Meat harvesting...mini-cows/quails

Discussion in 'Planting, growing, nurturing Plants' started by Cly, Apr 20, 2005.

  1. Cly

    Cly Junior Member

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    On average how much would you say comes from one healthy miniature cow? This is such a big question I know, though just a general idea from any butchers/meat connoisseurs out there would be great. I'm not a big meat eater though it's just something I'm wondering in reference to a sustainable community.

    Oh and I'm also just wondering, my Mum used to raise quails just for fun because well...they're just so cute. They are prolific breeders, better than chickens... (we never ate them) though I'm just wondering if anyone has sucessfully intergrated them into their permaculture system for food....is it gamey in taste? Is there enough meat on them at all?

    Cheerio then
     
  2. Chook Nut

    Chook Nut Junior Member

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    G'day Cly,

    Welcome to the forum...

    I am 2 weeks and 1 day away from getting my steer killed on site so i will let you know how much dress weight we end up getting off him. I have a Santa Crudis, which isn't a miniature, and am expecting to get anywhere from 250-270kgs off him! :D

    From experience.... the miniatures are a bit of a novelty breed and can cost a heck of a lot more than a regular breed... so do your research. There are new rules about livestock that have just come in so if your a total novice like me, feel free to ask me Q's, i have learnt soo much from my neighbours and am looking forward to reaping the rewards very soon with a big BBQ!

    If your not a big meat eater like you say... consider whether you want that much meat... it will last 12 mths, but not even my wife and i could eat that much in a year. Sheep/lambs or pigs may be an alternative?!?

    As for Quails.... they taste great!.... haven't raised any, but eaten plenty mainly when i was young.
     
  3. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

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    cly,

    yes it would all come down to how much weight the beast is before butchering as to how much meat you get, i too think that those miniature type breeds are a bit of a novelty all cattle people i ahve spoken to here reckon if you are going that way then run the regular breed, if you have a large acreage then you can run the larger of those breeds but that is dependent on your land size.

    as for quails i've eaten them in the past, would take a lot of quails to provide food for the table, but certainly a viable option as would raising pheasants for the table would be. have you done your research on chooks there are some very good table breeds out there and turkies also provide good food value.

    hey chook nut,

    we may be on the verge of starting our herd soon, can you tell me about these new livestock rules or any info in that are please? we'll be running with the brahman cross breeds eg.,. droughtmaster, chabrah along those lines. going to run around 1 to 4 acres so we can manage the natural pastures and be somewhat sustainable and keeping hay purchases down.

    tia

    len
     
  4. Cly

    Cly Junior Member

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    Thanks for the replies :)

    I know full well those mini-breeds are $$$, which is a great shame. Been looking into them for about three or so years but my curiousity got the better of me and I'm just keen to know the meat output. :) I appreciate the warning all the same though. A friend up at Guthalungra had a cow butchered and the deep freeze was packed to the brim with the most amazing mince I've ever seen, scotch fillet, lovely rump, offal and all sorts of cuts...he gave so much away to everyone and had a bbq :) Not worried about it producing too much just for me, I was wondering on a sustainable community scale and your weight estimate has given me a great idea so thank you!

    If you don't mind me asking ... what's the going rate for your local butcher to come out to you and slaughter your steer? The price would have changed since my mate had it done.

    I also read a couple of years back that GST is applicable to your home slaughtering in NZ, does this apply to Australia as well and if so what's the damage?

    Cheers

    P.S. Gardenlen, did you write a wonderful essay on permaculture not long ago? I read one only a couple of days ago by someone called 'gardenlen'. If it is you, damn fine job I must say.
     
  5. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

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    g'day cly,

    just to recap if you compare how much food you would get from a full size chook compared to a bantam chook, it's all sort of relavent. also ifyou only have small acreage then you need smaller animals. oh i think up our way the home butcher charges around a dollar a kilo for a kill not sure if that is + or inclusive of the governments stealing tax. hoping we can get a start on heading in that direction this winter. chook nut will have the price for sure.

    and yes i did write the essay you refer to and thank you for you complimentry comments. it is open ended i try to add something at least each week. might tacle my thoughts on our mismanaged valuable water resources next.

    len
     
  6. Cly

    Cly Junior Member

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    Thanks for your input Len and I'll keep an eye on your essay for sure. Mismanaged water in Australia, boy oh boy you could have a field day with that one.
     
