Post by Selden on Dec 28, 2005 7:18:38 GMT -5
Well, it got done, two days before Christmas. (NOT what I had planned; the butcher had called to put it off.) In many ways it was fine. In other ways it was a fiasco that I am still recovering from emotionally.
First of all, the appointment was for 8 o'clock in the morning, so I milked and separated the cows (leaving Katika and Spanky in, and Ferdinand out with plenty of hay) and arranged for someone to be there on a tractor promptly at 8. Ferdinand was unhappy being separated and was suspicious of the tractor. Naturally, given all this seamless planning, the butcher was late. At 8:40 I sent the tractor guy home and went back to my house to call. The butcher's wife told me he left very late (he lives an hour away, and had apparently just left). I explained to her calmly that it would have been a courtesy to telephone, as I had made complicated arrangements. But I did not lose my temper -- barely. Given the general pressure/madness of the season, I WAS feeling tears behind my eyes, but I fought them back.
I got back to the barn to find that Ferdinand in his anxiety had trampled the flimsy wire fence that usually keeps the animals away from the manure pile and the human access door to the barn. Now I couldn't get into the barn without getting past him -- NOT what I wanted. I spent a lot of time tricking him back to the other side of the pasture. Then I went in and I turned out Katika and Spanky to keep him calm. It was starting to blow snow.
All through this I was getting more and more upset. I had planned it to be such clockwork and this bozo butcher had screwed up everything! And it was two days before Christmas, my shopping was hardly started, and the day was passing like water over a waterfall! I did not like seeing Ferdinand nervous -- my heart went out to him -- on the other hand, seeing him nervous and belligerent made ME nervous. I was afraid he'd go right through the electric fences. I realized there was a part of me that wanted to comfort him and another part that wanted a bullet in his head RIGHT NOW.
Anyway, at 9:30 the butcher showed up. Not knowing that I'd spoken to his wife, he gave me a complicated lie about problems on the road, getting behind a mobile home, etc. I managed to be civil and not get into it. I called the tractor guy who immediately came back. I got Katika and Spanky back in, keeping Ferdinand out. Again he was anxious but he came out and began eating the hay and grain I'd put out for him next to the fenceline. Evidently having his head down was not what the butcher wanted. He would not shoot (though he was about 6 ft away on the other side of the fence). Eventually Ferdinand finished the grain, and given all the commotion with tractors and strangers, blundered over the wire fence into the manure pile area again (i.e. away from us). I began to despair.
In the end, I called Ferdinand over to my hand at the gate, he came (half angry) to sniff at my hand, and the butcher, standing at my shoulder, shot him. It was a perfect shot at point-blank range. He fell immediately and solidly and lay without moving. (I had turned away because I'd been startled at how LOUD a gunshot is.) I was glad it was immediate, and he'd never been frightened -- just annoyed and slightly confused. But of course, my sense of betrayal was large. And watching the throat cutting, evisceration, and sawing up was an emotional thing, no matter how much I had been frightened recently.
By the time the butcher left 40 minutes later, the carcass was in 4 neat pieces in the back of his truck. I let the tractor guy bury the head, feet, and entrails, even the hide because I was so tired, overwhelmed, and LATE at that point I couldn't cope with making more decisions. I shoveled snow over all the blood I could see. I kept all the animals in that day. It snowed a couple of inches that night, but the next day you could see all of them sniffing anxiously at the ground. It made me sad. On the other hand, I only realized the strain of the constant fear of the last month when I did barn chores and realized suddenly that I was free of it. A HUGE relief not to always be watching.
The last note of the saga was that the day after Christmas the butcher called me. His hanging room compressor was broken and he would have to cut up the meat. This meant that the meat had only been hung for 3 days. It should have been at least 10-14, as I understand it (the butcher said about a week). I figure I will have to marinate all the cuts, to make up for the lack of aging. I was very upset but there didn't seem to be anything I could do but go pick up the meat. Of course the bill was still the same. Extremely frustrating! And made me wonder how I could manage it better in the future.
Obviously if I'd taken Ferdinand to a slaughterhouse it would have been less bumpy emotionally and more professional. On the other hand, Ferdinand would have been terrified, which he never was. Also, just getting him into a trailer would have been a rodeo. I don't know what the answer is.
Obviously I couldn't tape Ferdinand over the past month, but I'm guessing he was a little over 500 lbs liveweight (he'd been 450 back in September). He ate like a pig but had little fat on him -- too much stalking around, bellowing. The hanging weight of the carcass was 325 lbs, according to the butcher. I weighed all the boxes of little white packages and it came to 175 lbs (no receipt or reckoning from the butcher). This seemed like incredible "shrinkage" to me, but an acquaintance who is experienced with beef calves says he expects 370 lbs from a 1000-lb beef steer. So I guess it's correct, for a fine-boned yearling dairy bull. Between the turkeys and Ferdinand, my freezer is jam-packed.
