For our farm and our resources, grass fed and finished is not always economical, but we use it as much as possible. If we were raising a few lambs for ourselves, I would definitely go with the grass only plan! You're thinking about raising some of your own meat this year! Wonderful idea! The next step is to pick which animal to raise and pigs are at the top of the list. Thinking about getting into sheep but want a bit more information on what raising sheep is really like?
I'm talking about the full scoop, both good and bad, from someone who knows about sheep. I can Skip to content Nothing beats the flavor of home grown lamb! And nothing can beat the price either! The weight and body shape of the lamb at this age will be determined by genetics. Certain breeds of lambs will finish at a lighter weight than other breeds of lambs.
Any stress will slow growth, as will lack of appropriate nutrition! If these lambs were born on your farm, then this is easy to keep track of! Body condition indicates lamb finish Body condition is the best indicator of telling when a lamb is finished. Continue Reading. The loin can end up as a lot of different things. You can make your loin double chops, which is basically a face cut off of the entire front side and you can cut those in half for a tiny little loin porterhouses.
You can also debone the entire center spine from the lamb and once again tie it, roast it, and do a lot of very cool, interesting things with it. The spring lambs tend to be a bit larger and will give you more meat and fat, more chops out of your loin.
So, depending on the time of year that you procure your lamb, you might end up with a larger lamb or a smaller lamb that will then determine how much yield you will get out of it. So here's the breakdown of the loin. Later we're going to take the loin onto the bandsaw and see what type of cuts we can get out of it. Here now we're going to tackle the legs. So the first thing we want to do with the legs is separate them and treat them individually.
So what I'll do is make a little incision at the center of the legs, just to separate the meat and show me where the center of the hip bone is. Then with a nice couple whacks with the cleaver we're going to separate the bottom of the hip itself, so that we can then start to cut away the sirloin and the rest of the leg from that hip. We're going to start to peel one leg away from the curved bones in that hip, which, you just basically want to stay on the edge of, just to make sure that you keep as much meat on the cut as possible.
And I like to make a little guideline down the back of the spine to where the tail is so that I can designate where one leg stops and the other leg begins. So I'm just working around every little curved bone, trying to keep all the meat into the leg and the sirloin itself and there you have one side of the leg completely removed. Whole animal butchery is different in the way that you actually have two chances when you're working with a whole animal, so one leg of the lamb can turn into stew and kebabs and stir fry, whereas the other leg can turn into a roast, you can do some really incredible things, and just have a wide range of options.
Next we're going to take a look at the leg and find the separation between the shank and the leg itself by making, just again, a tiny, little incision and here I'm using the gravity by bending the heavier part of the leg away from me and holding on to the shank which then tends to expose exactly where I'm cutting.
So here we're going to trim off some of the internal fat and fascia, some glands as well, that might get in the way when tying a roast. So in the leg there's a pretty sizable glad that should definitely be removed before you start cooking.
It just won't provide us any nutritional benefit or value. To then expose the femur bone, we started by making a nice, long cut down one side of the bone and then we start slowly working down and around the edge of the femur bone, to then free it up away from the inside of the leg. Then you'll be left with the kneecap at the bottom, which needs to come off.
And now we're going to just trim away some of the fat that may not contribute to the particular cut that we're making, but definitely needs to be saved and used for any sort of grind or any other fat application you might have. And then we're going to go and trim away some of the fat on the outside, just to give us a nice, lean look to our lamb. Butchering tends to be more of a reductive process, like someone who works on ice sculptures would do. They have a big block and then by taking away they then form something beautiful.
So you're trying to take away as little as possible, but also know when it's necessary to take something away to give you the best result possible. So now with the other leg we're going to take a bit of a different approach. We're still going to remove the shank once again, we're also going to take away anything that's unnecessary: fat, fascia, any sort of glands. The thing we're gonna do differently with this one is instead of keeping all the muscles intact to then form a roast, we're going to separate the muscles from each other so that we can then judge which muscles will be used for which purpose, be it stir fry, stew or any particular type of roast or smaller cut that we want to use a leaner muscle for.
So we're going to trim away some of that fascia and get away anything that would be intrusive to what we're trying to do with this, specific lamb. So after that fat is gone we have our seams exposed, so you take one seam and start to follow it down. Here is the bottom round, which is great for our kebabs or our stew.
Also if you're cutting against the grain you get that really good stir fry that you're looking for as well. I'm basically just working my way around the lamb and removing the separate parts, like the piece of filet that runs through the sirloin of the lamb that's considered the filet mignon on the lamb, it's very tender. So next I'm pulling out the top round, so just go slow, go shallow, follow a seam and eventually the muscle will peel away from the rest of the leg.
So next I'm separating the rest of the large muscles from the femur and pulling the bone itself out and we can start cleaning up some of these major muscles and putting them to their respective applications. So I'm now going to take this cut and trim off any silverskin and I'm going to cut it into more manageable sections and we're going to turn this piece into stew.
So we're going to do some nice, good-sized chunks that will bread down, get a little bit smaller once they're cooked over low and slow heat and end up with some really nice, meaty, fall-apart stew. After you have your muscles all cleaned up and exposed, it's great to take a look at the striations of the muscle and see what direction the muscle is heading into.
If you're doing stir fry you definitely want to cut against the striations to give you a smaller grain at the end of the day. What it will do is contribute to the tenderness and have it cook a little bit easier. The contrast between lamb and mutton is usefully compared to the difference between veal and beef. Smallholders are often unsure of how to deal with breeding ewes that have passed their prime. Far better is using the ewe for mutton.
This is undoubtedly her fate anyway if you send her to market, but she will have been shunted hither and yon by strangers en route to slaughter. The best option is to take her yourself to the abattoir for a quick, less stressful end. For my money, mutton is definitely a meat for winter; those rich stews are hearty and filling, whether enhanced by ras-el -hanout, cinnamon, dates and pine nuts for a Moroccan supper served with cous cous, or traditionally casseroled with homegrown leeks, carrots and celery with a mound of pureed celeriac and potato mash and a side splash of crab apple and mint jelly.
Smallholders are in the perfect position to add hogget and mutton to their meat stocks, ringing the changes of taste and texture just through the simple application of time. Debbie Kingsley farms in Devon and runs courses.
See www. Published: AM November 9, Updated: AM August 19, Meat from sheep includes hogget and mutton as well as lamb.
The animals are gentle, trusting and innocent. On the other hand, I sometimes remind myself, to put things in perspective, of how the omnivores like chickens and hogs will pounce on any prey and gobble it up in a flash. We are all part of Nature, as you mentioned, not above it. A lovely and open sharing on the topic. Ignore the naysayers. I am starting to settle in and get to know the farmer, the critters, the trees, and the land. I love it here, and I know that mother has a lot to teach me through such a magically mundane place!
I found this article because I expect to slaughter our bucklings we have 5 this year! I am a … Read more ». Thank you so much for your experience with killing and eating the animals you raised. I have never had to deal with that, but I still remember watching an anime called Silver Spoon, where the main character took extremely good care of the runt of the litter a pig only to know that it would eventually be killed for its meat.
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By Katherine Dunn on October 15, Katherine Dunn. Sign up for your Modern Farmer Weekly Newsletter. Notify of. Most Voted Newest Oldest. Inline Feedbacks. Sasha Banks-Louie. View Replies Holly LaRochelle. Stacey Morse. Thoughtful, caring, educated, and well written article. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. View Replies 1. View Replies 7. View Replies 2. Thank you for this beautiful look into reality. Love and honor have been clearly shown.
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