Worldwide Beekeeping
Sustainable Living => Homestead => Topic started by: Chip Euliss on April 26, 2016, 10:28:57 am
-
Each year, we get out and walk our trees in spring looking for deer sheds. The family went the other day while I was doing a little wiring in one of our baths. Not a single antler was found EXCEPT the 2 my granddaughter Grace found. She isn't sharing the secret to her success but I suspect being closer to the ground has it's advantages! More fun than looking for Easter eggs :D
(https://worldwidebeekeeping.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fs32.postimg.cc%2Fxts66b1mp%2FGraceshed.jpg&hash=8c6501a879fb44b295b177a1330ff6834085a428) (http://postimg.cc/image/xts66b1mp/)
-
I usually find them in my tractor tires. :\'( Jack
-
got to be better than a video game! :)
-
If she had found more, there probably wouldn't be enough room on her pretty face for her smile.
Great going Grace ! Keep it up. :yes:
-
She was pretty excited. My son said she was screaming so loud he ran over to see if some critter was attacking her--turned out to be screams of joy! The next morning when she came out of the bedroom, she was carrying that larger antler. Who needs video games anyway? Plus picking them up keeps them out of the tractor tires. Hasn't happened to me yet but I've driven (and parked) the tractor within a foot of a large one--better lucky than good I guess :laugh:
-
"Not a single antler was found EXCEPT the 2 my granddaughter Grace found. She isn't sharing the secret to her success but I suspect being closer to the ground has it's advantages! More fun than looking for Easter eggs :D"
LOL! being closer to the ground?! totally funny, and maybe true?!............ :D :D :D
chip, we look for sheds every year. growing up in montana my brothers, sister and i, well it was fun and we were good at it!
mr river didn't grow up with hunting, didn't know what a shed was until he met me........lol, now he finds them before i do or finds bigger ones than i do.......dang what's up with that?............ :D :D :D
-
About the same with my spouse. She didn't grow up in a hunting or fishing family but she has sure taken to it the past 40 + years with me as her bad influence ??? The remodel kept us from getting out much this spring but we usually walk every spring throughout our place. I even get lucky every once in a while. She usually finds more and larger sheds but I found this paired set within 5 feet of one another last year. Like they saw, even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while ;D
(https://worldwidebeekeeping.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fs32.postimg.cc%2Ftt2i0xuq9%2F684818_B0_5_BFD_4824_9_C45_DF10_DCA4_B269.jpg&hash=586b88bb8f407d89032f703606328bab02dc5d0d) (http://postimg.cc/image/tt2i0xuq9/)
-
.......... :D
nice find!!!
-
Boy,y'all must have some nice trophy deer up there !
-
We have some tasty ones too Mikey. Deer here tend to have several inches of white fat under the hide, especially on their backs. It's a pain to trim off when you butcher but grain-fed venison is hard to beat for eating. I deer hunted in NC (and VA) when I was young and I don't remember any fat on them at all. Maybe now in some of the agricultural areas? The big difference is the weight; a 2 1/2 year buck here will dress at 185 lbs and a 3 1/12 year old deer will dress 250 lbs or more.
-
Chip, your rite no fat on the deer here in the sandhills ,they might have a little up iddee's way. 250 lbs dressed WOW, I wouldn't need but 1 of them a yr.
-
We have areas up here that shut school down for deer hunting as so many are out... Agreed Chip, the venison from this area is wonderful!
-
First things first, that is a beautiful, happy granddaughter. I have two grandsons, and I really try to get them into the woods and rocky hills on our ranch, as much as possible. I have driven Michelin tires for many years. One thing I like about them is that I almost never have a flat tire, but I killed one of those tires with a deer antler. Those dang antlers are tough.
Many years back I worked some in Dakota City, NB for the old Iowa Beef Processing Company. They had lots of Alfalfa fields and didn't allow hunting. I saw some huge bucks. The deer in your neck of the woods are a different thing to what we raise in Texas. I love deer sausage and fried tenderloin and back-strap.
Take the time to love that little gal. They seem to grow up way to soon.
lazy
-
Granddaughter loves the outdoors as much as we love seeing her develop an appreciation for the outdoors. She loves venison but her favorite is goose and it doesn't matter whether it's a white-front or a Canada, just stick them on the rotisserie for a couple of hours and get out of her way :) And, yep, those antlers are tough--I've come close but never stuck one in a tire (knock on wood) but our local tire shop has an antler shed display in their office! They collect theirs from tires of all types, trucks to tractors, and have sold a good number of replacement tires to unlucky customers since they opened the business :\'(
-
The first year we moved back here, I took a buck and two does... butchered them and put them in the freezer...
My wife LOVES to hunt, but would not eat the meat.. said she did not like the gamy taste... She was always proud that her father could never get venison past her, she ALWAYS knew..
I made hamburger helper with ground venison and fed it to her... to her credit, she did realize it, but not until she was nearly finished... She will eat venison now... I am wondering if that is a good thing???
-
Probably worse things out there to eat. i do wonder about all the GMO corn they eat but i suspect most of the commercially available meats are fed GMO based diets. Hard to avoid.
-
Their diet definitely will effect the taste. When I was a kid growing up MY dad bought and butchered a Scottish Highland steer They so well fending for themselves in the brush. A week later he shot a moose. You couldn't tell the 2 apart by taste.
-
Apis, I couldn't agree more. My best friend raises Scottish Highlanders and his beef is organic certified. It's more of a hobby for him since he is a Veterinarian and had to give up cattle professionally a decade or so ago. He had one of the first embryo transfer services in the country (dairy cattle) and loved everything about it but what it did to his rotator cuff. My friend is short and Holsteins are tall so you can visualize the problem ;D He started a small animal hospital after the embryo work but couldn't get cattle out of his blood so he started the organic beef gig on the side using highlanders. It took him a while to figure out how to marble meat on a grass diet but he did it and I enjoy getting my annual shipment of beef from him.
-
@Chip:
I raise grass fed calves for a "burgundy beef" operation located in Grandview, Texas. It's about 75 miles from my ranch. I keep the calves until they weigh 550 to 700 pounds, and then he picks them up and finishes feeding them on his specialized pastures. He too, has figured out how to get some marbling into my Angus Plus calves. I really don't know if his meat is certified organic or not. I don't bring new animals onto my ranch until they have lived a year on our small place. I don't vaccinate or supplement my cattle with drugs, hormones or anything.
lazy
-
It sounds like you have some great stock. My friend has just a hobby-farm-type operation so he can get his cow fix; he butchers 35 or so a year and hires a young fellow to ship all his beef. All internet type sale to keep his schedule under control. He put himself through Vet school artifically inseminating dairy cows except the last year or so that the Army paid--I met him when we were stationed on the same base a LONG TIME ago. Seems like yesterday though :)