KILL AND QUARTER YOUR OWN BEEF

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Dinny Slaughter says you can take one more step toward independence if you learn how to...

A lot of homesteading folks who have made the smart move of raising their own beef steer turn right around when " harvesting time" comes and send that ready-for-slaughtering animal off to a professional butcher. The truth is, how ever, that there's no need to pay someone else to kill, skin, and quarter your animal. Because—although the job, like most any move to greater self-sufficiency, does involve a good bit of labor and no little mess—you and a single helper can accomplish the same task yourselves ... in just a few hours.

HERE'S HOW

Start by choosing a nice late fall A (Here in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, we do our butchering—"before the flies arise"—on a November morning. If you plan to cool the carcass yourself, though, you might prefer starting the job in the early evening.) Gather your equipment—you'll need some knives, saws, a hoist, a support, and a spreader—and round up a helper. Then confine your steer and shoot it.

Take your time with the killing and do it as cleanly as possible. Fill a 12-gauge shotgun with high brass No. 4 or 5 shot, stand about 10 feet from the steer, and imagine two lines drawn from the base of each ear to the opposite eye. Then carefully aim for the spot where the lines cross ... and fire. The shot will make a silverdollar- sized hole in the animal's skull, and the beast will immediately drop to the ground.

At that point you (or your assistant) should keeping your back to the body and watching for thrashing hooves—set one foot against the animal's forelegs and force its head back as far as possible with your other foot. Then, using a sharp knife, cut along the bottom of the neck for about 10 to 15 inches—the breastbone forward—and make the incision deep enough to expose the wind-pipe without piercing it. Next, insert the knife to one side of the windpipe (with the back of the blade against the breastbone) and press the point—toward the spine—to a depth of four inches or so ... to cut the carotid arteries and jugular veins.

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