Goat butchering

[Bornacentury2L8]

Has anyone seen or posted a thread on processing meat goats? Thanks.

 

[Chicks_N_Horses]

I don't know but our neighbor does goat killing/butchering.

Shoot it and then skin it like a deer.

 

[Bornacentury2L8]

That's what I figured. I just wonder if there's a trick or some glands, etc. I should know about.

 

[username taken]

Nope but I can give you a quick run down on how we do sheep and goats

Best way to kill them is with a gun, easiest is to put down a bowl of their favourite food, while they have their head down eating stand behind them and shoot from the back of the head, they wont ever know. I feel this is clean and humane. Polled goats can be shot in the same place as cattle, but horned goats need to be shot from the back.

You can also use an electric stunner to the back of the head, or a captive bolt.

You want to do it quickly before he eats too much, otherwise the stomach will be awfully full.

Once he is stunned/shot, cut his throat to allow him to bleed out.

Take a sharp knife and cut through the cartilage between the hock and leg bone on each leg, tie bale twine into a loop on each leg and these can be slipped onto the forks of a tractor, and then raised to hang the carcase up for further bleeding. If you have a gambrel that is even better.

Remove the hide starting from the back legs. You can do this roughly if you dont care about the hide, but if you want to tan it, try to remove it in one piece without too much fat. The hardest thing about butchering goats is not getting hair on the carcase - it just gets everywhere. Goat hair seems to be worse than anything else.

At this point you should remove the head to be able to completely remove the hide.

Next open the abdominal cavity to remove the GIT. Remove kidney, liver, heart, lungs and either keep them (if you want to eat them) or discard. It is good practice to examine the small intestine for Johnes disease (thickened membranes), the liver for abcesses (sign of acidosis/not ideal diet) and the kidney for enterotoxaemia (it wont hold its kidney bean shape, will be mush).

At this point you should hang it in the chiller until the meat firms or sets, or if you are like us in a hurry sometimes or dont have space in the chiller, you can cut it straight up.

The basic cut is a 'six-way'. Basically, you cut the carcase in half down the back bone, then cut just behind the front legs, and just in front of the back leg. So you have six primals: two shoulder and front legs, two ribs and loins, two rear legs and butts.

The you can cut these primals up however you choose. We usually do:

Rear primals - leg roast
Ribs and loins - loin chops (the goat/sheep equivalent of a T-bone - YUM), frenched rib chops (looks like a caveman chop with a bone attached) or sometimes if I'm feeling creative or have a fancy dinner coming up I'll do a rib rack.
Front primal: I usually chop up into casserole cubes, stir fry strips, etc.

I also use some of the meat from the front primal, along with scraps from the others to make mince and sausages.

Bones, guts, scraps etc get thrown into the pigs to dispose of.

Hope that helps, if you have specific questions please ask.

 

[buck-wild-chick]

Very good info username taken

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

excellent info - thanks!!!

 

[username taken]

No problem.

I take mine into the abbatoir for a private kill lately as it means I dont have to spend the time doing it, but I've done plenty of home kills in the past.

When we do a kangaroo we have to do it at home lol dont think the abs would be happy to do that for us, the mobile butcher neither!

 

[Bornacentury2L8]

Thanks! I may have more questions later, but this really helps!

 

[obsessed]

Where do you get a kangaroo? How do they taste?

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

do they taste like chicken? ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha