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Animal slaughter - not for the squimish

Duetsche_Doggen

Duetsche_Doggen

Well-Known Member
Ok so I'm seriously debating about doing the deed.....but not not sure how to approach with this part. At the moment I'm thinking rabbit or or chicken to raise. Something small until I get my own own property.

Any tips or considerations? I should take prior?
 
mountainfila

mountainfila

Well-Known Member
Re: Animal slaughter

Chickens all the way, I raised everything under the sun and if i had to do it again it would be pigs and chickens only. Chickens can be raised and slaughtered in 8-12 weeks (broilers) also if you raise an all purpose they will give you eggs as well. Slaughtering a chicken is pretty straight forward, chop head off dunk i boiling water for a few mins and then pluck all the feathers off, then gut. Pigs can be bought in spring as weiners and raised over the summer and then butchered in the fall. Pigs do not require alot of space either to raise and if you have alot of fruit markets around that have bins of produce they cant sell, you can ask if you may pick it up for your pigs , they eat everything lol and it makes it cheaper to raise your meat that way, i fed them corn the last month before butchering to give them a nice layer of fat, the best pork i have ever eaten.
 
Duetsche_Doggen

Duetsche_Doggen

Well-Known Member
Re: Animal slaughter

Holy cow ( no pun) thanks Mountain Fila, I found my go to person. :grin: I've been researching for months and toying with the idea of what to raise. I've been reading and watching everything from beheading to slitting throats. I don't want to ruin the meat. :/ I want the best humane way for the bird.

I think I might try pig too instead of cattle. My friend had two herdford cattle for butcher, but I'm not sure I'm at that stage yet. When you dressed your pigs how did you prepare them? Bullet? Again I want stress free and good tasting meat.
 
mountainfila

mountainfila

Well-Known Member
Re: Animal slaughter

Duetsche_Doggen said:
Holy cow ( no pun) thanks Mountain Fila, I found my go to person. :grin: I've been researching for months and toying with the idea of what to raise. I've been reading and watching everything from beheading to slitting throats. I don't want to ruin the meat. :/ I want the best humane way for the bird.

I think I might try pig too instead of cattle. My friend had two herdford cattle for butcher, but I'm not sure I'm at that stage yet. When you dressed your pigs how did you prepare them? Bullet? Again I want stress free and good tasting meat.
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There are many ways to kill chickens but the way i did it was by slitting the throat and let them bleed out. They will flop and twitch for a good few minutes so prepare for that lol, some people cant handle that. I would flip their wings behind their backs and put one foot on them and then put your other foot on the feet/legs and then grab the head stretch it out a bit and slit from one side to the other and by stepping gently on them it is not as dramatic as them flopping all over the yard, and once the major part of the twitching is done i step off and that is it, on to the next one. Also i like to let mine sit in the fridge for a few days before i freeze them, it lets all the muscles relax and the meat when cooked is not tough. Quail are another one i have done but they are very time consuming to clean as you can only fit one finger in the cavity lol but man do they taste good wrapped in bacon and roasted mmmmmmm.

My pigs i had the slaughter house come and get them and take them from me live and then i went and picked up the carcass, my pigs were like dogs to me and if i had of watched someone kill them for me i would not have been able to eat them :( but i did sell a couple pigs to my friend and he shot them in the head with a 22 and then hoisted them up side down so they were hanging and then slit the throat at a certain angle to cut the jugular but i didnt watch him shoot them, i came out of the house after they were shot and helped gut and then burn the hair off, what a stink that was. Every one of my animals that gave their lives to feed me and my family and friends of course, were given a fantastic life so that is half the battle right there. Just dont get attached or you wont be killing or eating anything hahahaha
 
Duetsche_Doggen

Duetsche_Doggen

Well-Known Member
When you let them sit in the fridge...do you hang them upside down to drain the blood? Did you have a specialized refrigerator for that? How long did you leave them in the fridge 2-3 days? Hmmm.....I might have to give quail a shot. That sounds so good lol! What's a good chicken breed to start with?

Oh ok....I'm not sure I have a slaughter house around me. So....I might have to learn that too.....problem would be set up and tools. I've watched tons of youtube videos on the procedure and the ways for dressing the pigs. The one you mentioned your friend doing was the most common. Some would even preheat a tub to make the hair removal easier. So you burned the hair is that easier? That's what I read to give your animals a good life is the best thing you can do for them. Ha! I'll try but there are no guarantees.

