Meat Storage
Some hard working boys. The scalding pot is in the background as is my husband who has just finished plucking a chicken.
In May I wrote an article called, “Food Storage Homesteading-Style.“ In this article, I describe my family’s plan for building up our food stores while on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet. Since we cannot have starch or sugar, our diet eliminates storing the usual suspects of rice, canned goods, etc. Instead, we are trying to build up our meat and vegetable supply.
Last week I shared how we harvested our meat chickens with the aid of a homemade chicken plucker. We worked assembly line style to accomplish our task. Everyone in my family worked even the little guys. In addition, a young lady, who has been staying with us this summer, shared her chicken harvesting experience while she helped us out.
I am sure that you have heard the saying, “there’s more than one way to skin a cat.” The saying is true. Our friend had a slightly different approach than we did. Either way achieves the same desired result; therefore, I thought it was a great way for my children to be exposed to the different methods. For example, I remove the entrails from the bottom of the chicken keeping the fryer whole. She splits the breast in order to remove the entrails.
You would think that most people would not enjoy harvesting chickens. To me, it is not a fun day; however, you certainly feel like you have accomplished your goal of storing meat. But, another teenage friend who lives down the road found out that we harvested our chickens and begged to help us next time. Believe me, he will get a phone call.
With eight people working (two under the age of 5), we averaged 10 minutes a bird from catch to putting the fryer in ice water. I thought that was a pretty good time. My husband and packaged them with a food saver device later.
The girls are also hard at work. They had to gut and clean the chickens. Then they put them in a cooler filled with ice water. We saved the gizzards and feet for a neighbor.
After we finished with our meat chickens, we turned our attention to pork. Jake was able to sell his pig to recoup the cost of raising the animal. Kyla made her money back with the sale of her show goat at the Premium Sale; therefore, we harvested her pig. We could have quartered it ourselves, but my husband wanted nicely cut pork chops and cuts. We delivered the pig to our local processing plant.
As much as we like cured hams, bacon, and pan sausage, the processing plant could not do it without sugar or starch. My family is planning on curing our own hams and bacon with honey soon. So, we requested two fresh hams and the entire pork belly. We also asked for ground pork to be bagged in 5 pound increments instead of the standard 1 pound packages. We are going to mix up our own seasoning for pan sausage, and I did not want to open all those small packages to do so.
In addition, we have spare ribs, country-style ribs, pork cutlets, 3/4″ thick pork chops, etc. All in all we now have 180 pounds of pork in the freezer.
My husband is preparing for a sausage-making day. We have venison and wild hog meat de-boned and ready to be made into pan and link sausage. Our freezer is getting very full.
Jake is interested in breeding rabbits for the county fair. A friend gave him 10 rabbits. 6 are bucks and 4 are does. Obviously we don’t need 6 bucks. There are two different sets of bloodlines in this group. So, he rightly decided to keep the best two bucks from each of the bloodlines. Therefore, we have some market rabbits to harvest.
One thing that I have learned while on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet is that having a variety of meat is important. We have a nice variety of meat stored in the freezer and more on the way. It is food storage homesteading-style.
Susan,
We used a Food Saver device with customizable bags. It is a roll that you get to make any size. It worked well; although, on a few bags we had to seal it twice in order to ensure proper sealing.
Lara