How to Wean, Fatten and Butcher Goats

By Gordon Solberg
Published on September 1, 1977
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Photo By Fotolia/Alessio Orrù
Learn how to wean, fatten and butcher goats.

Learn how to wean, fatten and butcher goats for the homestead.

How to Wean, Fatten and Butcher Goats

Although we’re now settled on a small spread in New Mexico, this particular back-to-the-land family actually learned to butcher goats about five years ago when we lived on a little farm in Missouri. We bought two milk goats with two kids apiece that spring . . . one of those kids was a buck . . . and that buck was destined for the pot from the beginning.

To Castrate or Not to Castrate

When folks “who knew” heard about our plans, they all told us that we should castrate the buck if we planned to eat him. So, when the kid was about three months old, we had him clamped. This is an operation performed with a huge pair of pinchers that crush the cords linking the testicles with the body. (Once the cords are pinched in this manner, the testicles gradually atrophy during the next couple of months.)

Clamping certainly seems to cause a buck a lot less pain than I had feared, and I highly recommend this form of castration over “cutting” (which is the actual removal of the testicles with a knife, a method that carries the attendant twin risks of blood loss and infection). On the other hand, we now know that there’s no need to castrate a buck goat at all if you plan to butcher him before he matures . . . which is the way we’ve learned to handle the situation.

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