Homemade Bacon = Yummy!!

When we brought the pigs to the butcher and got the pork belly's back Jamie decided to try to make his own bacon.

This is what fresh pork belly looks like straight from the butcher.

Fresh Pork Belly

We decided to try a salt cured bacon and then a brown sugar bacon.  In the above picture you see one long pork belly but there is actually 2, the other one is underneath it.

We cut one of the large bellies in half and one half was done with salt and brown sugar and all the rest was done with salt.

Make sure you use Kosher salt.  Table salt is too fine and will just melt away and sea salt is too large and won't break down properly.  Make sure to use a plastic container to hold your pork belly as the salt can damage other types of containers including metal.

Day 1, Take a generous amount of salt, Jamie used about a cup total for all the pieces and rub it all over the pork bellies, make sure you get both sides.

This is where you would add any extra flavoring if you want.  We decided to take a piece and rub brown sugar all over it.  You could also use black pepper, maple -using 100% REAL maple syrup or any other ingredients that you could think of that may enhance the flavor of your bacon.

Now you just put it into the fridge and leave it alone.  As the pork belly sits in the fridge overnight the salt will break down and help draw out any moisture in the pork belly.

Day 2, take out your pork belly and drain any liquid from the bottom of your container and then re salt again using half the amount of salt that you used on day 1 and then also add more flavor to your other pork bellies.  Back into the fridge it goes.

Salted Pork Belly on Day 2

Day 3, repeat day 2.

Day 4, now is the time to get your smoker going.  We used Hickory for our smoke flavor.  Next take out pork bellies from fridge and rinse off all the salt and other ingredients you may have put on, pat dry with paper towels.

Place pork bellies on the smoker.

Pork Bellies just put on the smoker

Jamie smoked the pork bellies for 3 hours at 170 degrees.  You know your pork bellies will be ready when the internal temperature reads 150 degrees. 

Our bacon has a really nice smoke flavor, its not overpowering at all.  If you don't like too much of a smoke flavor you can also smoke your pork bellies umwrapped for 1/2 of the time and the other 1/2 of the time just have it wrapped in tinfoil.

Pork Belly smoking

Side view - can really see now it looks like bacon

Once the bellies are done smoking you can slice off some and fry it up and eat it.  Which of course we did because we all wanted to see how it tasted.  It was yummy!!!  We also reserve some of the bacon drippings from frying the bacon and use it in place of oil when we are cooking venison, eggs and other foods. It adds a little bacon flavor to what your cooking and who doesn't like bacon flavor.

Fresh smoked bacon sliced

Fresh bacon frying

For the rest of the meat you want to let it cool on the counter and then wrap it in plastic wrap and place back into the fridge to cool over night, this makes it easier to slice.

Jamie bought a meat slicer to slice the bacon.  I'm sure we will use it for lots of other things though, especially during hunting season.

Once all the bacon was sliced we laid it out onto parchment paper with about 18 slices per package. That works out to be a little more than a pound of bacon per package.

Fresh bacon ready for packaging

We used our vacuum sealer and packaged up all of the bacon.  We ended up with 3 packages of the Brown Sugar Bacon and 11 packages of Regular Bacon and then 1 package of irregular size pieces of bacon that I will use for something I'm sure.  Can't let ANY bacon go to waste.

We are really pleased so far with all of the meat we have gotten from the pigs and I'm sure we will be raising some again.

Disbudding & Tattooing the Goats

Disbudding

Most dairy goats do not have horns.  My goats don't have horns.  The way this comes about is to have your goats disbudded.  Disbudding is usually done around a few days old when you can feel the baby goats horn nubs starting to grow.  Disbudding is better for a dairy goat as dairy goats are handled quite a bit by humans and there is less of a chance of a person or even another goat getting hurt by a horn if they are removed.

Billie Sue Hallman of Stoney Heights Farm was gracious enough to show me how to disbud and tattoo the baby goats.  Hailey and I took Carter, Cole & Chloe to her house last Saturday.

To disbud you need to use a dehorner or a disbudding iron.  You plug the iron in and it will get really hot.  One end is the handle and the other end is shaped as a hollow circle which fits over the area of the horn growth.

The first thing we did was to shave the hair off around the horn nubs, essentially the disbudding iron will be burning and cauterizing the horn area.  The less hair there is to burn the less smell there will be of burnt hair.

