Phyllis Hobson - Butchering Livestock at Home

by Phyllis Hobson

Congratulations! You are about to embark on one of the most challenging and rewarding aspects of producing your own food.

If you are ambitious enough to raise livestock, there are several reasons why you want to butcher your meat at home. You want to be sure the meat you put in your freezer is the meat you spent all that time raising. And you want it well taken care of every step of the way. You want better meat sugar-cured hams with the sweet flavor that only long, slow curing can produce, lean ground beef, and tender, juicy steaks. You would like to save money. You figure you can skin and cut and wrap your meat for a lot less than the local butchering plant will charge.

You are right. You can. Also, you can produce meat more suited to your taste than any professional butcher can mass-produce. You are the only one who knows just how long your beef should be aged or how much pepper you like in your sausage. And you are the only one who really cares enough to go to the extra trouble to do it your way.

There are other reasons for butchering your meat at home. More and more, you want to accept responsibility for your own life. If you choose to eat meat, maybe you are ready to accept the responsibility for butchering it. It is a satisfying decision.

There is work involved, but butchering meat at home is not difficult. Anyone can do it. All it takes is an animal to butcher, a certain amount of strength (but not a lot if you have the right equipment), a few tools, and the right environment. This bulletin tells you how to butcher rabbits, poultry, sheep, goats, calves, hogs, and beef cattle. It also tells you how to prepare and store the meat you produce.

Lets start with the animal. Select the best you have or can get. It is disappointing to spend the time and energy required to butcher an animal, then find the quality of the meat is less than you expected. If you want good meat you have to start with a healthy, well-fed, good-looking animal. It should be bright-eyed, glossy-coated (or feathered), and in top shape for its type.

Pamper your animal for a week or two before butchering. Everything you have heard about contented cows goes for hogs and sheep, too. If possible, keep the animal in a special pen. Keep the stall clean and comfortable. Provide the best feed and hay. Keep the water fresh; you might even put a little molasses in it.

All this pampering is not nonsense. It really makes for better-tasting, more nutritious meat. An animal that is relaxed and contented before butchering has all its chemicals in balance. An animal that is agitated or uncomfortable will have its life-protecting chemicals flowing. The result will be tougher, off-flavor meat that will not keep as well.

The day before you plan to butcher, take out all the grain and hay to give the animals stomach time to empty. It is easier by far, especially for a beginner, to butcher an animal that is as cleaned out as possible. Keep the water bucket full, though, and put in an extra dollop of molasses so the animal will drink more.

Next, select the right environment. There are only two absolutes. The butchering area must be clean and cold. Within those limitations, you can adapt almost any location. A refrigerated, antiseptically clean room is ideal, but a shed with a freshly scrubbed table is fine. If the weather is right, you can make do with a sturdy tree limb for hoisting the larger animals and a clean tree stump for cutting.

A cold temperature is important. The carcass must be chilled quickly and kept cold. All meat, except pork and veal, must be aged up to a week or two at 32 to 35F.

If you live in a cold climate, you can provide the proper temperature by butchering large animals in late fall when the temperature has dropped to just above freezing and is likely to stay there for at least a week. Small animals and poultry can be butchered at any time because they can be chilled and aged in a refrigerator. In warmer climates, or in an emergency, large animals can be cut into quarters and chilled in a barrel of ice or a spare refrigerator.

In addition to cold temperatures, you will need some equipment and materials. You will not need all of these tools for every butchering job. If you are butchering a chicken, you obviously will not need a gun or hoist. But if you are going to butcher a variety of animals, this is the minimum equipment you will need.

.22 rifle or a .38 caliber pistol and ammunition

Hooks (or a chain or rope) for hanging the animal

Block and tackle or a hoist for large animals

Good, sharp butcher knives (as many as you can assemble)

Knife sharpener

Hardwood (or hard plastic) cutting board or surface

Meat grinder for making ground meat or sausage

Meat saw

Meat cleaver

Large kettle, tub, or barrel for collecting wastes

Empty gallon-size plastic bottle for chickens or a killing cone

Hot water for scalding chickens or hogs

Lots of clean, cold water

Plastic apron

Thin plastic gloves

Plastic or newspapers to protect floor, if necessary

You can make substitutions in order to make do with what you have or can borrow. You do not need a fancy cutting board, for instance; an old kitchen table will do. If you cannot rent or borrow a meat saw or meat cleaver, you can substitute a clean, well-sharpened hacksaw from your workshop.

The meat grinder can be a hand-cranked food chopper with a meat blade, an attachment to your kitchen mixer, or a food processor.

Start with clean, soap-and-water-scrubbed tools and keep a bucket of hot water nearby to clean the knives as you go along. Keep the knife sharpener handy, too. Knives get dull quickly when they keep bumping into bones. There is nothing more frustrating than a knife that will not cut when you need it.

Speaking of frustration, be sure you have everything ready before you start. You do not want to kill or stun your animal, then discover you have no way to hang it. Make a list of the tools you will need for your job, then assemble them, and check your list before you start.

Now comes the hardest part of the whole project for most of us. If you like animals, you found it is fun to raise them. The end result a freezer full of meat is rewarding. The skinning and cutting operations are not difficult. But even experienced hunters sometimes have difficulty killing an animal they know.