Food from Craigslist

VickiP
VickiP Posts: 586 ✭✭✭✭
edited November 2020 in Other News

In our area we often have ads for free livestock, mostly roosters. If they are close enough we will get them and put them in a tractor (Death Row) to get bigger and then in the freezer they go. Over the years we have collected quite a bit of food this way. We have gotten male rabbits too. We have foregone goats, really no place to keep them yet. I don't feel bad about this as we feed them well and give them a comfy place to live, they are humanly treated and processed , since we keep them for several weeks any undesirable food they may have had is out of their system before we process them. We never get animals the owner wants to give away as pets. Although the last three roosters were so pretty my husband took pity on them. they are Swedish Isobar roosters so we put one in with the pullets and he just let the other two roam, that was a mistake and we did have to butcher one, the other has integrated himself, but Walter is the Alpha. Is this something anyone else has done? How has it worked out for you?

Comments

  • judsoncarroll4
    judsoncarroll4 Posts: 5,490 admin
    edited January 2020

    On a loosely related note... craigslist seems to have dried up dramatically in my area over the last 2 years or so... maybe even one year. How is it in your area? If so, or not... why do you figure?

  • VickiP
    VickiP Posts: 586 ✭✭✭✭

    I think facebook market place is cutting into Craigslist a little. Still, in our area there is a lot on it. We have a call in to a fellow with horse manure free to haul off, we have recently obtained some marble slabs and some cement slabs for paths all free or very cheap, so I'm happy with it.

  • LaurieLovesLearning
    LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,573 admin

    I am kind of on the other end. We are people that have extra roosters. I will not give them away (unless they were to someone truly in need), as they cost a lot to raise and we could certainly make use of the food, but it seems that they don't get butchered here (like other things). 😠 I wish they did. The knowledge is there, but the "energy" and willingness seems to disappear? I tried being blunt (as I was instructed to do by my husband) saying that butcher day was coming...in 1 month, 2 weeks, the day is here...grrr...the day is passed, you know it should still be done...So, this is a very sore point for me. I am a farmer. Just not a very adept one at the kill.

    I wish that I could do the kill. I can't quite do that. I can manage everything else. Once the bird is dead, the rest is easy.

    Any butcher place here is now closed and they were far too expensive anyway. They decided heritage birds (which I have most exclusively) should cost more too.

    Anyway, I am not much help here to you, just wishing for more help myself. Sigh.

  • VickiP
    VickiP Posts: 586 ✭✭✭✭

    Well, my husband does the whole butcher thing, I am not good at that at all! We have put several roosters in the freezer, as in nineteen in the last five months, some we hatched and raised and some were given to us. Does anyone ever see ads for free fruit? When I lived in Kansas I would harvest from fruit trees in folks yards, mostly crab apples but also peaches and plums. Everybody knew me so I had no problem getting permission to glean, it was actually kind of a business for me. One year a friend of mine and I cleaned up windfalls at a local apple orchard and we made cider, gallons and gallons of cider. And sauce, and jelly, well you get the picture. Where I am at now folks are not as sociable so I look on Craigslist and Facebook market place but have yet to find any fruit. I am sure there are people out there who would like to have their yards cleaned up but I have not been able to make any connections. I started this thread just to see if anyone else does this or to give ideas to others who would like to harvest their own food but may not be set up to raise meat from mama to freezer.

  • dottile46
    dottile46 Posts: 437 ✭✭✭

    @VickiP Something I haven't thought of. What a great source of quality protein for your family.