Once you have the iron heated up, you need to hold or have someone hold the baby goat and then you place the disbudder over the horn nub and slowly move the iron around like a hand moving on a clock to make sure you get a full circle.  You want to make sure not to do this too fast or too slow.  What you are looking for is a copper ring encircling the horn nub.  Once done to both horn nubs, the burns will heal and any horn nubs will fall off within a few weeks.  If you did it right you won't have any horns grow ever.

The little babies cry and it was so hard to have it done but it is a necessity in my eyes to have it done.  Kinda like when you have to have your children get their vaccinations.  You don't like it but it has to be done.

Thankfully the babies are super resilient and were fine after a short nap.  Even as much as running around and playing again.

Here are a few pictures of the baby goats head after disbudding.

Carter's head

Chloe's head

Cole's head

Tattooing

American Dairy Goat Association (ADGA) requires you to tattoo your kid goats for identification purposes.  The goats right ear holds the herd tattoo.  A herd tattoo is make up of 4 letters/digits.  Russell's Ridge herd tattoo is RR81.  All future goats born here will have RR81 tattooed into their right ear.  This way the goat will be identified as a Russell's Ridge Nubian's goat for the rest of their lives.

Each goat also gets a tattoo in their left ear.  This tattoo will vary from each goat.  ADGA assigns a letter for each year.  This year, 2012, the letter C, hence all the C names of the babies, was designated.  When you tattoo each goat you start with C and then the number of the babies birth. So we have C1, C2 & C4 for our first goats.  Billie Sue couldn't find her 3.  The next goats that are born will be C5, C6 and so forth.

The numbering doesn't make too much of a difference just as long as the correct number matches the correct goat when your putting the information down on their registration application.

Tattooing also makes the baby cry just a bit.  They way I think of it though is its like getting your ears pierced.  There are spring loaded clamp pliers that you put in the correct letters/digits.  These letters/digits are small and each letter/digit is made up of little needles.  You have someone hold the baby goat and you turn the ear over so the inside is exposed and you spread a little green, preferably or black ink along the inside of the ear.  Then you position the pliers over the ink making sure not to get any of the blood vessels or ribs of the ears in the pliers and then squeeze.  Once the pliers release you then rub some more ink into the tattoo so it will hold its color.

This is done for both ears, for the herd tattoo and the individual tattoo.

Here are some pictures of the baby goats ears a few days later.  It's very hard to see the actual tattoo but you can still see some ink and get an idea of where the tattoo is placed.

Carter's ear

Chloe's ears

Carter's ear

I am not looking forward to having to do this in the future but I know it is necessary and will just have to take it one baby goat at a time.



The Pigs are Gone!!



Girl Pig



Boy Pig

Well not really. They aren't living outside in their pen anymore.  They are in the freezer!!

A week of so ago we had our friend come to help us load up the pigs and take them to the butcher.  Well that didn't work out too well.  They weren't used to eating where we wanted to load them so they wouldn't follow the food and then of course the pen was way too big so they would get spooked and run off.

We decided to make a smaller area for them to eat in for a few days and try again.  They started to get used to going in and out of the pen and when both were in there we decided to enclose them in so we knew they would have to get on the trailer the next time we tried.

Thankfully we went down to the barn quite a few times Sunday to check on Priscilla because that night they decided to try to root under the fence since we shut off the hot wire so they could turn around without getting shocked.  Since we were in the middle of Priscilla giving birth Jamie tried to barricade it with anything he could get his hands on.  This was what it looked like the next day.

Pigs in the small pen

They were not in this pen for long and the next evening we were finally able to load up the pigs and off to the butcher they went.

We were able to pick up the meat 2 days later.  The boy was smaller than the girl so we had the boy butchered for us. The boy pig ended up with a dress weight (decapitated with skin & insides removed) at 161lbs and the girl came in at 181lbs. With the girl being bigger, she was butchered for our friends Rob & Wendi. They decided to share their pig with a mutual friend Brad.  So their pig was split in half and then each half was butchered for each family. 

This is what we got for meat

Fresh Pork Meat

We got our meat package for a family of four. So each package of different types of meat will feed a family of four for one meal.  We got the following:

22 1lb packages of sausage

5 packages of spareribs

12 packages of pork chops

2 packages of pork shanks

2 packages pork should roast

5 packages back bone meat

7 packages ham steaks

2 packages ham roasts

5 packages shoulder steaks

2 long sides of pork belly

2 short sides of pork belly

This is what they got for meat

Fresh Pork Meat

Rob & Brad's meat is also packaged for a family of four.

