I ordered 50 straight run White Plymouth Rocks from our local hatchery, Eagle Nest Poultry, in Oceola, Ohio. We'll pick them up on Thursday, April 13th. I wanted to get them sooner but was afraid it would be too cold to brood them in one of the outbuildings. In the past we've raised hybrid broilers but this year decided to do one more thing to distance ourselves from industrial ag. We'll keep the pullets for layers and butcher the cockerels. These White Rocks will take longer to grow and won't have as much white meat but they should all be able to stand on their own two feet by the time they are ready for butchering.
Tomorrow I will put up a section of electrified sheep netting to confine the ewes to a smaller paddock and block access to the creek in preparation for lambing. Today I got together my lambing kit - 7% iodine for navel dipping, castrator, OB gloves and lube for assisting with births. The stomach tube and syringes are ready as well. As always, we pray we won't need them.
I've never castrated our ram lambs before. Icelandics are very seasonal breeders so we've always just butchered the intact ram lambs in September before the rut begins. The meat from these rams is fantastic but they typically only weigh about 75 lbs (34 kg) at 5 months old. They are cut as "roasting lambs" - 2 leg roasts, back roast, rib rack roast, 2 shoulder roasts, and ground meat. We want to keep them a little longer this year so they will grow a little larger and give us more cutting options. We have such a low stocking rate on our pasture that if I time mowing just right, there should be available grazing until Christmas, barring unusually early heavy snows.
weather today: 31°F/44°F overcast
tags: chicken, pullet, cockerel, White Rock, sheep netting, lamb
No comments:
Post a Comment