Preparing for Uncertainty and Self Reliance

[SuburbanFarmer]

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Freezers are filling up, cappicolas and guanciales are hung, sausage is stuffed.

What a life.

[C-Mag]

Hollar Homestead. It’s a nice daily diary from a guy with a ton of kids.

I really like Just a Few Acres Farm, and Better Together Homestead too. Great content.

Cool, thanks.


Man you are killin it !

[SuburbanFarmer]

Thanks brother. Here’s my meat cave. Cappicola and guanciale around May, if all goes well.

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[Haumana]

Thanks brother. Here’s my meat cave. Cappicola and guanciale around May, if all goes well.

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That's pretty awesome! What is the average daily temperature in that meat cave?

[SuburbanFarmer]

Thanks brother. Here’s my meat cave. Cappicola and guanciale around May, if all goes well.

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That's pretty awesome! What is the average daily temperature in that meat cave?

Just under 50 degrees. Its vented to the outside, but stays stable enough. I'll eventually try to use it as a root cellar/ cheese barn.

[C-Mag]

Thanks brother. Here’s my meat cave. Cappicola and guanciale around May, if all goes well.

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What do you do with your Cappicola. I need to make that.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Thanks brother. Here’s my meat cave. Cappicola and guanciale around May, if all goes well.

IMG_1908.jpeg

What do you do with your Cappicola. I need to make that.

Just keeping it simple for now.

[C-Mag]

Beef feeding is going well.
I'm 78 days through 150 day feed out.
Started with 3.5 lbs per day of barley, they are now eating 21 lbs per day.
My gues is they are over 900 lbs now, and are putting on slightly over 2 lbs per day.

I'd like to hit 1100 lbs at time of slaughter, I should be close.
Should be around 640 lbs hanging weight and maybe 480 lbs package beef each.

I have about $4000 dollars into them, including feed for the remainder.

We butchered 2 beef, 4 hogs, elk and 1 deer this year in the butcher room.

Chickens are doing well. Averaging 11 eggs per day.

Compost project continuing. I've discovered that if I want really good compost from wood chips, I'm going to have to grind the material smaller.

Thinking real hard about getting into my own feed production.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Beef feeding is going well.
I'm 78 days through 150 day feed out.
Started with 3.5 lbs per day of barley, they are now eating 21 lbs per day.
My gues is they are over 900 lbs now, and are putting on slightly over 2 lbs per day.

I'd like to hit 1100 lbs at time of slaughter, I should be close.
Should be around 640 lbs hanging weight and maybe 480 lbs package beef each.

I have about $4000 dollars into them, including feed for the remainder.

We butchered 2 beef, 4 hogs, elk and 1 deer this year in the butcher room.

Chickens are doing well. Averaging 11 eggs per day.

Compost project continuing. I've discovered that if I want really good compost from wood chips, I'm going to have to grind the material smaller.

Thinking real hard about getting into my own feed production.

DAMN that’s a lot of meat dude. I was exhausted just helping the dude cut up my pigs.

Interesting episode about free feed sources for pigs/chickens:

[C-Mag]

DAMN that’s a lot of meat dude. I was exhausted just helping the dude cut up my pigs.

Interesting episode about free feed sources for pigs/chickens:

Interesting discussion.
Poor folk have always lived on Chickens and Pork. Still popular today, I know Marty has seen it in Central America. Lots of Chickens, the lucky/productive ones have pigs.

Cutting meat is just learning a skill. You get a little better every time if you are working at it. Me an a couple of my brothers can butcher and package a hog in around 2 hours, except for lard rendering.

My next thing is moving into feed production. I'm going to buy a pellet mill.


Not that expensive, around $1200 Bulk feed is cheap, $0.19 a pound when bought in one ton bags.
Typical 40 lbs bag of chicken feed is around $20. My cost to produce would be $7.60 on 40 lbs. It's going to be a big part of my retirement business.

I think I can use the pellet mill to capture the nutrients in the grass that grows on my property without a traditional haying system. I have a sickle bar mower, and a rake. I'm going to mow the grass, and bunch it with the rake. Then when its cured, I'm going to feed it into the pellet machine, turning the grass into pellets. I think I can put up a couple tons of grass in pellet form.