig does not "read" as that difficult in the books. And actually it is not. Except that the first time you do, if you have never seen it done before, you end up making a longer, more onerous (for both you and pig) task of it. At least we did.

First tip --
Even though the reading says you can use a single-edged razor blade, don't go there. It does not give you a wide or deep enough incision, and you end up have to do more cutting. The best tools turned out to be the combination of the blade on a Gerber all-purpose tool (like a Leatherman), and a pair of small fingernail scissors.

Second tip --
Expect more blood than the books lead you to believe -- although it is capillary blood, if you do it right. (If you get spurting blood, you have hit an artery, and best plan on having roast pig for dinner.)

Third tip --
Make SURE you have some stypic (blood stopping) wound powder on hand. Works as antiseptic, too.

Fourth tip --
Even on an 8 week old piglet, it's best to have one person hold the head and front legs, one hold the back legs, and one do the surgery.

By the way, about 20 minutes after surgery, he was up running around, eating. So I guess we did ok. We will watch him closely for infection, etc -- but we think it's going to be all right. So we are feeling good about the $60.00 we saved if we had taken to the vet for castration.

HARD THING NUMBER TWO FOR TODAY:
Today we starting culling kittens. In the past we have only done this with sickly ones. But two of our "regular" female producers birthed four kittens each in the past couple of days.

We had no sense when we moved to our place in 2005 - and took any and all cats that people wanted to give away, thinking we would need them all for mousers/barn cats. Well, even with attrition from owls, coyotes, etc, we became overrun by cats -- and started feeding them dry cat food by the bag full. MISTAKE.

When we finally had to stop that practice, some of them went feral, and starting killing our chickens. We lost about 2/3 of our laying hens this spring ... and it took us a while to figure out it was our own cats gone predatory that were doing the killing.

Anyway, today we picked the strongest looking kitten from each of the two litters, left that one for the Momma to nurse (to keep her from going into heat again, as part of the reason -- and also to make sure that we do have a strong bunch of cats around -- which we will keep feeding.) The other three we put down humanely -- no we did NOT drown them.

But that was hard to do. Sweet little kittens we had to kill.

We have learned, however, that we must be pragmatic. And the ones we keep alive will be well fed and sheltered, and provide a service to the farm.

Lumpy
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Ludi

I (wife) slaughter the poultry.

We got the vet to castrate our rams, but I will probably do it in the future.

In the future, my husband will shoot deer and squirrels and I will butcher them.
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"...powerdown so soft and fluffy you'll think you're living in a pillow..." - jboogy

green_achers

Get your damn cats fixed. There is no shortage of homeless cats if you find yourself short at some point.
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WWJD? What would Joel Salatin do?

Lumpy

CarlinsDarlin · Moderator Joined: Jul 02, 2004 Posts: 1376

When it comes to butchering animals, which is probably the most emotionally difficult thing we do here, Carlin is the one who does the deed. I'll eviscerate, skin, cut up, wrap up, and cook the meat, but I can't do the killing. I am, however, the one who decides who stays and who goes. I just point them out, and he takes care of it, and brings me the carcass for cleaning.

We have not had to castrate any animals yet. I don't know how that will be handled.

My buck goat has a scur that's going to be cut off, though, and I'm taking him to the vet for that. I don't feel qualified and Carlin isn't either. I don't want him to bleed to death because of a stupid mistake on my part. I have too much money tied up in him, and emotionally I don't want to make him suffer. The scur is growing around and back toward his head - if we don't take it off, it will grow INTO his head, so it has to be done. Once I see the vet do it once, I may be able to handle future situations, but for now, we're paying to have this one done.

That's likely the way we will handle most things of the sort (medical), actually. Once I see it done by somene else and feel confident in doing it, then we'll take it from there.

wisconsin_cur

At this point I do everything with the animals... soon the wife will have to help some.

The hardest lesson I learned was how to break a rabbits neck quickly and cleanly. If you mess up they make an awful screaming noise that you will not forget. I only messed up 1-2 times, but not anymore (knocks on wood).
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"Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain."
-Friedrich von Schiller

"What I try, may not work. It may be ineffective. It might even turn out in the pages of history to be the exact wrong thing to do, but I'm going to try to do what I c

Lumpy

CarlinsDarlin · Moderator Joined: Jul 02, 2004 Posts: 1376

Well, I've grown up around hunting my entire life. Lots of deer skinned and gutted on our place when I was a kid. We also butchered many chickens. Probably deer (and one lamb) are the largest animals I've ever dressed. I've also watched pigs be butchered, but not participated - I was too young then, to help. Just watching others do it, and then trial and error. It's not too hard once you get past the "ick" factor. Smile

K

Ludi

We're fortunate to have a mobile vet who charges $15 for a farm visit (plus charges for work and medications ). He has even come to help us when we had the old horse and not charged us anything.
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"...powerdown so soft and fluffy you'll think you're living in a pillow..." - jboogy

Ferretlover

WildRose · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Jun 21, 2006 Posts: 1021

I've never had to (and probably never will have to) do the types of tasks all of you have described so far. My husband cleans the fish we catch, and I'm sure if we hunt in the future he will do the carcass cleaning.

We have a 16-year-old German Shepherd who, if she does not pass away naturally, will have to be put down in the not too distant future, as she is quite blind, deaf, has a bit of trouble with incontinence, arthritis, but she still has some quality of life. I know it will be my decision as to when she has to see the vet for injection.

Children require a lot of emotional investment, and one learns many lessons as a parent. Because my husband works in an industry that has taken him out of town a fair bit over the last 10 years, I've had to deal with the emotional issues that have come up with our kids, who are now 14, 17 and 21. There are also emotional issues that come with being the parent who is dealing with the kids most of the time and also with being the one who is away a lot.

Other than that, I'd say being responsible with money and controlling debt are big lessons I've learned towards independence.

CarlinsDarlin · Moderator Joined: Jul 02, 2004 Posts: 1376

Pops

Good job lumpy.

You are guys are stronger, more confident and skilled today than yesterday, right?

That is a good day I'm thinking.

Smile

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Shannymara · Master Joined: Oct 04, 2004 Posts: 5143 Location: Oklahoma

Our buck's scurs were removed when he went to stay with friends and encountered their bucks, who had horns. The initial sparring removed his scurs at his scalp within a few minutes. He didn't seem to mind very much, according to my husband, but I wasn't there so can't speak first hand about it. His scurs were pretty thin and curly.

Otherwise I have done all the killing and butchering so far, but it hasn't been very much. I think my husband would be vegetarian if he had to kill most of his meat himself.

Cur, have you thought about shooting the rabbits in the head to kill them? Or have you become proficient enough at the neck breaking that it's not a problem anymore?
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Ludi

I recoomend for killing poultry, the killing cone. You can either buy one readymade or make your own:

I consider this much safer than chopping the head off with a hatchet. The bird is placed head down, with the head sticking through the hole in the bottom of the cone. Grasp the head with one hand, stretch the neck a little and one slice with a sharp knife removes the head causing instant death. The cone restrains the body during muscle spasms.
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"...powerdown so soft and fluffy you'll think you're living in a pillow..." - jboogy