Sunday 17th December 2017
Bad news for the Muscovy boys
Back in early August Elvis hatched out these little beauties.
They grew quickly and for a while were a bit of a pain as they kept nibbling each others' wing feathers. But that has mostly sorted itself out as they have arranged themselves into friendship groups and go into various houses of their own choice every night.
They are now almost 20 weeks old, which is pretty bad news for them. Firstly, they are getting big and putting pressure on housing space. Secondly, the drakes will be harassing the females soon. Most importantly, their pin feathers will have grown out so plucking will be slightly less impossible now.
And so today we bade farewell to the four largest males. I pulled them straight out of their roosting house to save chasing them around the smallholding. Dispatch was quick. I always say sorry to each one before the deed.
We like to take the time to prepare the big males properly. A whole roast Muscovy duck is a very special meal. But plucking takes ages. They have three layers of feathers. When we do the females we will just take off the breast, legs and wings which is a much quicker process.
While we were at it, one of the turkeys had an unlucky day too. I chose one of the young stags as they have started strutting their stuff recently, challenging the old breeding stag. Again I took the time to dry pluck it carefully and it will now hang for a few days. On 23rd we will be taking it over to Paul (the butcher from CSSG) who is kindly showing us again how to bone it out ready for stuffing.
Monday 18th December 2017
A glorious sunset today. These clear days leading up to Solstice provide us with some stunning skies.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please leave a comment, I love to read them. I've been having a little trouble with not getting notifications, but think I've sorted it out now so I'll do my best to answer!