Farming for Self-Sufficiency

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We kill our ox when he is too young to die. The reason for this is that if he were, say, a three-year-old ox he would be too big to go in our deep freeze. It would be far better if we had a neighbour who also wanted to kill an ox every year. We could then take alternate years to kill our ox, and let him grow to three years at least and four years preferably and fat him as a bullock should be fattened. The sort of two-year-old or eighteen -month -old 'beef' that is sold nowadays is not proper beef at all. If you ever do get a roasting joint from a well fatted four-year-old animal, hung until it is a deep red colour and has a proper beefy smell to it, and not over roasted, you will see what I mean.

I used to have a fairly rough and ready way of killing, skinning and cutting up a beast, but a butcher friend of mine has given me the following advice:

Shoot or humane-kill the animal in the brain.

Stick just in front of the breast bone (sternum). Cut just deeply enough to sever the main blood vessels and let the animal bleed—do not stick too deep. With the shot animal lying on the ground, stand near its throat with your back to it, push its head up with one leg and its forelegs down with the other, and cut just in front of the brisket. Cut in carefully and you will find that you have severed the main blood vessels.

Whatever you do don't cut into the chest cavity. The animal cannot kick you in its nervous post-mortem kickings because you are standing too near to it. (Catch the blood either for black puddings, or to mix with the pigs' mash, or to activate the compost heap.)

Chop off the horns and skin the head.

Cut the throat across the larynx; tie off the weasand (wind pipe) and cut through it and go on cutting to the occipital joint (the first vertebra) and cut the head right off.

Cut through the tarsals and carpals (the knee joints). With a little practice you can find them and cut through without having to use a saw or a chopper. Open up the gam cords ready for the gamble (see MOTHER NO. 29 under "Pig", pages 22—28).

Cut the skin right along the belly line without cutting into ,the abdominal wall. Skin the neck and the brisket and pull most of the hide off the belly but don't yet skin the fore shanks.

Insert the point of the knife gently through the abdominal wall just behind the brisket, shove your hand behind the knife so as to protect the innards from the knife, and cut right along centre line of belly to the cod fat (around the penis).

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