Canning steak and roasts
I have a huge supply of steak and roasts in my freezer from last year and was thinking of canning them. Would you just cut them up in pieces like stew meat and can them that way?
Joni
Canyon City, Oregon
Lucky you! You can do a lot with your meat. You can cut the bones from your steaks and can them whole in wide mouth canning jars, cut large chunks from your roasts to later roast with veggies and can the chunks or you could dice the meat into stewing meat which I find very handy for a variety of recipes from pasties and chili to barbecue and pot pies. And scrap meat can either be ground for hamburger, then browned and canned or boiled to make soup stock from. Then can that! All are canned with broth and processed for 75 minutes for pints or 90 minutes for quarts at 10 pounds pressure. If you live at an altitude above 1,000 feet, consult your canning book for instructions on increasing your pressure to suit your altitude. — Jackie
Breeding goats
Do you ever pregnancy check your goats (or cow)? Last year my two dairy does were sent away for breeding. Neither had kids this spring (both were first time moms the year before). I didn’t test them and was very disappointed. This year I am breeding four does to my own two boer bucks for crossbred kids. Its so hard to tell if they are pregnant from just looking at them. I took the does to the bucks for breeding and now that everyone is bred they are all turned out together. I figure if one comes back into season the boys will let us know!
Mary
Lancaster, Kentucky
We do pregnancy check our cows, but with our goats, we just pen them next to a buck and if they come back in heat, we sure know about it soon. Sometimes when you send does to a buck, it takes them a little while to get over the stress of moving. It doesn’t bother some does at all where others kind of freak out emotionally and this affects the results of breeding. — Jackie
