Here's How We Wean, Fatten, and Butcher Goats on Rimfire Ranch

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

I immediately cut the goat's throat "from ear to ear and clear to the bone" with a sharp knife and we quickly hung him up by the hind feet to bleed.

In some parts of the world it evidently used to be (and maybe still is) a common practice to hang a live goat up by its hind legs first and then cut its throat . . . in the apparent belief that a conscious animal will bleed better than an unconscious one. This is unnecessary and cruel. Kill your animal clean and hang it up fast . . . and you'll have no trouble getting a rapid drainage of blood from the meat.

It's traditional to hang an animal for butchering by making a cut between the tendon and bone on each hind leg and inserting a rope or hook. We find, however, that this is not at all necessary for anything as small as a goat and we hoisted the buck (Fig. 1) by simply tying a length of clothesline around each of his rear legs. Hang your goat from a handy tree limb at a convenient working height so you'll have easy access to both sides of the carcass as you dress it out.

COOLING THE MEAT . . . AND REMOVING THE HEAD

I once watched an old-timer butcher a goat and, after hanging it, he cut a slit about six inches long in the abdominal wall (taking care not to puncture the stomach, intestines, and other organs inside). Then he poured in a bucket of cold water to cool the animal's meat more rapidly. This is a good idea and I use it.

At this point I also saw off a goat's horns (if it has any) with a hacksaw and keep them for the later manufacture of buttons, knife handles, and other homestead shop artifacts. I then cut the head (Fig. 2) and the forefeet (about four to six inches above the hooves) completely off the carcass. (The brains and the tongue of a goat can be eaten and, in India, both the head and the forelegs are considered a delicacy. If you're not quite up to that yet, though, you can throw these parts of the carcass to the dogs. They'll enjoy them immensely.)

KEEP YOUR SKINNING KNIFE SHARP!

Skinning a goat-or most any animal-isn't as complicated as it may seem. Think of it as being closely akin to peeling a banana and you'll be on your way to putting the task into its proper perspective. If the job still scares you, get an old-timer to lend a hand the first time you butcher a goat. Or practice on a rabbit or two. The technique used in skinning out a rabbit is very much the same as that used in skinning out a goat . . . but rabbits are so small that the task doesn't feel quite so overwhelming the first time you run through it on one of them.

My wife, Judy, and I share our skinning duties, since they go much faster when two people handle them together. Judy, however, used to enjoy her biology class dissecting exercises (I never did), and she-as the enclosed drawings show-usually guts out our kills by herself.

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print