Canning meat

I’m getting brave enough to want to learn to start canning. When you talk of browning meat before canning, are you fully cooking the meat? And if you pour boiling water over it (such as hamburger)won’t it get all soggy and come apart?

Mary Janson
Aurora, Colorado

Good for you, Mary! You’ll really love canning your own food, I promise. Once you find out how simple it really is, you will be off and running. No, I don’t fully cook the meat, I just brown it enough that the meat heats thoroughly and shrinks down so more fits into a jar. I don’t use water in my browned ground meat, but I make a broth, using the pan drippings. By packing the meat gently into the jar, you use little liquid and no, it doesn’t get mushy or come apart. — Jackie

Watering pigs

How do you water your pigs? I have rubber tubs for ours but they are always climbing in them, getting them full of mud and knocking them over. Not to mention having to clean the buckets out three times a day is creating a huge mud hole in the already muddy pen. We bought a “dog lick” and that worked great all summer but now that winter is here it freezes. Winter watering is a chore and I need to figure out a way to keep clean water in front of the pigs without making such a mess!

Mia Sodaro
Frazier Park, California

You don’t have to keep water in front of the pigs all the time. If you provide all the fresh water they will drink, plus a little left over to use before it freezes, twice a day, they will do great. We do this, as well as mixing water or milk with their dry grain. Our pigs are big, happy, and healthy; yours will be too. — Jackie

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Yesterday, we went to pick up our beef from the processing plant. Our oldest son, Bill, and his wife are getting a hindquarter, we are keeping a hindquarter and we pre-sold the front two quarters. The cash from the front two quarters paid back a whole lot of the feed that steer ate ($720 buys a lot of feed). Bill pays for the cutting and wrapping of the hindquarters in exchange for plenty of cheap meat. The total cost was only $240 for butchering, cutting, wrapping, and freezing and our share is $120 after Bill pays for his part. So we feel that it was a good deal, all in all! I’m thawing out two T-bone steaks right now. Can’t wait for supper!

Check out the picture of Mittens and Spencer playing. They roughhouse every day. Mittens even stands in Spencer’s mouth and bites his cheeks! You can’t believe how funny they are. Both of them just had their distemper vaccinations, but it sure didn’t slow them down any. (Distemper is an awful killer of both dogs and cats…as are the other diseases the vaccine protects against. The cost is minimal and the peace of mind is huge!)

We may butcher some of our animals for food, but we love them all and do everything in our power to keep them happy and healthy. — Jackie

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Hens not laying

My question for you is about chickens. I have Isa Brown and Barred Rock hens who are just 25 weeks old. Usually my new hens are laying already. I only have 1/4 of them laying. This is happening to 2 other people I know too. The one has Australorps the same age that are not laying at all. Is there something going on in environment that they aren’t laying? We all have different feed sources too so we don’t think it’s the feed. We are thinking that we got them too late and not enough light. I have now started to turn a dim light on about 4am. Any suggestions? It definitely baffles us as to what is going on to so many people.

You also said you will be butchering your roosters? Do you kill them outside then do the butchering and cleaning indoors? Earlier this week we butchered off the last of our old hens and it was cold!! It took my hands a few hours to thaw!

Cindy Hills
Wild Rose, Wisconsin

We’re having the same trouble with the pullets we raised late this year. As the days are so short now, we have to start providing extra light in the evening, so it tricks their time clocks into producing more eggs. For us, that means scheduling a few hours of generator running time each evening, as we are off grid. For those on grid, plugging a single CFL into a timer, and setting it to provide a few hours of extra light each evening will work. When we build our new chicken house (after the new barn is done), we plan on adding a small room to house deep cycle batteries and a charger, so we can give lights to the chickens without running the generator then. (Sometimes it’s convenient, as I’m doing wash, running water, etc. Other times it’s not and we feel it’s kind of a waste of money.)

No, we freeze our fingers, too! We pick a sunny, partly warm day and only do three at a time. We’ve found that in that time, our fingers don’t freeze too badly and the warm water from the scalding keeps the birds fairly warm for plucking and the bodies are still warm for the cleaning. Our fingers start to freeze when we rinse off the birds and table with a hose. Brrr. That’s what we get for putting it off so long! — Jackie

Canning in half-pint jars

I am a 72 year old, single person and do much of my canning in half pint jars. My questions is: When I am canning meat, like hamburger or meatloaf in half pint jars, how long should I keep the pressure up (11 lbs) on my pressure canner?

I think the safe answer is the same as pints, but I would like to know what you think about it. I did call the Ball Blue book people and their answer was “they haven’t did any testing on half pints” so they didn’t give me a answer. This would also be a good question for the magazine because many people are now canning more than ever.

