Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I have to really steel myself to kill animals. I don't like it at all...but I really like to eat meat.

Talk about bad days this blokes was the worste. Made excellent brawn thats for sure.

Will be writing up about this bloke over on Backyard Farming. Started the post then lost the lot so will have to go again.

speaking of BYF, good meat based thread over there that predates this one by years.

http://backyardfarming.com.au/phpbb3/vi ... ?f=8&t=243

Obviously buying a few rounds and shooting a few roos is far more bang for your buck. But at the end of the day my whole interest in farming GP on a backyard scale is to be more sustainable as locally as possible... Urban/Backyard style. Going out the backyard and slaughtering your own livestock in prep for dinner is far less effort and fuss than having to go hunting with the possibility of coming home empty handed. I can have peace of mind knowing that if I go and open the GP hutch I'm sure to walk back inside with dinner guaranteed .
My optimistic goal is to live 3 months of the year out of my own backyard as far as meat and vegetables is concerned.
Chickens, Quail, Fish, GPs, Eggs, and various varieties of Vegetables both in the AP System and numerous IBC Wicking Beds.

Anything outside of or beyond my backyard defeats the whole point of BYF.

I also think the best method and the one which I will adopt is a wack over the back of the head with heavy metal bar.

The responses on youtube to the vid in that BYF thread remind me of what happened at a party I went to a few weeks ago.
I had (half) jokingly talked to a friend of mine years ago about eating Guinea Pigs and there were some in hutches in the backyard of the house where the party was. Well, she remembered that and kept banging on about it, telling the owners I wanted to eat their pets etc, etc. I hadn't even mentioned it (although I very nearly did ).
Saw a look of anger from her that I can't recall ever seeing before.
It wouldn't stop me from raising them for meat if I chose to but the resistance in our culture is pretty big and she had never even owned one.
Seriously, it'd been years since I'd mentioned it but it only took minutes for the topic to be raised and it continued for a while. Annoyingly the owners of the pets assumed I had said that I wanted to barbecue their pets. Which is obviously not the case but caused some angst...
Ironically her previous job was at an intensive piggery.
Go figure?

I was working on carcass weight as that is what is generally accepted return , of course there are heaps of exceptions to how you work things out. But for meat liveweight - hot carcass weight is probably the most common. Beef is generally accepted at around 60% with European Breeds getting out to 70% ( but you want to like to chew) sheep at around 50% again depending on breeding. Most small animals seem to be around about that.
I know skilled butchers can make use of a lot of "waste" products , but is still a long way from all. Suasage from 100% trimmings is not nice eating . For easy reckoning I work on liveweight - hot carcass = waste
Preparing and making small goods is obvious and good use of some "waste" but can be very time consuming. Essential when doing such large animals , and essential for such large pigs , also enjoyable to some. I've only ever done 2 piggies with the help of my grandfather as a young teenager , but we did them as small porkers.Cut them up the same as the lamb, chops and roast. You must have a very big scalding tank for over run pig , or do you torch the hair off or just skin them

http://animalscience.psu.edu/extension/ ... 20Meat.pdf

How long does it take you to slaughter and butcher your beast on your own, Stuart. Sorry Stuart I'm not convinced that it is that more labour efficient... . Oh and how far is the compost heap from your house ???

Cheers

Depends on how good hunter you are.

I've tried burning the hair off and while it worked it didn't produce a "wife acceptable product". Some we skin them because it is oh so much easier but if you want hams, bacon and the like you have to go to the effort of scalding. I've got a big cast iron bath that we scald in.


I never, ever do large animals on my own because it is no fun. We use to do this as a community event. With the pigs we would get a line on some that were running wild locally and bait them over a series of months or weeks so that we could be confident of bagging them when we wanted to. Over a weekend we would organise a bunch of bodies and then hopefully shoot some pigs and bring them back to my place to butcher and then divy up.

With a bunch of friends it would be a day/weekend of work and everyone got a stack of meat for their freezers. The work is not in the butchering so much as the small goods making. For example I have a meat axe that will halve a pig in about 15seconds. The same axe will cut the shoulder off a 100kg pig in one swing. Absolutely beautiful tool, so efficient. I'd never use a bandsaw again.

Stuart is your axe a replica Viking job, a vintage Japanese one or something else entirely? Sounds like a very handy tool/weapon for your arsenal.

It is a tool not a weapon.

It is a Bavarian Butchers Axe. Over 250 years old.

I agree Matthew, my comment was in regard of ROI, but, that was only in relation to those particular posts regarding cost per GP against cost of rounds per roo/kg that I could achieve. Not everyone's situation and it did nothing for the thread sorry.

Regardless, I think your onto a winner here and everyday I get just a little closer to having a crack myself, I just can't stop this image in my head of the first time I have GP in one hand and knife in the other while Mrs Charlie is looking at me through her eye brows...

Something like this perhaps

If you don't do large animals on your own how do you compare the efficiency of harvesting small animals in a matter of minutes as against large in hours?? , days ??

Cheers

I think you need to take a pair of clippers to her face if that is the case

But on the ROI, i think farming has the better ROI simply because of the convenience factor and you have to have the gun to begin with (which i dont) and i dont need a license to buy a GP.

on killing again, i think an office guillotine might be a good way, a bit of food for it to eat on one side of the blade and the body on the other, give it a pat while its eating and pull down the handle as hard as possible with the other, not too sure a traditional one would work with thier short necks / heads the same size as thier shoulders.

Haha, looking through a frown may have been a better description Yav, figured most would understand.

Like I said, my reference was for my situation in regards to ROI, nothing more.

lol i got the reference, im just a smart arse.