I know it's been a while since I've updated. A good six months, in fact. It just goes to show you how fast life moves around here. The boy and I both have self-employed day jobs, which means we're continually on the go. But that's not what I'm here to talk about.Today, I am extremely disillusioned about the whole local food movement. Fuck it, I say, fuck it right in the ear.
Cue gasps of horror. And y'know what, that's okay.
Those of you who are gasping are, I'm sure, the same people who feel good spending their money at Whole Foods, Vitamin Cottage, and the like. You're the people who buy the Safeway O Organics (when you shop there) and support fair trade coffee. You may have a little garden--container or no--and understand the benefits of raw milk versus pasteurized.
In short, you are exactly the sort of people that Portlandia mocks. But you're okay with that.
I want to know, though, how many of you have plucked a chicken (or turkey, or duck, or goose) by hand. How many of you have cut that bird's throat and watched its blood drip into the bucket beneath its neck stump? I want to know how many of you have spent the money to feed your goats alfalfa hay at $7-12/bale and milk them twice a day, calling out the vet for a multi-$hundred bill when one of them gets mastitis. I want to know how many of you have spent sleepless clear nights when your livestock guardian dog has spent the entire goddamn night howling--whether at coyotes or traffic--only to STFU at 9 am the next morning. I want to know how many of you have hauled 5-gallon buckets of water (all hail the 5 gallon bucket!) to your stock through multiple feet of snow. How many of you, I wonder, have had to run the heat lamp out to the half-assed pen in the middle of winter to keep your stock from freezing? Who else has funky buckets of hides in their living room, planters in front of their wood fireplace, electric fencing buried underneath snow and frozen into the ground, poultry shit building up on their decks, rabbit shit mounding up underneath (and in!) hutches, baby whatevers freezing to death in the middle of the night so you have to feed them to the dog instead of anticipating any sort of sustainable profit, hay stuck in your bra and fingers freezing off even though it's only late October oh my god and I have to keep butchering every weekend for the next two months, when your entire.fucking.kitchen smells like turkey guts, when you pay $50 for a large roll of freezer paper and $3.99-$4.99 for a goddamn roll of freezer tape that doesn't last nearly as long? How many of you have ordered feed by the pallet or driven nearly an hour round trip to the local feed store (if you manage not to get sucked into conversation!)? How m should bany of you have butchered so many animals that the skin of your hands grows soft with the absorbed fat?
I'll tell you, my skin is like buttah.
I've spent the last hour and a half bent over out kitchen sink with a pair of flat-nosed pliers, yanking pinfeathers out of one of our ducks. We butchered 5 turkeys and 3 ducks today, bringing our total to 8 goats, 20 turkeys, and 3 ducks. We still have 5 rabbits to go.
People ask us if we sell our birds. The past three years, I've said yes. From here on out, I have a feeling that the answer will be: a) no, unless you are willing to pay an exorbitant price, or b) unless you're willing to assist/butcher them yourselves.
I feed my turkeys organic feed, because I like eating food that has no GMOs or unnecessary antibiotics designed to help a bird survive in counter-intuitive circumstances. Even being free-range and having their diet supplemented with kitchen scraps, each bird consumed roughly $50 worth of feed. Things being as they are, the turkeys averaged out as follows: 8 lb/hen, 12 lb/tom. I sold them at $8/lb. None of this takes into account the cost of the poults, getting up at 4 am to drive into Steamboat to fetch them; the cost of the heat lamps and trough for 2 weeks; the cost of the 10' x 10' coop they stayed in until big enough to reasonably fend off predators like hawks, owls, and foxes; the cost of feeding Ben, our giant livestock guardian dog (a year-round expense, don't forget!); supplies such as the feeders, waterers, syringes, electrolyte solution, specialized bird feeders (before I realized that 3 gallon buckets would do the trick just dandy); the tin needed to make the killing cone; time and effort involved in butchering, and so forth.
$8/lb was a steal of a deal, and barely covered our costs. Even so, most of the hens butchered out at 8/lb, as mentioned. A whopping $14/bird does not cover the amount of effort needed to raise these babies and take care of them; putting in the $10/poult fee, that leave $4/bird for watering, electricity, general labor, and butchering time and supplies.
In short, fuck that shit. No one is gladly going to pay for the amount of time put into these birds (or any other animals on our wee farm); one woman who bought a T-day turkey this year described it as "decadent, but more than we should probably pay." Another called me up on Thanksgiving Day, concerned about the pinfeathers present in the skin; this, after I had sent out an email stating that all the birds would be home-butchered. I get her concern, I really do, but I have a hard time when someone tells me, "I don't think they're supposed to be like that." Y'know what? Come over and butcher for a day. It's not the most pleasant of experiences, I won't lie, but you learn a fuckton of information, stuff that you might never learn otherwise.
This has been a really hard year, and I think I'm done with raising turkeys for anyone other than those folks who are willing to do/pitch in on the butchering. I know what my time--and these birds--are worth, and if no one else agrees with that, then fuck 'em. I'm happy to put everything in the deep freezer myself (and let's not talk about how much those cost to purchase, and run, nor the price for the saran wrap, butcher paper, and freezer tape needed to wrap those suckers).