Charles
Hazel Green, Alabama

Charles, you can up your half pints for the same length of time as you do your pints. I do it all the time and can’t imagine the Ball Blue Book folks not being able to tell you that! I find myself canning so many things in half pints, especially meats, as I use them as ingredients in mixed recipes and a pint is just too much. — Jackie

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But Will figured a way to make it less painful. In the past, we had six 50-foot hoses connected to our frost-free hydrant in the yard, running down to the horse pasture below where our new barn is. That meant six 50-foot hoses to drain every time we ran water to our stock tank — which is every other day; we can’t run a water heater in the tank because we’re off-grid. And, of course, sometimes (often!) one of them would freeze because it wasn’t drained. So we had to haul it to the house to thaw. It took all day to water! Chopping ice is bad enough, but dragging all those snowy hoses was a real pain. This year, we have a new frost-free hydrant in the new barn. But the water line was only run 100 feet toward the well before the dry sand started to cave in as the excavator dug the 8-foot deep trench.

So we stopped till spring. Will rigged up 200 feet of 1-inch black poly water line above ground and inserted round heat tape, meant to be used on roofs to prevent ice dams. (We did that with our house water line, running under the driveway. It froze every winter until the heat tape was inserted. Now it doesn’t!) Now to water the calves, pigs, and horses down below, we turn on the generator, plug in the heat tapes, and wait from ten minutes to half an hour, depending on how cold it is. Then I turn on the pump, go down and pull the handle up on the hydrant, and water! How easy! I do have to drain two hoses, but one is only 25 feet and the other is easy, compared to last year. I’m done watering in half an hour, including chopping ice. Will even figured out how to completely clean the calves’ bathtub water trough. When it gets ice-choked, we chop out what we can, then turn it over. He heats the bottom evenly with a weed-dragon type propane torch and the huge ice cube pops loose. A totally clean tank! How cool is that? He then shoves the ice cube out of the corral with the tractor or throws out the pieces if it breaks…which it often does.

It’s goat-breeding time, so we’ve separated the does and bucks. We have three different bucks this year, all young bucks from this spring: a Boer and two Nubians. So each buck has his own harem. I can’t wait to see the kids born next May. We’ll have quite a bunch by our first seminar. (By the way, there are still several spots available if you’d like to come.)

We work hard all day, but evenings are for relaxing. Check out this picture of Will, Spencer, and Mittens (the new kitten) relaxing by the fire. Notice Spencer’s collection of “babies.” Every time I go to the thrift store, I pick up a small stuffed animal for Spencer. He just LOVES them. He used to de-stuff them, but now he’s content to just play with them. He goes around and finds all his babies and makes a pile before he stretches out to relax after a long day of being a homestead dog. What a life! — Jackie

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Besides arranging for our first homestead seminar in May, we’re taking care of our year’s meat. Last week, we hauled our big, 1,400-pound steer in to the processing plant. To pay for the expense of raising this steer, we sold the front two quarters and we’re giving our son, Bill, a hindquarter. So we’ll still end up with a lot of beef. But we like a variety of meat, not just beef, beef, beef — no matter how good it is! David also did some hunting this year. We didn’t need two deer; one would do. He wanted a buck, but finally, on the last day, he picked a big doe with no fawns. This last week, I’ve been canning venison and making jerky too. Only one hindquarter to go, and I’m done with that. Then we get to butcher our extra roosters from our experimental home-bred Cornish rock crosses. They’re all big and meaty, although not as big-breasted as the commercial Cornish rock broilers. But they can walk, are vigorous, and are plenty nice for us. We also have a pig to butcher in January, so that’ll round out our meat for quite a while.

Seed catalogs are already coming and we spend evenings drooling over tomatoes, peppers, and other great things we just have to try this year…as well as a lot of varieties we’ve grown for years. Planning a spring garden sure makes winter go by faster! — Jackie

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Milkless cow

I have a cow with a 3 week old calf. The poor thing is about to starve as the mama just doesn’t have enough milk to feed it . The calf isn’t going for the supplement milk at all though it is eating some calf feed. Any suggestions on what I can feed the cow to help her produce more milk?

Joni

This isn’t normal; most cows have at least enough to feed their own calf. I’d have your veterinarian check her over. Does she have mastitis? Can you milk her to check, or is she a beef cow with a wild disposition? A veterinarian can give a cow an injection of oxytocin, which will stimulate a cow to let down more milk. But if she is not able to produce or let down more milk, you will have to separate the calf from the cow and bottle feed the baby. Calves that have nursed don’t like the artificial nipple at first and you may have to wrestle him into a corner to force him to accept the nipple. Usually after one or two forced attempts, the calf gets the picture and will do well on the bottle. — Jackie

Mites

My husband butchered our old rooster today and found he was covered with some kind of mites. The insects in question were tiny, gray in color, and concentrated around the vent and lower back. We had noticed that this rooster had been picking or rubbing at his feathers and had virtually no feathers on his lower back.

