So Sunday was the big day, and everything went really well for our first time. The whole process took about 2 1/2 hours. It took long and was a lot of work, but we feel really good about the whole thing. We got 21 lbs of meat (some of those cuts are bone in) for our eating, 7.5 lbs of meaty bones, organ meat, and trimmings for our dogs and cats, and 2.5 lbs of tallow to make into soap. All told, it was 30.75 lbs of usable material, and the goat was 70.2 lbs live, so I think that's pretty good.
We did make a couple of mistakes and there is obviously room for improvement in the speed department, but it was a great first experience. The biggest thing we need to be better at next time is not getting so much hair on the meat. We spent a good portion of today's meat packaging picking all the individual hairs off the cuts.
My mom cooked up the tenderloins the evening of butchering day, but they were way too tough to eat, so we fed it to the dogs. It tasted great, but just impossible to chew!
My sister's goat forum says that was because we didn't let the meat rest, so we'll try it again in a couple of days.
We got to try out our meat grinder for the first time today, and we got 2.75 lbs of goat burger which my mom can't wait to grill up and try.
So after selling two goats and butchering one, we're down to 2 bucks and 3 does, two of which are already pregnant again. We're due for more babies in January, so hopefully we'll just rinse and repeat next year!
