Slaughtering an animal

Killing an animal is easy but can you process it?
Do you know how to hang it?
Can you skin it without wrecking the meat or skin?
Can you then slice it up neat an all?
What about getting the meat off the bone?
Can you do all of the above the clean and easy way?

And
Can you tan the hide?
Is it something you can just get in and do and do quickly
or will it be stumbling along?

I presume a few here might be old hands but what about the rest
Have you done it enough times to be quick and confident?

Last bloke I let shoot a deer assured me he was experienced at skinning gutting and processing!
Took him 4 hours to skin it should be a 20-30min job
and a further 2 hours to gut it properly and that's a three minute job at most!

And the biggest problem was the mess he made, bloody hell what a mess!

If you have not learnt this skill it might help to get some actual practice!

I have been doing it since I was 12yo or 10yo if you count chickens!

Never really considered it a skill until I realised most people had never done it!

 

The deer was just an example
Have you dressed out rabbits, sheep, chickens, dogs, cats what about goats or pigs!
Plenty of dairy cows or there used to be .


The animal don't really matter it is the ability to utilise it properly that counts!
Most people wreck there first few kills and waste the meat etc
If you and your family are hungry wasting food should be avoided!
No need to waste any of the meat!


I have seen a pair of hunters return with a kill in the morning, skin and gut early then hang until the afternoon
then bone it out, slice it up, vacuum pack it slice up and marinate the bits in a home made marinade then about midnight dry the strips over
the hot coals of the campfire so by sunrise it was all jerky!
24 hours from kill to esky and jerky!

Bones were boiled until the meat leftuvers fell off and used as a stock for the next nights deer stew!
All done in the bush with 12v power from a vehicle!
9 spectators watched and learnt!

Nothing really special just a little kit and experience!

 

So you are an old hand at it good to go!

Yes a lot of dairy will die off from mastitis but not all, lots a calfs and heifers will survive

 

Not always! about half don't have problems
well that is my experience anyway! and that's limited to about 2 years working in/around a dairy
Farmer reckoned if at the first sign of mastitis you set the dogs to chase them they would come good after a good run!
true or not I don't know!

 

i'm talking about dairy cows left alone after some disaster that weren't being milked twice a day, they will die very quickly.

Yep I am talking about those stubbon cows that wont come to the dairy with the rest!
or do the bolt or just wont cooperate!

 

Small game is probably most practical and is both extremely nourishing and easy for an inexperienced slaughterer both to dispatch and to clean and dress. I'd suggest anyone serious about this should begin by obtaining pheasants and rabbits dead, but not skinned/plucked or drawn, and just give preparing them for the table a try. There are instructions in most old cookery books and now it the time to learn, not post-disaster! You can then progress to shooting or trapping your own and dispatching them. Better to know how you're going to deal with something *before* you kill it I say!!!

 

Since by hunting you basicaly kill the animal with your weapon already , I'll focus on the farm animals.
With small birds it can be as simple as grabbing it by the body and twisting its neck, or grabbing head and body and violently dislocating one from the other. However this doesn't work with chickens. Chicken will simply untwist and then run away. So the best tactic is a butcher's meat cleaver. You might want to tie the bird up, unless you want chicken to run around headless.

Most small rodents and mammals like rabbits are effectively put down with both of the above methods. Many people prefer the "pulling" internal decapitation method because it involves much less blood. In the wild you don't want too much blood on you or around your shelter or predatory animals might follow the scent and end up on your doorstep.

Larger animals are harder to slaughter. Obviously you can't wrestle them to decapitation, and it's said that animals who died fearful taste differently. Basicaly what organised farmers do is either get a perforating gun, which is like a gun only it has just one shot that hit the animal's head like a slingshot. Alternatively you could use a gun with single-bullet ammunition at point blank distance. Others confine the animal in a small space to avoid it thrashing about and pierce the jugular vein or the carotid artery at the animal's neck and let it bleed out and pass out.

 

My mom worked as a butcher/meat cutter for many years and has taught me a lot about how to do this. Honestly, I have never done much of it myself in practice though. I have just watched other people doing it. I think it is probably an area where my survivalist training is lacking and I should investigate more.

 

For chickens neck stretching is the go!
Growing up we had plenty of chickens, my job was to kill by stretching the neck and then hang it by its feet!
and ripping the guts out! but that stopped when my hands grew too big and I kept splitting the carcass's!

Our process was to catch, stretch and hang! after 1hour hanging I would take then down and quickly chop the blood filled head off! easy neat and clean!
Sisters plucked and I gutted then oldest sister gutted! worked well and we could knock of 60-70 birds in about 4 hours!

 

As for deer, I have seen it done many times, but never done it myself. The example that I have to go by is really good, he knew what he was doing. Still, would be quite a task. I have had two goes as chickens. And we were just winging it. I thought the feather picking rather tedious the first time, so I decided to skin them the second time. Geez, don't do that!! Hard work!! We did finally get done though, finally!! Quail are a piece of cake. Less than 5 minutes and they are ready for the freezer. I am a pro with quail!

