Backyard Farming Forum
Bringing food production home

Hi everyone!

Just found this site thanks to a link from Tristrin on the BYAP forum site, so am very excited to discover it!

Have 12 Ducks (4 Drakes, 8 Ducks): Started with 6 Ducklings - 2 x Pekin, 3 x Cayuga, and 1 Khaki Campbell (Drakes ended up being 1 of the Pekin and 1 Cayuga). I incubated a heap of eggs and got a Pekin Duck, and 5 Pekin/Cayuga crosses which are gorgeous(might be biased). All black with white chests. Out of these we ended up with 2 Drakes (2 of the crosses). Were supposed to be food but hubby is still coming to terms with having to do the deed!

Have 5 Hens - 3 x Rhode Islanders and 2 x Barnevelders (were supposed to be pure but arent!)
Have 8 Roosters - One is the Hens mate, The others are supposed to be for meat...see above.
Knows he has to do it - dont blame him tho, cant see myself doing it either (except when one of the roosters goes into attack mode)

Also have 2 mini lop bunnies for kids but would love to try meat rabbits, 4 finches, a red rump grass parrot, a cat, 2 dogs, will have fish in a couple of months, and am now looking at putting some fencing up for a couple of goats and geese.

We are on 65 acres of citrus, but have no lemon tree... yet We use biodynamic principles when possible and our property is full of worms, and healthy green growth that needs to be slashed regularly to keep it under control.
we also have avocados and mangos but only enough to give away not market (hubby and I cant stand them, but we do barter them when we can!)
Have just planted some bare rooted fruit trees in our kitchen garden which is surrounded by the chook/duck sheds. These are 1 pear, 2 apple, 1 blood plum, 2 peach, 1 peachcott, 1 pleach, 1 triple grafted nectarine and a guava.

Out the front we have terraced beds full of herbs, lavender and roses. I am very interested in medicinal and unusual herbs so we have some pretty interesting ones. (to us anyway) Our next project is the 4th side of the house that hasnt been touched yet. all the old useless not very pretty trees will be replaced with big fruit trees and edibles like cherry and mulberry as well as stuff like elder, bay, oh and would love to see if I can get a chocolate pudding tree growing here!

Sorry to rattle on but love what we are doing - have no other life really!!!

Oh by the way we have had ONE home grown chicken dinner, no breast meat but HUGE long legs (Rhode Islander). Made yummy soup. I think after doing the first chop he has been struggling to continue.

Would love to try breeding Indian Game rooster over Light Sussex hen. Have read and been told that apparently they are the best tasting oven bird. Anyone ever tried one?

Cheers.

Hi there Neta, welcome on board your place sounds great

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contentment

Welcome Neta, your patch sounds like a really good spot to enjoy life.

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Cheers,

LV aka Tony
My Blog

Thanks for the welcome guys! We love it here and think we are pretty lucky.

Would love to show you some photos but its saying 'Sorry, the board attachment quota has been reached.' each time I try and enter one, was doing it yesterday too. anyone know what it means, and if its the forum board its talking about, anyone know when it might be up and able again?

Cheers

we'll tell Earthbound and he'll fix it

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contentment

Thanks for that Jaymie

Hi Netab.....

Nice set up you have by the sounds of it...

Ok, I think I've fixed it now, you should be able to upload pics at will.. It was set to a maximum of only 50MB of attachments, I've changed it to 500MB, hopefully that will last a little while.

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www.backyardfarming.com.au
Bringing Food Production Home

Hi Neta, welcome to the board. I cant blame your husband. Ive had to kill several birds now and I still dont really like it!

G'day & welcome Neta

I am trying the Indian Game/ Light Sussex cross this year as well. Just waiting for the L. Sussex to start laying! As for butchering, I have no qualms with it and this year will be teaching my daughter (13) the hands on bits. She has grown up watching me butcher poultry, rabbits and sheep and can be a bit bloodthirsty! My wife on the other hand hides in the house and doesn't see anything until they are completely processed and ready for the freezer. I use the killing cone method which I reckon is a bit more controlled than the axe and (IMO) gives a better result, with less cringe factor.

What is the killing cone method stretchman?

Hi netab
Welcome to this forum. I'm glad my link was useful in getting another like-minded member to this forum
Your place sounds great and I'm looking forward to visiting when you have your AP system up and running.
All the best....

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Cheers
Tristrin
our aquaponics http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum ... =18&t=6875
backyard viewtopic.php?f=24&t=107

Wow, thanks for the replies everyone!

To Earthbound, thanks for the help - will try to post some pics now.

To Stretchman, am looking forward to finding out how you go with your L. Sussex/Indian Game crosses - still waiting for some L. Sussex chicks so it will be a while for us. Have looked into a killing cone and hubby was interested too until we started reading all the gories about where to stick the knife in, etc. How do you dispatch them if its ok to ask? Might still try to get my hands on one although some people feel that it stresses the birds getting them into it which toughens the meat - have you found this?

To Tristrin, looking forward to catching up also and thanks again for the help finding this site. Its great finding somewhere that you can chat about your chooks, fruit trees and anything else!

BTW all, please feel free to call me Naz. Netab is mine and hubbys initials and it feels wierd to be called that in conversation! At least this way its a nickname that close friends use which will be nice!

Bugger, keep forgetting that photos end up in the opposite order to how you enter them - sorry! To explain a bit better, the middle photo is out the front and the view from our house, and the chook shed is around the back of the house. Tomorrow I might actually take another shot of the house - all the trees out front that look dead are actually now in full blossom as they are ornamental cherry trees!

More pics...

I like your ducks...

Great to see that your using natural methods wherever possible. When I talk to people about organic or biodynamic methods, most people discount it immediately saying that it's ok small scale but doesn't work on a large scale, or in a real commercial growing environment.. But there are plenty of people like yourselves out there doing it...

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www.backyardfarming.com.au
Bringing Food Production Home