Based on his level of infestation, I think it’s safe to guess that our hens and other two roosters probably have mites as well. A little research online points to Northern Chicken Mites, but the choice for treatment is less than clear. What’s the best thing to treat our birds with, and what’s the best way to disinfect our coop, roosts, barn and nest boxes? Should we regularly treat our birds? This is the first time in ten years of raising poultry that we’ve notices signs of external parasites. Our birds mostly free range and we often see them dust bathing in patches of dry dirt, so I’ve never provided dust bath areas for them. Do you regularly provide DE for your birds? Have you dealt with mites in your flock before?

I normally like to go completely organic around the homestead, but I don’t want to compromise the health of my flock. I suspected that it was the cold weather and shorter days contributing to my girls no longer laying eggs, but now I’m wondering if these mites are an issue with their egg production. I have one old (4 year) Silver Laced Wyandotte hen, three Buff Orpington pullets (this spring’s chicks), two Silver Laced Wyandotte cockerels (this spring’s chicks), plus two Pekin ducks and one Embden goose. The rooster we culled today was a two year old Freedom Ranger.

Carmen Griggs
Bovey, Minnesota

Mites and lice are quite common in chickens and other poultry. Fortunately, they’re also pretty easy to get rid of. I dust our birds twice a year, in the fall, about two weeks apart to kill hatchlings as the dust does not kill eggs. I use a rotenone dust and use it, holding the bird upside-down by the feet, paying particular attention to the vent area and under the wings. These are favorite places of these pests. I clean out my coop in the fall/early winter, and completely remove shavings from the nest boxes and dust the empty boxes with rotenone, as well. Right after I clean the coop, I dust the birds. By using this method, I’ve never had a bad infestation. Some folks have had good luck with DE, and others, not so much. It would certainly do no harm to use it and see how it works for you. Don’t use swimming pool filter DE, though, as it is not safe for living creatures. — Jackie

Keeping flour in the freezer

How long will flour keep in the freezer?

Paul Phillips
Connell, Washington

Flour will keep in the freezer nearly forever, provided that it is in an airtight, moisture-proof container. Moisture from the freezer will sooner or later cake up flour frozen in its store bag. — Jackie

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No, it isn’t an iPod, home theater, or other electronic gadget. It’s a small kitten named Mittens. This fall, Will and I went to a neighbor’s yard sale and noticed a sign for two free kittens. The lady told us her husband told her she had to get rid of the kittens at the sale or he would shoot them. Will asked to see the male. Out came a tiny bit of a 6-week-old kitten and Will tucked him into his shirt. He’s been home now for a month and a half and is one of the family. Even our Lab, Spencer, loves Mittens and that big dog and tiny kitten romp and play like family. (Our animals are strange: dogs love cats, bulls love doeling goats, and goats sleep with chickens.)

We’re having a ball watching Spencer and Mittens play tag and “fight.” Spencer is so gentle with Mittens, it’s unbelievable. We won’t be bored this winter.

And we always find new projects. David picked up a load of new bricks when his church youth group cleaned out a storeroom at school. I didn’t know what I’d use them for…maybe a small entry area by our front gate? But so far, they’ve just been piled up, waiting. Will and I talked about putting them around the wood stove in the living room, for a heat sink, and last night, he started hauling wheelbarrow-loads of bricks into the house. We cleaned and stacked bricks until 10:30 last night and finally, this morning, it was finished. And not only will the bricks hold the stove’s heat a long time after it burns down, but we also think it looks nice.

Will’s planning on rocking up the walls behind and beside the wood stove, but until he gets working on that, our new stove surround will do famously. — Jackie

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Chickens in the garden

I planted a fall crop of spinach and lettuce. We have free range chickens who roam about the garden, etc. Should I wash/soak the spinach and lettuce in vinegar before eating. I didn’t think about fencing it in. I hate for it to go to waste, but want to be sure it will be safe to eat. I don’t see any visible signs that the chickens have been in those patches, but they do have access and love to forage in the garden.

Bea Ward
St. Paris, Ohio

Personally, I would just rinse these crops extra well before eating. Unless you see signs of chicken poop on and around these leafy greens, you should be just fine. — Jackie

Water blowing out of jars during canning process

I just emptied my batch of carrots. 16 pints, I stacked them with a tray in between. I noticed that the water in the canner is orange. Did I do something wrong to make the jars leak? Are they okay?

Erica Kardelis
Helper, Utah

Probably you either did not all quite enough headspace in your jars or the pressure fluctuated (over the pounds pressure needed for canning, then you noticed it climbing and turned down the heat?) during processing. This causes some of the water in the jars to blow out during processing, resulting in your orange water. As long as the jars sealed and were processed correctly, they’ll be fine. — Jackie

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