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Gertie

Joined: 08 Jan 2005
Posts: 1638
Location: Yorkshire

Posted: Wed May 11, 05 3:40 pm Post subject:

Bugs, I agree with what you are saying.

This is something that another farming friend and I have discussed many times. When people buy food (but especially meat) and they end up chucking it out - what a terrible waste.

At the moment any spare eggs we have are sold to friends/family/work colleages. As soon as anyone knows I've made batches of Jams/Jellies/Pickles, etc., they are asking for jars.

Think there will be a long wait to get any fruit and veg from out allotment

Daydreaming

Joined: 12 Apr 2005
Posts: 291

Posted: Wed May 11, 05 3:42 pm Post subject:

I understand your feelings Gertie.
When I was a child we brought up 3 orphan lambs. My parents lies to us to spare us the distress, but I was very suspicious of the lamb that 'arrived' in the freezer. I haven't eaten lamb since.
However, I do eat any other meat and usually from Tesco or Asda. I feel like such a hypocrite and I hate it. I hate the thought of hanging live chickens on a meat hook along a conveyor belt.
I would feel much happier knowing I was feeding my family on humanely grown and killed livestock.

No answers on the selling question?

judith

Joined: 16 Dec 2004
Posts: 22789
Location: Montgomeryshire

Posted: Wed May 11, 05 6:20 pm Post subject:

Daydreaming - I know of at least one freerange poultry farm around here that sells direct to the public, but I have no idea what sort of quantities they produce. I would expect that it is necessary to have dedicated premises for slaughter / packing if the work is done on the farm. This means that you would have to be producing a good number of chickens for it to be financially viable.

So the answer is probably yes - you could sell chicken to a restaurant, but you would either have to send them to a poultry abbatoir or would have to invest in suitable premises to do the work yourself. In which case, you would probably need to be supplying several restaurants with regular quantities in order to make that sort of investment.
(Don't take this as gospel, I haven't checked the facts, but Defra does tend towards more regulation rather than less).

As for the breed, orpingtons are known as dual purpose birds, but they are not that large. Unless the restaurant specifically wanted that particular breed and was willing to pay a lot for them, it might be difficult to find a market (they would take up to 24 weeks to grow to full size, i.e. 3-4 times as long as the broiler hybrids, and the dressed weight would be about half, so you would have to charge anything up to 8 times as much to make the same amount of profit).

That is a pretty doom-laden scenario and I have probably exaggerated the figures. You also might be good at marketing yourself and your products, which I certainly would not be. But I think that the days of turning up at the back door of a restaurant with a few chooks for sale have probably gone. The fact that you could probably still turn up at that door with a few brace of pheasant or rabbits rather makes a mockery of the rules, but there you go.

Now that I have waffled on a bit, perhaps someone who really knows what they are talking about can supply chapter and verse

Daydreaming

Joined: 12 Apr 2005
Posts: 291

Posted: Wed May 11, 05 7:04 pm Post subject:
Thanks Judith - I think your post is what I have suspected, unfortunately.

High Green Farm

Joined: 30 Nov 2004
Posts: 349
Location: Mid-Suffolk

Posted: Wed May 11, 05 7:38 pm Post subject:
Judith Do you buy them in as day old chicks or can you get fertilised eggs....I quite fancy adding some meat birds to the menagerie Thanks James

judith

Joined: 16 Dec 2004
Posts: 22789
Location: Montgomeryshire

Posted: Thu May 12, 05 10:09 am Post subject:
I buy them in as day-olds - I've never seen fertilised eggs for sale.

alison
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 29 Oct 2004
Posts: 12918
Location: North Devon

Posted: Sat May 14, 05 9:36 pm Post subject:
Debbie and I split a batch of broilers a couple of months ago, and we are just working out now when to get them done. We are sending them together somewhere, I think.

Lloyd

Joined: 24 Jan 2005
Posts: 2699

Posted: Sat May 14, 05 11:26 pm Post subject:

I must say that despite my active shooting present and past, the more I read in this thread, as well as the current article by Nickhowe on pig rearing, the more I think I would have difficulty killing things I had raised at home. This is a troubling anomaly, as I have never had a problem shooting wild things, (or people I didn't know!), but to bring something up, care for it, feed it, vaccinate it when required, and then twist its neck and prep it for the table.....I think I would find it traumatic. Very puzzling that.

hardworkinghippy

Joined: 01 Jan 2005
Posts: 1110
Location: Bourrou South West France

Posted: Sun May 15, 05 5:25 am Post subject:

Madman,

I have a similar problem. I don't hunt, but my man does and I feel that can almost totally justify eating the animal that was completely free before it died.

