Jordan Holland wrote:Cutting it in strips and hanging it on sticks to dry could preserve it. It could be traditionally smoked or maybe a fan could be used to speed up the process.
Chris Vee wrote:I understand the feelings involved with animals being food-- we have cute, sweet, adorable, delicious rabbits on our homestead, as well as a processing table and huge deep-freezer... My least favorite however, is when we had a skunk get into the chicken coop... there was no time to retrieve anything for the badly injured chickens and I ended up having to finish the deed barehanded.
As long as I feel it's humane I have zero problem with doing what I must to feed the family. I think anyone willing to eat meat should probably process it at some point, so the gratitude and reality of sustenance can be genuinely appreciated.
Kit Collins wrote:Amount of Lime + Vinegar pickling without refrigeration
(1) I've done lime preservation once, following online suggestions for quantity of pickling lime and water. It seems that most of the lime I added to the water precipitated to the bottom, and simply stays there. I doubt that the lime on the bottom is really doing anything other than perhaps providing a "soft bed" for the eggs on the bottom. Might it be possible to use, say, half the lime and get the same preservation effect?
(2) In some restaurant supply groceries in my area, they sell hard-boiled eggs in big gallon jars. I believe these are in an acidic liquid (like vinegar or citric acid). They are not refrigerated. If I remember right, one brand said "refrigerate after opening" and another brand didn't. For people interested in non-refrigerated acidic-pickled boiled eggs, it might be good to look at ingredients list of these types of commercially sold eggs.
Al Marlin wrote:For my lime whitewash, all I do is add (pickling/ non-iodized) salt to my lime mixture. The lime/salt combo seems to help keep the nasties down in the coop while not being toxic to the girls. And since summers are very humid here, I figure the coops walls actively cycle as the humidity raises and falls (& the walls lighten up and appear not whitewashed and then dry again and go a dark white).
I was reassured that my whitewashing is probably on the right track when I visited Upper Canada Village (a live museum running as if it were the 1860's) last summer. After each milking, the farmer shoveled any manure off the floor and then threw down a bucket of lime water whitewash. This was the only sanitizing they did of the milking stalls. Since they sell their dairy products, this procedure must meet with current standards as well.