Each family gets

12 1lb packages of sausage

6 packages of pork chops

2 packages pork should roast

3 packages of spareribs

3 packages of back bone meat

2 packages shoulder steaks

1 large ham

1 long side of pork belly

1 short side of pork belly

Jamie has cured and smoked all of our pork belly into bacon which is delicious.  We have also already tried our pork chops and pork shoulder steaks which came out great.

Money wise we worked it out to be approximately $1.92lb for the meat which includes costs for feed and processing.  We are very happy with the results money wise and knowing where are food has come from and especially the taste.

I'm pretty sure we will be doing this again.

The pigs were 7 1/2 months old when they went to the butchers.  I was okay with seeing them go as I was finished with taking care of them and ready for a break.  Break meaning only having to take care of goats and chickens. I haven't seem to have any issues eating the pork either as I did in the beginning with the chickens.  I'm sure it has a lot to do with the fact we sent them to the butcher instead of doing it ourselves.  Hailey is a little sad as she liked the pigs and says they had such cute eyes but she didn't seem to have any problem eating the bacon. So I'm sure she will be fine.



Babies First Day Out.

Priscilla's babies are doing wonderful.  We had them stay with mama in the stall from when they were born Sunday night until Tuesday afternoon.  I wanted to make sure that they were all doing well nursing and strong on their feet before going outside.

When the kids came home from school on Tuesday we went down to the barn and let Priscilla and the babies out into the sunshine for a few hours.

They loved it!!!

Priscilla with l-r, Chloe, Carter & Cole

They enjoyed walking around and doing these funny little jumps.  It's amazing how fast they develop.

Here are some individual pictures of the babies on their first day outside.  They really enjoyed being outside in the fresh air and sunshine.  Priscilla was very happy too and was chomping away on the green grass. 

Carter

Cole

Chloe

The babies played and explored for quite awhile and then found a nice spot in the grass for a nap while the kids and I fed everyone.

Lots of people were asking how big they were and we never weighed them because they wouldn't register on our scale so here is a picture of Jamie holding Cole so you can see how little they are.



Jamie & Cole

After everyone was fed, Priscilla and the babies went back into the pen for the night.  We like to have them stay in the pen so none of the other goats won't accidentally step on one of them and it gives Priscilla a break from always trying to keep and eye on them and worrying who is around them.

We were able to get a video of them outside too. 

Babies first day outside

Check back and see how they are doing soon.

Can't Always Have What You Want.

It's funny how in different parts of the United States there are different foods and types of foods.

Since moving to TN there are many foods that we can't get here that we used to have in MA.

Drew's favorite is Ellio's

Yummy pizza

Ellio's is just frozen pizza but it is something that Jamie & I had when we were growing up and of course our kids love it too.

I looked every where for it when we moved to TN and not finding it I looked it up on the computer.  I found out that it is manufactured in MA only and sold only in New England.  Can't even have it shipped to us.  When we went back to MA in January we actually had a cooler with us and stocked up on it, bringing back 12 boxes with us.  We are down to our last box.

Another food we love is Yasou dressing.

Salad dressing

This dressing is an oil based dressing with seasonings.  It is the BEST dressing to use when you are making greek salads.  Jamie & I eat alot of salads and used to love this dressing.  It's another product only manufactured in MA and sold only in MA.  Of course we stocked up on this too bringing home 15 bottles.  This went fast though and we haven't had any in weeks.

The last thing we brought home with us was Ah-So Sauce.

Ah-So sauce

This sauce is what is used to make Chinese spareribs like you get at Chinese food restaurants.  We like to make Chinese style pork chops with it.  We also cut the pork chops up small and cook with the sauce and put it in pork fried rice.

We don't have this often, so we still have some in the cabinet. We had brought home 4 bottles with us.

These are just some of the foods we love and can't have anymore all the time.

We also miss the restaurant the 99.  That's not down here in TN either. Also the restaurant Christo's which was one of our favorite when we lived on the south shore.  I haven't seen Chinese Sausage here either. We still haven't been able to find a pizza place that makes pizza like you get on the south shore in MA but we are used to that because we never found a great pizza place in western MA.

We will always stock up when we visit MA.  If anyone is coming to visit we would LOVE for you to bring any of this to us.  We would appreciate it very much.



Priscilla's Babies Are Here!!!!

Priscilla, the day she gave birth

Sunday, March 18th Priscilla was not a happy girl.  As you can see in the above picture she spent most of the day in the barn looking out the door.  Longing to go outside and enjoy the sunshine.  Priscilla knew that she was ready to have her babies.

