ALMOST BEEKEEPING - RELATED TOPICS > FARMING & COUNTRY LIFE
Butchering Our First Goat
The15thMember:
We will be butchering our first yearling wether next month. We've butchered chickens and rabbits before, but never a larger animal, except my dad, who has done deer before, but not for a long, long time. Anatomically a goat is essentially the same as a deer, and I know several of you are hunters. I was wondering if anyone had any good tips or tricks to offer a beginner, either from experience dressing game or from farm livestock.
gww:
On deer, it is not hard but is hard work. I do not know how others do it but I hang by back legs and skin and then quarter. I like having a battery operated saws all. I then debone. lately I have been deboning while hanging rather then quartering. Then I take the time to remove as much fat and tallow as I can. Then I slice thin against the grain of the meat. You will see lines in the way the meat runs, you want to cut where you are cutting the ends of those lines so you have no lines in your cut meat. I like thin cause I fry everything and so I cut slices somewhere around a quarter to three eights of an inch thick. Wrap in freezer paper and freeze. It probably takes me 5 hours to cut up a deer and you do not end up with near the meat you think should be there. I usually take the back strap off first right after skinning. Make a cut following the spine and then falay off the rib. Meat slices best when it is almost frozen but still pliable. I like to lay it out flat so it will freeze faster and more uniform. I do not like putting in a pan that allows the meat to sit in blood for any length of time.
My way is not the only way but just what I do.
Hope you get something out of the above.
Good luck
gww
The15thMember:
Thanks, gww, that's some good info.
I learned something surprising the other day regarding this topic. I was talking with my mom about this yesterday, and I found out that this statement of mine is actually untrue.
--- Quote from: The15thMember on October 01, 2021, 12:20:57 pm --- except my dad, who has done deer before, but not for a long, long time.
--- End quote ---
So my dad has talked about eating venison before, he has a hunting vest in the back of his closet, and he used to go up to his friend's hunting cabin every once and a while, so I assumed that meant my dad had at some point shot a deer. But I apparently have been putting two and two and two together incorrectly for my entire life! Dad has never actually shot a deer. He went deer hunting ONE TIME, and didn't get one, and evidently at the hunting cabin Dad never actually did any hunting, and most times none of his friends did either! The only thing he has ever actually shot is geese. Who knew?! So not one of us has any hands on experience with this.
gww:
lots of vidios on you tube.
Cheers
gww
BeeMaster2:
Member,
I never had anyone show me how to dress out an animal. I trapped a opossum at about age 8 and skinned it. Yeas later I dressed out rabbits and pheasants. When I got a deer, the the first time I tried to hang it be the head. It makes it much harder to do. If you have ever skinned an animal you will figure it out.
Jim Altmiller
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