  7. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

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    yes cly,

    it looked like becoming a novel, but i think i got my point across.

    len
     
  8. Chook Nut

    Chook Nut Junior Member

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    It will cost me $1.00 per kilo.... that's including GST.

    Len... as for the new rules/laws re: livestock.... it goes by the name of NLIS, which stands for National Livestock Identification Scheme.... just do a search on Google and u will find the info easy enough.....

    It's basically to do with a register of all animals from birth to slaughter and is compulsory if you intend to sell any livestock. It's not really necessary for me as my beast will stay on my property once it's killed. Although the next beast i buy will have to come with the ear tag and papers from the person i buy it off.

    My region is looking into Feedlots at the moment as farms/farmlets become less profitable.... there are already applications in Council at the moment! As is the case in America and Canada, these have produced cases of Mad Cow etc and maybe its a bit of forward thinking in case anything like that ends up happening in Oz and they need to traceback lineage?!?...

    cheers... Dave
     
  9. SueinWA

    SueinWA Junior Member

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    Here in North America, we can track a cow from birth to death, but we can't find terrorists at all. It has been suggested that we offer all terrorists a free cow so we can find them. :lol:

    Sue.
     
  10. Chook Nut

    Chook Nut Junior Member

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    Hi all....

    Just thought i would let u know what i ended up with... 278kgs :D

    He tasted very nice as well...

    Dave
     
  11. SueinWA

    SueinWA Junior Member

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    Cly, I was talking to a sort-of-local guy who raises Jerseys for meat. They are a smaller breed of cow, but not pricey like miniatures. He gets them from people who breed their milk cows and want to get rid of the males. He said they're not Herefords or Angus, but they're good. He also said they don't eat as much.

    Just a thought.....

    Sue
     
  12. Tamandco

    Tamandco Junior Member

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    Hi there,

    I'm very interested in this particular topic.

    I've only got 3.5 acres, but it's all good quality grazing land (apart from the 1/2 acre or so set aside for our garden/chooks.

    I've got a purebred Jersey House Cow who gives us a Jersey/Angus X calf each year plus raises a dairy X beef calf as a foster. We haven't as yet killed one for ourselves as the last 2 have been sold off to pay debts.

    They are more an investment for us rather than a freezer filler as there's no way we'd eat that much meat in a year anyway. Plus there's a lot of cuts of meat that I won't touch and I certainly don't eat any offal. We usually keep the calves on our property for almost a year.

    The homebred calf doesn't really cost us anything (as we use a neighbours Angus bull) and the dairy X costs us anywhere between $100 & $140 at 4 days old. We were really fortunate this season as the dairy X we got is a big calf out of a Friesian by a Belted Galloway. He's only 6 months old and is nearly as tall as Our Jersey. We decide to keep him and sell off the Jersey's own calf as this has potentially more resale value if we sell him after Spring. We anticipate to get between $500 $650 for him.

    Our house cow gives us milk. Although I've been a bit slack of late (having just had another baby), we would normally keep at least one calf on her for 11 months or so. Once a week we would lock up her calf in the evening, then milk her out in the morning. We'd then put her calf on to strip her out, and leave them together until the next milking. This way, we get to raise calves without the hassle of hand rearing, with the goodness of mothers milk, plus we get A2 milk for our household. The cow manure is like gold for our compost. Cows break down their food so much more efficiently than horses, although we do use all of our pony manure too as nothing goes to waste.

    We have our property divide up so the cow calves in a small paddock near the house. The rest of the property is closed off from October and cut for hay after new year. This gives us approximately 70 small squares which feeds our 3 cows (Jersey and 2 calves) for the whole year plus our pony. We also use the hay for the chooks nesting boxes, mulching and composting. We usually use any crook bales (a bit damp from near the creek) to make our compost bins with. They would usually cost $2 a bale to have done but we have a friend who does is a bit cheaper.

