Thread: Getting back to living off the land.....

Originally Posted by Coote

I split pig skins down the spine sometimes myself. A whole skin can really be quite stiff and hard to manipulate, especially further toward the shield area. I haven't hung carcasses by the head for skinning. I should try it. My carcasses generally don't have a head on them when I bring them home however. I try to lighten the load.

My current procedure is to remove the hocks and hang carcasses (with their skin on) from the pelvic bone (aitch bone) using a big stainless 'S' hook. This enables me to loosely wrap a sheet around it to keep the flies off. I close the sheet up with clothes pegs and hold it up from the rear end with a peg that grabs the sheet against the shaft of the S-hook. I'll often hang the carcass under my shed lean-to roof as long as I dare in the hope that the meat will be tender.

I'm not inclined to give the dogs in my life a head or even a bone. Our current 'grand-dog' which we look after sometimes likes a bone or a bit of skin, but he'll chew it for a while and then get the urge to bury it. And often the first spot isn't right. So he'll dig another hole in the garden and move it... and so on. Plus he is an entitled 'inside' dog, so the mud can come indoors. Sometimes he'll even bury things under the sofa cushions.

We used to give our previous Huntaway/Lab nearly empty pottles of sour cream etc to clean out. She'd pick them up and take them outside to work on. After she passed away, I was digging a hole in the vegetable patch and found a sour cream pottle she'd saved for later.

My young ( 13 month ) border collie found a shot animal on Thursday evening and ate the skinned head on friday eve in the dog run. Cave the back of the skull so the dog can have 'sweet breads' for desert following a main of Cheeks, eyes and tongue

Good stuff Moa Hunter. Your dog must love you.

@Coote I open up the back legs before hanging up then skin down from the tail and open it which lets you punch around from the backbone to the belly

Another experiment underway... Growing duckweed to feed the chooks and ducks. It's very high in protein and in the height of summer it's meant to double in size daily. I'm using a bucket of duck pond water in the pond for fertiliser.


Day 1



Day 11

That duckweed seems to grow super fast. There is a pond near our place that gets covered with it. I didn't know about its nutrition qualities though....

I ALWAYS split pelvis open when hanging any animal overnight...was told years ago it prevents bone taint...have no reason to change that thinking.
poke a 12" ish piece of wood inside belly cavity to hold the flaps open helps it to cool faster too.
the sheet/peg fly thing...close it up around the single bit of rope coming down to the gamble..in my case is 4 strands as has double pulley on it.

@Coote Here's some info. This is a great site re fodder for animals https://www.feedipedia.org/node/15306

New arrivals on the property over the last few days...The first lambs have arrived. One from a hogget and twins from a ewe... The ram went out on the 13th May, but I wasn't expecting the hogget to lamb first on the 13th Oct! The ewe was massive, but thankfully twins and not triplets...

Another set of twins this arvo. Only about an hour old. Imagine being 60 years old and getting excited about newborn lambs....

Last lamb of the season (a whole four mums ) Mum and baby doing well. Isn't nature amazing? Never had a lamb before, but instinct tells her exactly what to do �� 4 sheep had 6 lambs and a 50/50 split of sexes...


Only about 1 hour old

The duckweed experiment.... So, pretty much one month to cover the pond... It'll be interesting to see how it performs during summer

dont know what it is the chooks see in it..but bucket of stale old water is very attractive to them....old n manky and they love it. and the ylove to play drums on up turned bucket to.

Well the chicken run vege garden is going according to plan. This is 8 weeks of growth!

I decided to go for a hunt the on Wednesday to get a couple of goats for the freezer. With my writing work now pretty much dried up to nothing I decided an afternoon in the bush would take my mind off being pretty much unemployed! I took 2 goats, I picked them for eating quality and nice skins for me to tan (I'm getting back into tanning skins for clients again)... As usual for the area, the goats are in fantastic condition.

This is my set up for skinning and breaking them down. An old sheet to start skinning them (opening cuts and loosening the skin around the back and front legs and brisket) before I hang them up to skin and break them down. 2 buckets, 1 with soapy water & the other fresh water to keep hands and gear clean, and to stop any carcass contamination.
I've salted the skins prior to tanning them.







The first feed from them was fried liver, and the second is probably the laziest tea I've ever done... Slow cooked wild goat belly flaps with pumpkin, silverbeet & kale from the garden, and spuds. All done in the crockpot as a sorta boil up, except simmered. Typically, I gave the legs away to someone who had never tried goat (she was stoked to get them), and I kept the so-called cheap cuts... A simple but yummy feed... I reckon that if you're going to kill an animal to eat, you try to waste as little as possible.. I brought the lungs and stomach fat out for the chooks.

helped a mate out the otherday by skinning a big pig for him.....he has system pretty well sorted to make it as easy as possible.....one bit that sticks out is did all the main cuts to begin with and skinned down legs brisket etc IN A WHEELBARROW....so not bending over or kneeling on the ground. we recently did something very similar with our huge ram...he was carted to trailer on a sackbarrow..bum on bottom plate (no pun intended) and his back against barrow.....laying on trailer spreadeagled like a bar girl the day after marines have come home.....when we got to where I processed ram I dragged sackbarrow over to side of trailer and did knife work there and then....pulled barrow to other side of trailer and did other side....really good to do knife work at decent height..I have done it on table before but flopped on back makes it oh so easy...mate has the next bit sussed two...a permanently mounted wee electric winch up high in garage so the barrow wheeled underneath and piggy winched upwards..too easy bro too easy.
those are beautiful pelts.