But I'm still recovering from it all.
And I have no idea if Katika is bred or not. She did not appear to go into heat in late December, so there is a chance.
First of all, the appointment was for 8 o'clock in the morning, so I milked and separated the cows (leaving Katika and Spanky in, and Ferdinand out with plenty of hay) and arranged for someone to be there on a tractor promptly at 8. Ferdinand was unhappy being separated and was suspicious of the tractor. Naturally, given all this seamless planning, the butcher was late. At 8:40 I sent the tractor guy home and went back to my house to call. The butcher's wife told me he left very late (he lives an hour away, and had apparently just left). I explained to her calmly that it would have been a courtesy to telephone, as I had made complicated arrangements. But I did not lose my temper -- barely. Given the general pressure/madness of the season, I WAS feeling tears behind my eyes, but I fought them back.
I got back to the barn to find that Ferdinand in his anxiety had trampled the flimsy wire fence that usually keeps the animals away from the manure pile and the human access door to the barn. Now I couldn't get into the barn without getting past him -- NOT what I wanted. I spent a lot of time tricking him back to the other side of the pasture. Then I went in and I turned out Katika and Spanky to keep him calm. It was starting to blow snow.
All through this I was getting more and more upset. I had planned it to be such clockwork and this bozo butcher had screwed up everything! And it was two days before Christmas, my shopping was hardly started, and the day was passing like water over a waterfall! I did not like seeing Ferdinand nervous -- my heart went out to him -- on the other hand, seeing him nervous and belligerent made ME nervous. I was afraid he'd go right through the electric fences. I realized there was a part of me that wanted to comfort him and another part that wanted a bullet in his head RIGHT NOW.
Anyway, at 9:30 the butcher showed up. Not knowing that I'd spoken to his wife, he gave me a complicated lie about problems on the road, getting behind a mobile home, etc. I managed to be civil and not get into it. I called the tractor guy who immediately came back. I got Katika and Spanky back in, keeping Ferdinand out. Again he was anxious but he came out and began eating the hay and grain I'd put out for him next to the fenceline. Evidently having his head down was not what the butcher wanted. He would not shoot (though he was about 6 ft away on the other side of the fence). Eventually Ferdinand finished the grain, and given all the commotion with tractors and strangers, blundered over the wire fence into the manure pile area again (i.e. away from us). I began to despair.
In the end, I called Ferdinand over to my hand at the gate, he came (half angry) to sniff at my hand, and the butcher, standing at my shoulder, shot him. It was a perfect shot at point-blank range. He fell immediately and solidly and lay without moving. (I had turned away because I'd been startled at how LOUD a gunshot is.) I was glad it was immediate, and he'd never been frightened -- just annoyed and slightly confused. But of course, my sense of betrayal was large. And watching the throat cutting, evisceration, and sawing up was an emotional thing, no matter how much I had been frightened recently.
By the time the butcher left 40 minutes later, the carcass was in 4 neat pieces in the back of his truck. I let the tractor guy bury the head, feet, and entrails, even the hide because I was so tired, overwhelmed, and LATE at that point I couldn't cope with making more decisions. I shoveled snow over all the blood I could see. I kept all the animals in that day. It snowed a couple of inches that night, but the next day you could see all of them sniffing anxiously at the ground. It made me sad. On the other hand, I only realized the strain of the constant fear of the last month when I did barn chores and realized suddenly that I was free of it. A HUGE relief not to always be watching.
The last note of the saga was that the day after Christmas the butcher called me. His hanging room compressor was broken and he would have to cut up the meat. This meant that the meat had only been hung for 3 days. It should have been at least 10-14, as I understand it (the butcher said about a week). I figure I will have to marinate all the cuts, to make up for the lack of aging. I was very upset but there didn't seem to be anything I could do but go pick up the meat. Of course the bill was still the same. Extremely frustrating! And made me wonder how I could manage it better in the future.
Obviously if I'd taken Ferdinand to a slaughterhouse it would have been less bumpy emotionally and more professional. On the other hand, Ferdinand would have been terrified, which he never was. Also, just getting him into a trailer would have been a rodeo. I don't know what the answer is.
Obviously I couldn't tape Ferdinand over the past month, but I'm guessing he was a little over 500 lbs liveweight (he'd been 450 back in September). He ate like a pig but had little fat on him -- too much stalking around, bellowing. The hanging weight of the carcass was 325 lbs, according to the butcher. I weighed all the boxes of little white packages and it came to 175 lbs (no receipt or reckoning from the butcher). This seemed like incredible "shrinkage" to me, but an acquaintance who is experienced with beef calves says he expects 370 lbs from a 1000-lb beef steer. So I guess it's correct, for a fine-boned yearling dairy bull. Between the turkeys and Ferdinand, my freezer is jam-packed.
But I'm still recovering from it all.
And I have no idea if Katika is bred or not. She did not appear to go into heat in late December, so there is a chance.