Slaughter & Butcher

[jdarling]

Well, I had my first experience with slaughtering and butchering a lamb today. A Bosnian gentleman, his wife and their lovely, young daughter contacted me last week to see if they could come out, pick out a lamb and slaughter it on my property. They live in an apartment and have no place to dress it out. Not having any idea what it entailed, I said, "Sure, that would be fine." I immediately was asking my rancher friends what, if anything, I needed to know. A couple of tips and I was good to go.

 

So the family comes out. What nice people! Zip and I held the lambs while they picked one out. I caught it and handed it over to him, and then moved all the rest of my lambs out of the round pen and set them out to pasture. He needed some twine to tie the legs together, so I gave him some and quickly skedaddled out of there. Not being able to stand not watching, and being the big weenie that I am, I watched the slaughter from the window. It was very unremarkable. He cut what I am guessing would be the jugular, and then quickly cut the twine and freed the legs. He'd obviously done this before. I helped him carry the lamb to the spot under the tree, and watched him peel back the skin off the hocks, and hang the lamb up by the "ankles." He allowed me to hang out and watch him and ask all kinds of questions. He explained himself as well as he could in his broken English, and his daughter would occasionally translate. He skinned it all out, took all the intestines out, showed me what's good and what isn't with the intestines, emptied the stomach, etc. Apparently they also use the head, so he cut the head off and then sawed the entire lamb right down the middle. Bagged it all up and put it in his truck.

 

When I gave him the lamb for free for allowing me to watch and learn, you could see that his wife was very touched by the gesture. The man offered to come back tomorrow morning and slaughter and butcher a lamb for a friend of mine who showed up right as he was finishing. I think it will take a few times of me watching to build up the hootzpah to try it myself. Tomorrow, though, now that I am more comfortable with him, I will stick right by him as he does the slaughter and have him show me how. Simply fascinating.

 

Are there many people here that do their own slaughtering and butchering? Bill, I know you probably do, right? And then once I am able to start doing this for myself, I suppose I'll be asking for BBQ recipes.

 

Jodi

[bcnewe2]

Not me. I just can't kill the darn things unless I have to. Got no problem taking them to the butcher.

I think doing it yourself would be better. Just don't have the kahunas to do the deed. Could watch the butchering all day but the actual killing...I'm the weenie here. BUt once dead I think I could butcher. I know...not a real farmer but a heck of a pretend one!

You go Jodi. When I first started I couldn't even eat the meat from the butcher till I tried my first taste of lamb. Then it got easier. My sister still won't try it. She just can't bring her self to eat what she saw walking around yesterday. I told her that if she saw what she was actully eating when she buys it from the big chain store she'd never eat meat again.

If you raise them right, I think there's nothing wrong with it. I'd galdly never buy commercial meat again. Got a ways to go to get to that point yet.

 

My favorite bbq recipe is, Lemon pepper, garlic and sage. Yummmm. I'm not a saucy or a marniade type girl. Just give me the good lamb taste and that's about all I need!

 

Kristen

[NorthfieldNick]

I butcher my own birds (chickens, turkeys ducks), but not lambs becauset they have to be USDA inspected for my market. I do use the first (no longer only) USDA-inspected mobile slaughter unit in the country. I'm right there when my sheep (and the occasional goat) get butchered. I've seen and helped some hundreds of times. You get "used" to it, but it's never "okay."

 

I figure the day I no longer have trouble killing an animal I raised, usually an animal I brought into this world for the sole purpose of dying to feed somthing else, is the day I need to quit.

[Sue R]

We have butchered many a goat, a few sheep, and a cow ourselves. We haven't done it for years as it's all cattle now and we, too, have a market and it is USDA inspected and professionally done. The one cow we did was one with a prolapse that we could not get to a facility at the time. It was a kill, skin, cut and chunk job.

 

We used to have a system. Ed would do the dirty work and I would be the support team. I'd hold the knife (with my back turned - let's face it, I'd bottle-raised all these guys) and he'd shoot the animal. I'd pass the knife in exchange for the pistol, and he'd cut the throat so it could bleed out. If you are quick, you get a good bleed because the heart keeps pumping if you shoot it right.

 

Then I'd go put the pistol up and he'd hoist the carcass and remove the head. For some reason, once the head was gone, I'd be okay with the body. Then he'd skin and remove the entrails. Sometimes, he'd make sausage casings from the intestines.

 

We went through some pretty lean years where we (and our four children) consumed a great deal of wonderful raw, fresh goat milk and ate a great deal of goat meat (often as sausage).

 

People who only get their meat in packages (or milk in bottles, eggs in cartons, produce from a display case, etc.) in the grocery store are very detached from the process. It's hard, it's messy, it's bittersweet, and one should never lose their respect for the animal (or soil) that provides them with sustenance. I agree whole-heartedly with Nick. Well said!

[jdarling]

Ok, I don't feel like such a weenie now. I don't know if I'll ever be able to actually do it, but in about an hour, I will at least know how if I ever need to. I had one lamb break a leg last year, and I didn't know how to kill it, and no one that was at my house knew how to either. We just called a friend of mine who came over and picked it up, splinted the leg, only to have it die a month or so later because it was never one of the stronger lambs. That experience is what prompted my really wanting to learn how to do this ... feeling that as long as I am raising, breeding and using these sheep, that it's my responsibility to take care of them the best I can in any situation -- and that includes knowing when to end it, and more importantly, how.

