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

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What we did was, first, we cut the goat in half. Not by sawing down the length of the spine and breastbone to split the carcass lengthwise. But by simply cutting through the spine (between a couple of vertebrae) just in front of the pelvis, where Judy had already almost cut the goat in two while gutting it. This left us with two halves-a front and a rear-each of which was just the right length to fit on top of our kitchen counter.

Judy cut up the rear half first by separating the legs from the pelvis at the hip joints (Fig. 11), and then (Fig. 12) cutting the legs at each joint. The joints contained little prongs and flanges of bone which made it difficult to get a knife into them. But they were broken fairly easily by forcing the joints to bend opposite their natural direction of travel. Orthodoxy, of course, would have you split a goat's pelvis in half before it's packaged for the freezer. . . but we left ours whole.

Judy had no more trouble cutting up the front half of our buck than she'd had with the rear. She started by splitting the rib cage up the front, and cutting along just beside the breastbone where the ribs join it (ribs aren't very hard to cut along their ends). Then she did the same in the back along the spine (Fig. 13).

Next, she cut the arms off the forequarters by lifting each one away from the ribs and slicing through the connecting muscles (since the arms aren't attached to the rest of the skeleton by a joint). The forelegs were then cut at the joints just like the hind legs had been.

My wife next cut the neck off between two vertebrae (and left it whole for a roast), cut the spine into sections for soup, and divided the ribs into three- and four-rib pieces for spare ribs (Fig. 14). Everything was then washed well, double-wrapped in freezer paper, and frozen.

We enjoyed that buck's meat-tender, juicy, delicious, and free of antibiotics and other agribiz chemicals-for months. And every morsel was more real to us than any supermarket steak we've ever eaten . . . since we had been intimately involved with every single step of the weaning, fattening, killing, and butchering of the animal.

We've been just as involved with the raising and butchering of other goats and livestock during the five years since we processed that buck . . . and we've always enjoyed the meat just as much.

No, we don't say that everyone should eat meat . . . or even that we'll always eat meat. But we do think that there's a lot to be said for the meat-eaters among us who are willing to take responsibility for every step in the long chain of events that puts those steaks, hams, and roasts on so many of our tables.

If you're a meat-eater and you're just beginning to assume that kind of responsibility, we hope this article has been of help to you.

A TOIST PARABLE

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