We checked her every few hours. In the middle of the afternoon we noticed some milky white discharge.  This usually means that labor will follow soon.

Around 7pm Jamie & I went down and fed everyone and we noticed that she was breathing a little faster and groaning a bit so we decided to put her in the birthing stall so she wouldn't be bothered by the other goats.

8:15pm I went down to check on her and sure enough she was in full labor and pushing.  I called Jamie on the cell phone and told him to get the kids and the baby bag and come on down.

I sat with her for a bit while she was pushing and noticed that she just wasn't progressing at all.  I was able to call a new friend, Billie Sue that has lots experience with goats. 
Billie was able to tell me what I needed to do.

I had to go in and help.  Now at this point I am about going crazy with worry in my head.  Thinking I'm going to hurt her but I knew if I didn't go ahead then she and her babies could die.  I was so grateful to have Billie on the phone with us.  She was very calm and knew just what to say to help us out.

Jamie sat by Priscilla's head and held her tight and I went in and felt around.  I was told that I needed to feel to see what body parts were presenting themselves first.  It took me a long time to figure this out.  A hind leg hip was what was coming first.  I went in a little further and found the head and face.  I then turned the baby around so it would be delivered feet and face first, the proper way.

When I went in, I have to say it was the neatest feeling ever.  It was really hard work especially since Priscilla was having contractions and every time she had a contraction it would squeeze my wrist and arm.  The coolest thing though was while I was looking for the babies head I felt another head too.

Once the baby was turned around it delivered pretty quickly and it was a BOY!!! A little black boy with white markings.  He seemed to have trouble breathing, so thankfully we were still on the phone with Billie and she told me what I needed to do to get him breathing again.  While I was doing all this with the 1st baby, Priscilla delivered her 2nd baby which was a GIRL!!! Jamie helped clean off her face and get her breathing. She was brown with white markings. By this time both little ones were breathing on their own and doing good.  Priscilla is such a good mama, she started licking them to clean them and she was "talking" away to them. Next came the 3rd baby which was a BIG BOY!!! This baby was much bigger in size than the other two and he was red with white markings.

As far as we can tell all 3 were delivered between 9:00pm and 9:30pm.  It was amazing to see how quickly they stood up, went to the bathroom and then started to nurse.

It was an absolute amazing experience and I was so glad the kids were there to see it.

The following pictures are of the babies just about an hour old.

Baby # 1 looking to nurse

Baby # 2 standing

Baby # 3 cuddling with mama

After staying to make sure they had all nursed and were doing fine I went up to the house.

The next day I went down to the barn in the morning and everyone was doing wonderfully.  Babies were starting to poop which is always a good sign.  Priscilla was looking wonderful too.  I made sure to clean up the stall a bit and put fresh bedding down.  I also let Priscilla eat in there so nobody would bother her.  I figured she would be sore.  The babies stood and walked around for a bit but then they found spots to take naps in between play time.

These pictures are of them at one day old.

Babies napping

Baby Boy 1

Baby Girl

Baby Boy 2

We will be selling these babies and even though their new homes are going to give them their permanent names I wanted to name them for while they are here.

The American Dairy Goat Associate assigns a letter for every year for the babies that are born.  The letter is used when you tattoo the babies ears for identification purposes.  This year, 2012 the letter is C.  So I thought that all the kids born here should be named with C names.

I had already picked out Cole for the black one and Hailey came up with Carter for the red boy.  Drew thought that he should get to name the girl and took forever to figure out a name we could all agree on.  The little girls name is Chloe.

I'll be posting some more pictures in another update about the babies first time outside.

Check back to see!!



Hailey's Party - She turns 9

Last Saturday we had Hailey's birthday party with her classmates and friends.  She decided to choose to do a gymnastics class.

She didn't end up having many people there, not sure why. Many people didn't RSVP so I wasn't able to get a count on who was coming.

With that said there were 4 of them there and they had a BLAST.  She was kinda happy because she got to spend more time doing things in the class then waiting for it to be her turn if there had been too many kids.

She had a yummy cake and picked out the design and colors herself.

Hailey & her birthday cake

Hailey and the kids had a great time, here are some pictures.

Hailey on the beam

Kids in the foam pit

Drew & Jacob on the beam

Ashleigh, Hailey, Jacob & Drew

During the class they did a few games to warm up and that was with another party.  Then they got to use the trampoline and the swinging rope.  Next was the obstacle course and then finally was the foam pit that they could run and jump into or use the high bar to swing from.