Keeping stock is difficult. Sitting up all night with a lamb or goat, then killing it eight months later seems weird.

I do have moments when I think I should be vegetarian. But I love animals and why would I want to keep them if I didn't eat them? What would I do with all the the cocks?

What's right & what's wrong? Very strange all this isn't it?

HWH

Ps. Well done to everybody who eats their home grown food!

wellington womble

Joined: 08 Nov 2004
Posts: 15051
Location: East Midlands

Posted: Sun May 15, 05 9:55 am Post subject:

Judith wrote:

As for cost, it works out at �6 - 7 per bird..... the last lot were between 6 and 8 lbs each.

The (approx 5lb) organic chicken coming to room temp ready for my Sunday lunch set us back �14, plus delivery. That's why I asked about cost. I know that obviously someones time has been taken into account on mine, and it oven ready, but thats quite a big price difference.

I have no problem with paying that for a chicken - it will feed us for three meals and the dogs for at least two (if I had a less greedy OH and less lucky dogs it would probably easily go further!) but if we had the opportunity I'd like to give it a go. I've seen an organic chicken farm, and while I would say that they were well treated, they weren't as well treated as I would like.

I think the whether its right to eat meat issue is a bit academic for us a species, and a very personal decision for us as individuals. I'm happy with the morality, but only if the animals are well treated and dispatched. For this reason I now never buy meat from a supermarket (and the more selfish and less moral reason that it tastes pretty rubbish!) It means that we spend a comparatively large amount of money on meat (you can buy a battery chicken in a supermarket for, what, a fiver?) and it goes against my downsizer ideals to be tied to a 9 - 5 job to pay for it. It's nice to know there are other options. We do eat less meat now, and I make more of it, but I live with a man who loves his meat, and now it tastes better, he wants to eat more of it!

I'm happy to pay more for better meat, but I don't intend to work forever, so I need to either get rich (HA!) or work around the money issue a bit!

cede

Joined: 25 Mar 2005
Posts: 62
Location: surrey

Posted: Tue May 17, 05 9:32 am Post subject:
judith do you do all 6 in one day and then freeze or do you stagger the process?

Daydreaming

Joined: 12 Apr 2005
Posts: 291

Posted: Tue May 17, 05 9:40 am Post subject:

Madman wrote:

That's my problem too but I tell myself I have to come to terms with it or carry on being a hypocrite... or become a vegetarian!!

judith

Joined: 16 Dec 2004
Posts: 22789
Location: Montgomeryshire

Posted: Tue May 17, 05 9:52 am Post subject:

cede wrote:

judith do you do all 6 in one day and then freeze or do you stagger the process?

The cockerels seem to grow faster than the hens, so we do two batches with a week or so between them. That is enough for me in one go. How people manage to do 50 or so in a day is beyond me.

judith

Joined: 16 Dec 2004
Posts: 22789
Location: Montgomeryshire

Posted: Tue May 17, 05 10:03 am Post subject:

Madman wrote:

... to bring something up, care for it, feed it, vaccinate it when required, and then twist its neck and prep it for the table.....I think I would find it traumatic. Very puzzling that.

I was "fortunate" the first time around because a feral cat got into the pen and made a mess of two birds. They were too far gone to rescue, and had to be put down straight away. I think that helped me get over the hurdle of killing something that I had reared.

That said, I definitely have a mental separation between the birds for eating and my layers. One of my girls has been in hospital since the weekend after an accident involving a fence panel and the cockerel (don't ask!). I was starting to think that we would have to dispatch her, and was really dreading it. Much to my relief she is looking a lot perkier today and has started to complain about being locked up on her own, which is a good sign

Daydreaming

Joined: 12 Apr 2005
Posts: 291

Posted: Tue May 17, 05 11:14 am Post subject:
Now that's what I would be planning. A different relationship between ones you eat and layers. I hope it's possible or my plans will go pear shaped!

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