Goal: No processed meat from the store. Anyone met it?

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One of my goals is to get my kids and us off of processed meat from the market. Meat prices are going through the roof(in case you hadn't noticed), and I don't want all the garbage being fed to these animals to be in my children's food. However, producing all your own meat is a daunting task. Is anyone here producing all your own meat right now? I am interested in hearing about who produces all their own chicken. Buying organically grown meat is just not practical for us at all. Here is a site with a CSA for meat. However, their monthly package wouldn't feed me, much less six people. Check out the monthly CSA cost!!!! To feed us even one package a piece would take $660 per month. That is laughable to me. No, producing it yourself is the only option for those who are not independently wealthy.

http://www.wholesomeharvest.com/buynow2.html

Meat sold for it's value in GOLD

-- Little Bit Farm (
littlebit@itlnet.net), November 06, 2003

Answers

Do you buy all new chicks every year, or do you hatch them yourself?

Little bit Farm

-- Little Bit Farm (littlebit@brightok.net), November 08, 2003.


We have yet to produce all our own meat all in the same year but...we're working on it. Most years we do raise our own broilers and we have had two pigs one year and rabbits. We are planning on starting over with rabbits (I'd rather dress a rabbit any day than a chicken), have 50-75 broilers and two hogs, and a few turkeys each year. Once we have our milk goats, we'll then have meat from some of the young goats. We will probably always buy our beef a side at a time. At this time, we are still able to find it reasonably priced and sometimes even all grass fed. You are right, it is a daunting task but it did use to be done.

We raise our broilers in chicken tractors and usually butcher them ourselves, however, 25 is the most we have done at one time. It's a chore I do NOT like :-).

-- Terry - NW Ohio (aunt_tm@hotmail.com), November 06, 2003.


We raise ALL of our poultry ourselves. I can honestly say that we haven't bought chicken from the store in over 25 yrs. We raise our own turkeys also, but sometimes don't have as good luck with them as the chickens. So occasionally we'll buy one or two from the store...yuck!! We also raise our own pork, sometimes will shoot one or two deer per year and also buy a side of grass-fed beef in the fall. It's not economical for us to raise our own beef. We also have dairy goats, but it's impossible for me to put them in the freezer :-)! So, basically, we buy very little meat from the store...except for a package of hot dogs once in awhile for a barbecue :-)!!

-- Marcia (HrMr@webtv.net), November 07, 2003.

Our family buys the broilers every year. We usually order them through our local feed store, rather than mail order. It has always been less expensive to buy chicken from the store (for us) but......yuck!! :-). The chicken tractor raised broilers, butchered at about eight weeks, are so tender and delicious.

I start the little peeps out in the kitchen and then to the barn and then to the chicken tractor once it is warm enough outdoors.

A little off topic but, witht he last bunch of peeps I didn't use a heat lamp. I just filled gallon glass jars with hot water and wrapped an old cloth around the jar - they really seemed to like it and I didn't lose any.

-- Terry - NW Ohio (aunt_tm@hotmail.com), November 08, 2003.


We buy day-old chicks (about 25) from the feed store also. I start mine in the barn with just a heat lamp, keeping them confined closely to the lamp for the first week or so in a small pen (3x3 ft.). After the first week, they're released into the "baby room" which is about 6x8 ft. After the first couple of weeks, they don't need the lamp anymore. They stay in the baby room til they're almost 4 wks. then I move them outside to an 8x10 pen. At 9 or 10 wks. of age they're in the freezer :-)!! Unless of course, we want to grow some for roasters.

-- Marcia (HrMr@webtv.net), November 08, 2003.


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