 

Thank you all for your input. Nick, I agree with you also. It's similar to what I said about trialing ... "The day I lose the butterflies on my way to the post is the day I quit going to the post."

[Tea]

We do our own except the locker lambs which the state guy does.

 

But we use a twenty two.

 

We also brain tan the hides and make soap from the tallow.

[Bill Fosher]

I do want the animal stunned before exsanguination. I'm not good enough with the knife to be sure I can do it just right on the first try. So I use a .22 -- fired into the skull at a downward angle at the point where imaginary lines between left ear and right eye and right ear and left eye would cross.

 

It's not something I exactly enjoy doing -- although I take some pride in being able to do it correctly to minimize suffering and with a least a small degree of proficiency.

[kajarrel]

Cornell has a poster explaining how humane slaughter should be done (down loadable from their website). I believe all farmers who allow on-farm slaughter should know how it is (supposed to be) done and should be present to insure the process is humane.

 

I don't do my own slaughter although I do "put down" sick sheep/lambs. I just don't want to mess with all the cutting and packing . . .

 

Kim

[Sue R]

I think there is nothing more humane than at-home slaughter if it is done right. The animal has none of the stresses of a truck ride to the auction or slaughterhouse, and does not wait around at the slaughterhouse overnight or for any period of time.

 

Someone once wrote about not understanding how someone could bring home an Easter lamb or kid (we're talking Greece in this case, but it happens all over the world) for instance, keep it almost as a pet with attention from the children and hands-on care, and then up and kill it and process it to eat. Well, what better life could a lamb or kind destined for the table experience?

 

I would really like it if we had a mobile, on-the-farm slaughter unit available here. We have our animals slaughtered locally (well, as locally as we can) but it would still be less stress for all concerned if they never left the farm except in frozen, vacuum-packed cuts).

[jdarling]

Well, the one really nice man that was here this morning butchered two of them and I watched it all from start to finish. He called his newphews, who have just shown up and paid for three. They are out there butchering now. Whine warning: I am a bit maxed out on this today. I'll post more later.

[jdarling]

Turns out the guys who showed up later in the day were the first guy's brother-in-law and a couple of buddies of his. They had a much different method. I didn't watch the slaughter this time, but before I knew it, the head was off, and they were both standing at the picnic table (that someone's 4 year-old son was sitting on) cleaning the head. Just to show a difference in culture, the 4 year-old was sitting there happily playing with one of his "uncles" and laughing and stuff. When I went out to check to see if everything was ok, I hadn't even entered the pasture yet when the 4 year-old started screaming. The uncle tells me he's afraid of "the dog." Zip was at my side and totally focused on the sheep in the pasture, and was nowhere near the 4 year-old. But the 4 year-old could have reached out and touched the sheep head.

 

Anyway, the rest of the process wasn't as clean, neat and well thought out as the brother in law's method from the morning. The first guy was friendly, respectful, and cleaned up everything when he was done. You didn't know he was even here. After the second group of guys left, I have 3 black bags of entrails, lots of feet strewn about (some hanging on a fence), the skin to the head over where the picnic table was, they'd moved the picnic table to use it as a cutting board, never put it back, never cleaned it off, etc. The area is a mess, and I'm not impressed. The first guy is welcome back. The second group will have to find somewhere else to get their sheep.

 

On a much better note, as I mentioned earlier in the thread, the first guy also slaughtered and butchered a lamb for a friend of mine yesterday morning. Last night, that friend invited me (and a few other people) over for BBQ lamb. To this point, the only time I'd eaten lamb was in a pita at a restaurant, and it was very tough and gamey. Not last night. It was marinated in red wine, garlic and rosemary, grilled perfectly, served with yummy potatoes and a wonderful salad and crispy loaf of bread. It was probably one of the best meals I've ever eaten. I'll never look at my sheep the same again!

[Lenajo]

It really doesn't bother me to slaughter - never really has. I would have been the 4 year old (miuse the dog fears LOL) - sitting their laughing and helping. Does the cow apologize to the grass when she pulls it up? Does the wolf stop and give thanks to the deer family?

 

I think you can be respectful and humane without feeling guilty or apologetic.

 

Jodi the rule here for farm slaughter is you can use one designated area, and you bring everything everything you need with you (I don't loan knives, pots, bags, etc) and you take *everything* with you - guts, hide, etc when you leave. If I have to clean up you aren't going to get anymore stock from us.

 

Most of our customers slaughter in the Islamic fashion and use the knife to kill. Death appears to be quick and relatively painless. Many of these people could give American butchers a lesson in efficiency. One of the guys was from Saudi and had thousands of sheep at home. He could skin out a lamb in less than minute. He use a little straw and a bicycle pump to put a bit of air under the hide -it pulled right off!

[Bo Peep]

I know you have to trust your butcher. Once you find a great one, that's the one you keep! We had one that left blood all over and the dogs went crazy. Then we found a great one who you never knew was there, except the cattle were gone and you got a phone call later and the freezer was full. We stuck with that one. I bet that young lamb was tender. Never had it. It was difficult for me to eat our first beef we raised. I later learned, NEVER NAME THEM. LOL.