    As far as meat for our freezer goes, we breed Australorps and keep Silkies for the kids. The Australorps are a large dual purpose bird with a lovely docile nature. We've never had any trouble with our Australorp roosters attacking which can't be said for other breeds we have kept in the past. We are hoping to buy a large cheap chest freezer soon and will be killing our cockerals as soon as we can sex them. That way we'll get to enjoy them when they're nice and tender.

    I guess we would kill our own steers if it was financially viable but at this stage we live from week to week so to forfeit $500 for the sale plus have to spend $XXX on slaughter is a big hole in our budget.

    Hope this info helps you with your decision.
     
  13. SueinWA

    SueinWA Junior Member

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    Just curious -- have you improved your pasture at all by overseeding with something to improve the nutrition, or is it just plain grass?

    Sue
     
  14. Tamandco

    Tamandco Junior Member

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    Sue,

    We haven't needed to overseed so far. Our pasture is really nice considering it is just really grass. It is basically a mix of clover/rye/fog grass/paspalum/plantain/flatweed. The different varieties peak at different times and then go dormant. Providing we don't leave it too late to cut, we don't end up with too much paspalum or flatweed in the hay.

    We follow Pat Coleby's instructions and have our soil tested and top dressed with any minerals which show up as deficient. We don't believe in using fertilizers such as superphosphate which alters the ph of the soil. If the minerals are balanced, the desirable pasture plants will flourish. If the soil is poor, the weeds will dominate.

    We are also very careful not to overgraze. Particularly our main paddock which we cut for hay. There's probably 6 - 8 weeks a year that our cow is away with the bull, the pony is usually confined, being on a permanent diet, and if the main paddock looks stressed at any time, we'll take the animals out and put them in the calving/hospital paddock and hand feed them with our own hay. This paddock does get a bit low at times, especially by the end of summer, but we've found if we pick up all the poo and let the cows out into the lane ways and onto the grass verge to graze, it never ends up with bare patches.

    If we had horses instead, it would, but cows prefer to eat the longer grass and aren't as selective as the horses, so you don't end up with sour patches full of weeds.

    We usually have our paddocks top dressed with dolomite which is made up of calcium and magnesium, and any other trace minerals the soil analysis identifies as deficient. The contractors we have doing the top dressing formulates the mix according to our soil analysis. You need to make sure that the dolomite comes from a reputable source as it varies in quality.

    When our hay is cut, the mower is set on a higher level so it leaves quite a generous stubble which in the case of our paddocks, is still quite thick and leafy. Any dock or capeweed is removed by hand as is any noxious weeds such as blackberry or ragwort. We don't have a problem with Paterson's Curse in our region. Many of you would argue re the hand removal of weeds being a waste of time and energy but I won't have those weeds on my property. They can establish very quickly and take years to eradicate.

    We also spread composted manure (composted to kill off any parasites) plus any unused hay, over the ground in winter to get the humus content up and we very rarely buy in hay, hence don't introduce undesirable weed seeds.

    We'd only buy hay if we had horses as mine usually won't eat plain grass hay but as we haven't any at the moment, due to my leave of absence raising a family, we don't need to worry about that. When I get back into my riding, my husband has insisted that the horses be stabled at least during the night and when the weather is particularly wet to reduce stress on the paddocks, hence reducing the risk of weed dominance due to over grazing or selective grazing and soil erosion due to heavy traffic.

    Hope this info helps.
    T
     
  15. SueinWA

    SueinWA Junior Member

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    It sounds like you've really put some thought into it. That's one thing I don't see much here. The so-called farmers (I don't know if they really are) just seem to let the weeds grow, bale it, wrap it in plastic (which probably costs more than the hay is worth), sell it and then return nothing to the soil. If they do anything at all, they plow it in late fall and let the rain wash the soil away.

    Dumb!

    Sue
     
  16. bjgnome

    bjgnome Junior Member

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    been wondering about quail myself

    I've been wondering about raising quail myself, for profit though. For sustenance, I'd pick a bigger bird. I imagine some high end restaurants would pay a good price for organic quail, and if you have any Japanese restaurants in the area, you have a good market for quail eggs.

    - Jonathan
     

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