Who here has ever participated in the slaughter..

[itsmeCindi]

....or butcher of a full sized cow? Can it be done by a few people, what equipment is needed, any helpful hints?

[egon]

Couple of people should be all it takes. Three or four are handier. One can do it.
Gotta kill it .22 works just fine.
hoist to lift it up and spread the back legs
sharp knives
meat saw
Meat grinder with atachments for making hamburger or sausage if so inclined.
sausage casings or clean a lot of intestines
perferable to do it in cool weather or have a clean enclosed area for cutting up the meat.
wrapping paper and pen for labelling.
freezer for storing or just put it on a spit and have a community roast.

Lot easier to take it to an independant butcher and then go pick up the wrapped frozen meat.

Egon

[pbenven]

My father and I slaughtered a Simmental steer a few years back. It wasn't the most pleasant thing I've done.

We tied it with short rope to a stake behind the barn. We shot it between the eyes from a distance of about 2 feet with a 30-30. It went down immediately and after checking for reflexes (knife point against the eye) we cut the artery in its neck.

We eviscerated it - carefully. Because my father is Italian, he was very interested in the organ meat (stomach, liver, kidneys, heart, intestines).

Next we poked the knife through the flap of skin between the back leg and the achilles tendon, inserted two large hooks and attached it to the loader of a tractor. We then lifted the whole carcass up off the ground. We started skinning it from the back legs, working our way down/around. We just let the skin fall around the head and once we had skinned as much as we wanted, we sawed off the head/skin "package."

We quartered it, wrapped each piece in cheese cloth and took it to a butcher - the main reason to have it properly aged.

The whole ordeal took about an hour.

[Bird]

Paul, when I was a kid, we did the job in a very similar manner, except dad used a .22 to kill them, cut their throats to bleed, and then we skinned them on the ground. We'd roll them as close to being on their backs as possible (put a board on either side to keep them on their back), split the skin down the inside of each leg and rear end to chin, then cut and peel the skin as far as possible down each side. The job was always done under a strong limb on a big tree, so after skinning everything except right down the back, we attached the hooks on a single tree to the hind legs and hoisted them with block and tackle, finished the skinning, and very carefully gutted them, saving the heart, liver, and kidneys.

We skinned them right up to the ears and horns and sold the hide. Dad also cut the tongue out, and after cutting the head off, split the skull with an axe to get the brains.

Then we just sawed the carcass in half, backed the truck under them to let the halves down onto a cloth pad and took them to the "locker plant" where they were aged, cut up, packaged, and frozen.

And I have no intention of ever doing it again. [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[egon]

Bird:

"And I have no intention of ever doing it again"

Guess that's why I don't hunt although we have lots of deer on our land. We too used a single tree but used a tripod and wire stretcher for the lifting. Trees with branches strong enough were pretty scarce where I grew up. Later on Farmhands were used for the lifting. We didn't use the Brains. The annulus and urinary tracts were also tied off first thing.

Egon

[Stoneheartfarm]

When I was a little boy, my Mom and Dad used to do it by themselves. You just have to think the process through before you start. Now, we just load stuff up and take it 5 miles to the butcher who does all that for us.

Steve

[itsmeCindi]

This is something I have been considering asking my husband to do, but the part about taking it to have it cut up kind of put me off. Does it save much doing the slaughtering and skinning yourself?

[Stoneheartfarm]

Last one we had done had a $40.00 or $50.00 kill fee. Spread that over several hundred pounds of meat and it's 2 or 3 cents per pound. Chickens we can have done for about $1.00 per bird. Chopped, plucked, cleaned and wrapped. Plus, if you send it out, you know it will be hung right.

Steve