Let's talk home butchering

What parts of Michigan will he work in

My family has a band saw we use when doing a beef or multiples of lambs or pigs. When doing only one pig, lamb, we usually use the hand saw on the chops, but have used the Sawzall a time or two.

Elk are always boned out, although if we are able to get them home full carcass we have used the Sawzall to split them for cooling before cutting them up.

We also have an electric grinder and cuber. Dad picked up all the stuff at an auction: a small grocer that couldn't make it with the large chain stores. Prior to that we did everything with the hand saw and hand crank grinder.

We do pigs, cows, goats, and sheep in addition to our poultry. At first it was a little weird getting use to the fact our cuts don't look like the butchers. With practice we have gotten better. We started with minimal equipment - a couple of good knives and a hand saw. When we do a cow, we just wait for a cold snap to hang it. Starting with a goat or sheep is much easier.

We do our own butchering. Haven't tackled a cow yet, but we have butchered pigs, goats, rabbits, chickens, and turkeys. I've been very happy with the results. If you want traditional cuts there's a good bit to learn. But it isn't that hard... especially if you have the right tools and the right work space. At the moment we do everything old-school by hand. So a 300 lb. pig is about as big as I'm willing to tackle at the moment. In the future I'm hoping to add one of the bandsaw / grinders to the equipment collection. In the short term you'll want some good knives, big cutting boards, and a decent meat saw (hack saw w/ unpainted stainless blades). I also find having a small fleet of those plastic dish tubs that you can pick up at Walmart for $2 each is very helpful. If you are going to take on critters bigger than a goat then a block and tackle is a good idea. I picked up a kit for deer. It had a spreader, block and tackle, rope, and a scale for a decent price. It's good up to 440 lbs. and I like being able to track weights to help gauge various feeding strategies.

Butchering at home can be a lot of hard work... but it's so worth it to me. And for us butchering day / weekend is an event. I literally have folks call me and ask if they can come help sometimes. Best of luck!

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Patrick Harris
http://ByExample.com

I figure the time spend butchering is one of the highest return jobs I have on the homestead. My tools are simple, a hanging pole, a chain hoist, a small knife for skinning and paring out, and a sawzall for splitting the carcass. Took me a long time to figure out how to make clean chops though. Finally scored when I took to pounding a heavy knife with a wooden mallet through the bone in rib rack and loin to make rib chops and loin chops. Works great!

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http://www.lindsayfarmonsilvercreek.blogspot.com/

My husband does the butchering here of the goats and chickens. Our animals are happy right up to their quick demise. He has a pully with a big hook attached to hang the animal to skin it. He washes his hands. His right hand uses a knife and his left hand peels down the hide. His hands never touch the meat and the hide never touches the meat. When the animal is ready to be hung to age he wraps it in a sheet. It is hung from a home made hook in a building here where critters can't get in. He lets the meat hang about three or four days. We don't have a cooler so we wait until the end of Oct or first week of Nov to butcher. After the meat has aged he uses a hand meat saw to cut the animal up. If we want stew meat he cuts the meat with a sharp knife. We have a hand turned grinder to make ground meat. Ground meat is put in 1 lb amounts in plastic freezer bags and other meat wrapped in freezer paper and then put in plastic bags in the freezer. It is a lot of work but atleast we know what we are eating. Neither of us will eat meat other than what we raise and butcher ourselves.

If your issue is more with the slaughter method than the butcher, many butcher shops will allow you to drop off your carcass for processing. When I was a kid, with smaller animals we always killed, gutted and skinned our own and then dropped them off for cut and wrap. For larger animals we had a slaughter truck come out.

The benefit was we knew the hanging weight and would have our butcher weigh the boxes when we picked them up.

Someday my husband and I plan on doing our own from kill to wrap.