 

Maybe I can butcher a chicken or bird especially the small birds. With big game, I have no experience and I probably would just ruin the meat especially with deer and cattle which have a method of cutting so we can come up with parts like brisket, chops, loin, etc. In times of calamity and I am left with the chore of butchering a game animal, I would probably pass it on to somebody else and just give my opinion on the butchering.

By the way, when the bird is preserved by smoking, the meat becomes dried and tough so it is not good to eat especially for those with false denture. From my experience, the preserved bird is tougher than beef jerky. In some provinces here, some rural folks smoke duck meat and hang it by the kitchen. And then they cook it by boiling in pineapple juice until the meat becomes tender before frying it with a special sauce. But I'm sorry because I do not know the exact procedure.

 

I've never killed an animal or skinned one. Basically know nothing about the questions you asked. Its very unfortunate. I need to learn now, and I supposed it'd be the best time. I remember as a kid watching my papa skin deer's in his back yard. He always had his deer heads mounted on the wall. I wish I had learned more from him. I supposed I've always been a bit insecure about killing animals. I know its necessary, but I don't know how cut out I am for the job.

 

I don't have a lot of experience in that way. I've cleaned and skinned the 6 or 7 deer I've taken, and butchered maybe 20-30 chickens. We have goats and chickens now, but aren't planning on eating the first batch: they're all laying hens and little Nigerian/Miniature Silkie does. Next year, though, we're going to get a steer to raise and either a couple of young Boer goats or just weaned porkers, and I'm sure that's going to be an education come butchering time!

I know there's a bunch of yootoob videos out there, so I'm thinking now's the time to at least watch a couple of 'em.

 

I have a full set of butcher tools and have butchered deer, hogs, calves, one pain in the butt bull, rabbits both wild and domestic, squirrels, one gator, frogs, fish, never done a goat but helped with some, quail both wild and domestic, chickens, ducks, geese, doves... My Dad thought this was an important skill to have at least a general working knowledge of. I can also skin for pelts and cape a deer for mounting.

It really isn't hard. Once I have a deer skinned I quarter it and then work from there. I gut and field dress it in the woods. That lightens the carcass and keeps your meat clean. If I can I like to hang them for a while so the meat ages but if I can't get some locker space I butcher immediatly. Our November and December are way too warm to let the meat sit.

We generally didn't butcher the big cattle or bigger hogs. A butcher has the coolers for tender aging the meat, power meat saws, grinders and will even make sausage for you. That works a lot better. We did butcher calves and smaller hogs for BBQs and freezer meat though. Dairy bulls were commonly used for this. We let our calves grow and would send off to the butcher when they weighed a lot more than the BBQ calves. A dairy has no use for bull calves and sells them really cheap. We would bottle feed them and fatten them up or put them on a milk cow for a little while. The meat of a sucking calf is veal and is very tender and good eating.

 

Now that you mention it, I don't have a front-loader or even a tractor or skid-steer to mount it on! What we do have (I just did a Google search for the Twin Falls area) are several mobile butchers who come to your property, lead ol' Bessie or Mr. Whiskers into the trailer and bring them out again a couple hours later wrapped in white paper and already chilled for the freezer. I have no idea how much this adds to the per-pound cost of the meat; that's just one more thing this re-located big city couple have to research!

I do have a friend from one of my classes, a young lady who -- along with her boyfriend -- doesn't eat much meat except for game they take during hunt season and keep on their property. She has a meat grinder (I think one that runs of a power take-off from a big mixer) and the usual complement of boning knives, saws, etc; she says just the two of them can butcher (in addition to gutting and field-dressing) an elk without too much time and trouble. Next time I see her, I'm going to ask if Dawn and I can watch when they do an elk this fall; that would probably be the best education.

 

if you get someone to butcher for you try and get it vacuum sealed instead of freezer paper...you can thank me later. it can last way longer and its higher quality coming out of freezer.

 

quick freezing before going into chest freezer

 

ground and put into the tubes



deer canned with texas pete...you cant get that goodness from any store...lol

 

Yes I do .

 

Typically deer are gutted in the field to save weight. The fore knees are broken and the tendon stripped about half way to the hoof. The scent patch removed from the hind legs and a slot cut between the bone and the tendon of the hind legs. The toggle of the forelegs is slipped through the hole of the hind legs and you have a backpack. The hind legs provide a shelf to carry your rifle on. If you're not wearing rain gear it can get a little messy. After one such hunting trip, Mom exclaimed, "My son just had his first period."

Moose are skinned and at least quartered using the hide as a tarp. Skin it just past half way, remove as much meat as possible before rolling it over and finishing the skinning and butchering. If you had a pack or you were going to fly it out it would be boned in the field as well to save weight.

I have skinned a caribou in ten or fifteen minutes. If I wanted to save the hide I'd take twice the time. Tanning would be a great skill to have.

Fish or fowl I'd get the job done. I've steaked or filleted many a fish. I used to make earrings out of fish ears.

 

The truth is, when I go to the zoo, I just see a bunch of exotic meat I want to kill, butcher and eat.

I like hunting and butchering, you know who you are killing and why.

Yes elk, deer, rabbits, squirrels, coyotes, turkeys, chickens, frogs, fish. Did I say frogs? I love frogs!

 

do you eat yote?

 

Bob cat and armadillo makes Bob Dillon bugers