I just want to be more self suffcient now that I'm in an area that allows livestock, like the food I consume I want to know that my meat was "natural" without paying an arm and leg for "organic" labels.
 
ruthcatrin

ruthcatrin

Well-Known Member
We've considered it, and we might actually DO it in the future, but I have my doubts about being able to do the gutting and cleaning (which is part of why I don't hunt for all that I love venison). I could kill them (as long as I didn't get attached), and eat them, but I'm not sure about the in between lol.

Actually we considered Muskovey ducks, but they'd not be a "raise for a season and kill" bird, they'd be a "keep a pair or couple females and eat the eggs and slaughter the rest) sort of bird.
 
Duetsche_Doggen

Duetsche_Doggen

Well-Known Member
Ruth my friend has Muscovy ducks and that was my first thought because they are a meat duck. My problem is I don't have nearby water source for them. :(
 
thelady_v2010

thelady_v2010

Well-Known Member
my husband is boar hunting next week and he plans to butcher the meat himself, which sadly means some will go to waste as it will be his 1st time. But, you have to learn somewhere!

I can't wait until I can have chickens. I would do it so I could have eggs as well.

We were looking up how to train a catch dog, because he toyed with the idea of taking Menace (that idea has been nixed for right now). We both decided there was no way either of us could train him using a real pig and letting him have it. My husband said "it would be like torturing it!". This is the guy who took advanced combat life saving where pigs and goats were involved. If PETA ever learned how the military teaches treating wounds in combat......
 
Duetsche_Doggen

Duetsche_Doggen

Well-Known Member
Lol, PETA can't be helped. Best of luck to on the boar hunt! Gotta let me know how that goes! Don't be afraid to post pictures :grin:
 
ruthcatrin

ruthcatrin

Well-Known Member
Duetsche_Doggen said:
Ruth my friend has Muscovy ducks and that was my first thought because they are a meat duck. My problem is I don't have nearby water source for them. :(
Click to expand...

Thats the thing with Muskcovies, they don't need water the way the rest o f the ducks do, apparently a kiddy pool will do it for them.
 
raechiemay

raechiemay

Well-Known Member
I'm no help but eventually I'll have land with a couple cows for slaughter. I like my beef hormone free. :)
 
mountainfila

mountainfila

Well-Known Member
Duetsche_Doggen said:
When you let them sit in the fridge...do you hang them upside down to drain the blood? Did you have a specialized refrigerator for that? How long did you leave them in the fridge 2-3 days? Hmmm.....I might have to give quail a shot. That sounds so good lol! What's a good chicken breed to start with?

Oh ok....I'm not sure I have a slaughter house around me. So....I might have to learn that too.....problem would be set up and tools. I've watched tons of youtube videos on the procedure and the ways for dressing the pigs. The one you mentioned your friend doing was the most common. Some would even preheat a tub to make the hair removal easier. So you burned the hair is that easier? That's what I read to give your animals a good life is the best thing you can do for them. Ha! I'll try but there are no guarantees.

I just want to be more self suffcient now that I'm in an area that allows livestock, like the food I consume I want to know that my meat was "natural" without paying an arm and leg for "organic" labels.
Click to expand...

I just layed them on a tray , like a cookie sheet, they were in bags, i just had a regular fridge nothing fancy. The blood gets drained as soon as you slit the throat, after that not much blood comes out. As far as breeds, i had a mixture of them, as they were my egg layers, i did have access to a hatchery close by so i got a mix of barred rocks, sex links, red rocks and a black breed i cant remember the name and i picked up a few leg horns and jersey giants from the auction. When i wanted to do meat birds i got broilers, a few of us went in and bought 150, to much in my opinion after raising them, lost about half due to cold so they huddle and squish the ones on the bottom, rodents absconding with my chicks etc. Also if your thinking of doing turkeys as well, they must be kept away from the chickens, chickens carry something that is highly contagious to turkey chicks, turkeys are very high maintence as chicks, i never had any luck with them and they are very dumb birds right up there with guinea fowl, pea brains hahahaha.

Yes but think of trying to hoist a 300-400lb pig into a barrel of boiling water, the water has to be boiling hot. The skin is so tough that its taken off anyway, so burning the hair off is just easier i think, plus dunking cleans the pig as well, we just hosed him off with hot water from the hose and then burned the hair of with a torch and then gutted.
 
mountainfila

mountainfila

Well-Known Member
Duetsche_Doggen said:
Yeap! and actually have REAL milk. I cannot believe its illegal to sell raw milk here, in VA.
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Its illegal every where, we had a big court battle in BC a couple years ago cause a farmer was selling raw milk. So the way the farmers got around that was to let people buy a cow, or become half owner or something like that, on their farm, so now that person is paying the farmer a monthly fee to house and feed that cow, so technicaly they are not buying the milk from the farmer, cause they own the cow, i thought that it was a very cool idea
 
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