Seriously. I'm done with this. I'm taking the year off turkeys next year, and anyone who wants a turkey from here on out will need some hands-on practice to understand the rates we charge. If they don't want to pay that, fine, I'm done.
So. Fucking. Done.
Cue gasps of horror. And y'know what, that's okay.
Those of you who are gasping are, I'm sure, the same people who feel good spending their money at Whole Foods, Vitamin Cottage, and the like. You're the people who buy the Safeway O Organics (when you shop there) and support fair trade coffee. You may have a little garden--container or no--and understand the benefits of raw milk versus pasteurized.
In short, you are exactly the sort of people that Portlandia mocks. But you're okay with that.
I want to know, though, how many of you have plucked a chicken (or turkey, or duck, or goose) by hand. How many of you have cut that bird's throat and watched its blood drip into the bucket beneath its neck stump? I want to know how many of you have spent the money to feed your goats alfalfa hay at $7-12/bale and milk them twice a day, calling out the vet for a multi-$hundred bill when one of them gets mastitis. I want to know how many of you have spent sleepless clear nights when your livestock guardian dog has spent the entire goddamn night howling--whether at coyotes or traffic--only to STFU at 9 am the next morning. I want to know how many of you have hauled 5-gallon buckets of water (all hail the 5 gallon bucket!) to your stock through multiple feet of snow. How many of you, I wonder, have had to run the heat lamp out to the half-assed pen in the middle of winter to keep your stock from freezing? Who else has funky buckets of hides in their living room, planters in front of their wood fireplace, electric fencing buried underneath snow and frozen into the ground, poultry shit building up on their decks, rabbit shit mounding up underneath (and in!) hutches, baby whatevers freezing to death in the middle of the night so you have to feed them to the dog instead of anticipating any sort of sustainable profit, hay stuck in your bra and fingers freezing off even though it's only late October oh my god and I have to keep butchering every weekend for the next two months, when your entire.fucking.kitchen smells like turkey guts, when you pay $50 for a large roll of freezer paper and $3.99-$4.99 for a goddamn roll of freezer tape that doesn't last nearly as long? How many of you have ordered feed by the pallet or driven nearly an hour round trip to the local feed store (if you manage not to get sucked into conversation!)? How m should bany of you have butchered so many animals that the skin of your hands grows soft with the absorbed fat?
I'll tell you, my skin is like buttah.
I've spent the last hour and a half bent over out kitchen sink with a pair of flat-nosed pliers, yanking pinfeathers out of one of our ducks. We butchered 5 turkeys and 3 ducks today, bringing our total to 8 goats, 20 turkeys, and 3 ducks. We still have 5 rabbits to go.
People ask us if we sell our birds. The past three years, I've said yes. From here on out, I have a feeling that the answer will be: a) no, unless you are willing to pay an exorbitant price, or b) unless you're willing to assist/butcher them yourselves.
I feed my turkeys organic feed, because I like eating food that has no GMOs or unnecessary antibiotics designed to help a bird survive in counter-intuitive circumstances. Even being free-range and having their diet supplemented with kitchen scraps, each bird consumed roughly $50 worth of feed. Things being as they are, the turkeys averaged out as follows: 8 lb/hen, 12 lb/tom. I sold them at $8/lb. None of this takes into account the cost of the poults, getting up at 4 am to drive into Steamboat to fetch them; the cost of the heat lamps and trough for 2 weeks; the cost of the 10' x 10' coop they stayed in until big enough to reasonably fend off predators like hawks, owls, and foxes; the cost of feeding Ben, our giant livestock guardian dog (a year-round expense, don't forget!); supplies such as the feeders, waterers, syringes, electrolyte solution, specialized bird feeders (before I realized that 3 gallon buckets would do the trick just dandy); the tin needed to make the killing cone; time and effort involved in butchering, and so forth.
$8/lb was a steal of a deal, and barely covered our costs. Even so, most of the hens butchered out at 8/lb, as mentioned. A whopping $14/bird does not cover the amount of effort needed to raise these babies and take care of them; putting in the $10/poult fee, that leave $4/bird for watering, electricity, general labor, and butchering time and supplies.
In short, fuck that shit. No one is gladly going to pay for the amount of time put into these birds (or any other animals on our wee farm); one woman who bought a T-day turkey this year described it as "decadent, but more than we should probably pay." Another called me up on Thanksgiving Day, concerned about the pinfeathers present in the skin; this, after I had sent out an email stating that all the birds would be home-butchered. I get her concern, I really do, but I have a hard time when someone tells me, "I don't think they're supposed to be like that." Y'know what? Come over and butcher for a day. It's not the most pleasant of experiences, I won't lie, but you learn a fuckton of information, stuff that you might never learn otherwise.
This has been a really hard year, and I think I'm done with raising turkeys for anyone other than those folks who are willing to do/pitch in on the butchering. I know what my time--and these birds--are worth, and if no one else agrees with that, then fuck 'em. I'm happy to put everything in the deep freezer myself (and let's not talk about how much those cost to purchase, and run, nor the price for the saran wrap, butcher paper, and freezer tape needed to wrap those suckers).
Seriously. I'm done with this. I'm taking the year off turkeys next year, and anyone who wants a turkey from here on out will need some hands-on practice to understand the rates we charge. If they don't want to pay that, fine, I'm done.
So. Fucking. Done.
RSS Feed