They all had a great time.



Brady's Girlfriend's

Brady & the girls

Brady has some girlfriends staying with us for the first time.  They have been here for about 2 weeks now and are great girls.  Their names are Ruby & Pearl.

The breeders, Pat & Katie, who we purchased our goats from also had Ruby & Pearl and sold them to a lovely couple, The Lovan's.  Katie offered a free breeding to the Lovan's at the time they purchased Ruby & Pearl.  Unfortunately the buck she was going to breed them too didn't work out so they ask if i would do them a favor and let the girls breed with Brady.

I didn't have an issue with this at all since I knew both of the girls were healthy and they came originally from Pat & Katie.

Within 2 days of being here both girls came into heat and Brady took care of business.  Now the 3 of them like to eat and lay in the sun. 

The girls are super sweet.  I already can tell each of their personalities since being here.

Ruby relaxing in the sun.

Ruby is super sweet and loves to get pats and rubs.  She is the more dominant of the two girls and also isn't afraid to show Brady she won't be pushed around.

Pearl relaxing in the sun

Pearl is super sweet too but she is much more reserved.  You can tell it takes her awhile to warm up to strangers.  She, of course loves Hailey and will come right up to her for pats.  She's a little more hesitant with me.

We will be waiting till the end of March - beginning of April to see if they come back into heat.  Hopefully they won't which means that they are bred and Brady has done his job once again.

Brady & the girls hanging out. 



BUSY!!!

Just a quick note.  It's been crazy here for the last 2 weeks and have a bunch of updates to do.

I am going to post them in order.  I know you all want to read about Priscilla and the babies but we have had other things going on too and before the babies came.

I've been trying really hard to post things as they happen, even trying to get them on the day that they happen but it just hasn't gone that way lately.

I WILL try harder.



Peepers

Yes they are chicks, but we call them peepers while they are little because that is the sound they make.

1 week old peeper

As many of you know last year was our first year raising meat chickens and learning how to process them ourselves.  We got 5 chicks to start with from Tractor Supply to make sure we were able to do it.  We then ordered two sets of 25 meat chickens from McMurray Hatchery.  The ones we bought from TSC and the 1st batch from the hatchery were Jumbo Cornish Crosses, which grow quickly and are ready for butchering usually at 8 weeks.  The second set of 25 was Cornish Roasters, which actually was a mistake. We were suppose to get the Jumbo's again.  The roasters take a long time to grow. Ours from last year took over 4 months to grow to butcher size.  On behalf of McMurray hatchery, I did call and told them of the mistake and refunded my money less shipping right on the spot.

We actually still have some chicken left from those 50 birds in the freezer. Mostly legs and thighs and a few whole roasting chickens.  Last week was the first week that I had to buy store bought chicken breast.

Having raised our own chickens really makes me question what they do to store bought chicken.  The size difference is unbelievable.  I know that my chickens are fed very well everyday while growing and then once big enough to go outside they also get all the food they can find for themselves including their feed every morning.  My home grown chicken breast is half the size of store bought.  I've always known that store bought chicken had hormones in it but I never really understood it until raising my own. If I can avoid putting processed or hormone injected chicken in my families mouth then I will. So with that said we decided to get some more meat chicks this year.  We decided to only buy from Tractor Supply this year, as the birds we got from them last year grew very quickly and tasted great. 

Two weeks ago, I went into Tractor Supply and they had received some chicks. I went ahead and bought all of their Cornish Cross chicks, which were 13 of them.  This is all we will get since we will be having so much meat for the pig that is going to the butcher today.

1 week old peepers

Since we didn't get the chicks shipped directly from the hatchery, the chicks at TSC were already about a week old when we bought them.  They already had grown their little wing and tail feathers.

Hailey with a peeper

Of course Hailey loves having the little chicks.  Within a few days I caught her putting all of them in a different tote to bring outside.  She thought they needed some sunshine.  She is too sweet.  So now when Hailey has time she takes some of the chicks outside to play in the sun and grass.

The chicks are now 3 weeks and we have moved them to the big chicken brooder for some more room and they are loving it.  Spreading their wings and laying down stretching their legs out.

3 week old meat chicks relaxing

This chicks should have about another 5 to 6 weeks and they will be ready to be processed and go into the freezer.

Here are some pics that I took yesterday.  I think the chicks are funny looking right now. They still have some fluff on them but feathers also.

Meat chick, 3 weeks old, a little funny looking

Meat Chick, this one is pretty cute