How to Butcher a Cow

If you eat red meat, you can take one more step toward independence by learning the process of killing and butchering a cow yourself.

By Dinny Slaughter
Updated on January 9, 2022
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by Adobestock/Stepanek Photography
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If you eat red meat, you can take one more step toward independence by butchering beef at home. Learn how to butcher a cow yourself, including humanely killing and processing the animal.

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, however, that there’s no need to pay someone. Although the job does entail a good bit of labor and no little mess–just like most any move to greater self-sufficiency–killing and butchering a cow is a task you and a single helper can accomplish yourselves in a few hours.

Here’s How to Butcher a Cow

Start by choosing a nice late fall day (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 silver dollar-sized hole in the animal’s skull, and the beast will immediately drop to the ground.

At that point you (or your assistant) should be 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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