we ate a goat!

[hildare]

yes.. i'm kind of a n00b, but i was so surprised about how it turned out i had to share. 

we have nubians, intending to milk, and dh and a friend smoked one of the weathers with cherry and finished it in the oven.  it was so awesome!  i expected not to like it at all or have a problem with eating a goat that had been a pet days earlier..

just wanted to say that if you've got goaties and were hesitant, don't be!  :)

[Nasubi77]

Question from another noob.  Heck, I'm not even advanced as a noob yet, so I'm pre-noob!

How do you slaughter a goat?  Do you shoot them?  Sorry if it's gross or insensitive, I'm just curious because I want to get goats at some point and raising them for meat would be an option that I want to explore.

[Chicky2]

So glad you liked it!

We eat goat all the time.  It is our staple red meat at this point. 

To dispatch a goat a gun is our method of choice.

[limette]

We're hoping our goat has a boy so we can do this.

[BeckyBird]

That sounds delicious, so now I have to try goat too! Thanks for the tip :)

[hildare]

dh used a gun.  if you've not processed one before, he says it's pretty much exactly like doing a deer, and in most places, there are plenty of hunters around who would let you watch them do that..  dh has a gambril (sp?) that is for deer, it was cheap and invaluable, he says.

you have to bleed it and let the meat rest in a cooler/fridge for a few days afterwards, too.

i am squeamish, i really cannot claim to have assisted in any way whatsoever, much to dh's disappointment, fwiw...  is that bad?

[Caneel]

I have had stewed and curried goat in the Caribbean but never tried it smoked.  Stewed, the flavor is sort of intense, not bad, just much more flavorful than commercial beef.  I would definately try it smoked!

[hildare]

too.. i have a friend who says that in some places, the goats are not castrated.  i think that might make a difference in the flavor...

curried goat sounds great.

[Chicky2]

We've butchered plenty of intact males, and have never had one taste "goaty".  However, we've only had access to bucklings (6mos or under), and I think that is probably why.  I have had goaty tasting milk, though, and will cook with it but not drink it.

Ok, hildare, I don't know how honest you want me to be, but yeah, I think you should be participating.  I really do.  If you are truly in this to be homesteaders, and you are both on board with knowing what it takes, you should be helping.  Here it works like this:  For small animals like rabbits, chickens, guineas that are to be skinned, dh or the oldest 2 dds do it.  Then I get the cooler and the rest is my job.  I'm to rewash, cut up and package the meats.  When we pluck, I help pluck the ducks (we only pluck ducks), and last time stood on the string attached the ducks neck to hold it still for dh to chop off.  For larger animals (deer, goats, pigs) like this past weekend we did 5 feral pigs and it goes like this:  The men shoot, snare, slit the throat, and hang the pigs w/the help of a front end loader.  Then they haul them around back to the butcher station.  They skin and gut (I actually did help skin one this last time), and cut down into quarters.  I get the quarters and wash them and haul them to a table.  Then I start working on cutting them down into either the final cuts (hams, loins, bacon, etc.) or into chunks for grinding.  Then they go in big bowls and pans to my mom in the kitchen for the final washing and packaging and/or in the fridge for later grinding.  After I finish breaking down, I go in to help wash and package.  Meantime, the kids are doing their part by holding hoses, transporting tubs of meat back and forth to my mom, or to the freezers/coolers, washing things, getting drinks, etc. 

I have a friend who struggles with how much she feels she will participate when they move to their farm.  I really don't think it's fair to have the dh do it all.  It's just too much.

Now, all that said, I did NOT start out that way!  I had to do baby steps.  I would not start out by being able to watch the actual dispatching of the animal.  I would have to wait, for instance, until the flopping/twitching stops, which of course is natural.  I can see it happen now and I guess I'm hardened a bit, but I always, always thank the animal for it's life.  I have to feed my family and this is the best way I know how.

[Caneel]

Originally Posted by hildare 

i am squeamish, i really cannot claim to have assisted in any way whatsoever, much to dh's disappointment, fwiw...  is that bad?

I have moved in the opposite direction as Chicky2, I moved to town and therefore away from seeing the real life of farming, hunting and butchering.  I have gone from want to be right in the thick of it when watching the relatives butcher deer to wincing and turning away when I see a fresh kill hanging in recent years.  Honestly, I am really surprised by my feelings.

[Hykue]

Personally, I feel like a person should be willing to undergo any steps required to get meat to their table.  Just to be clear, this is not a judgment on anyone else, it's my own personal goal.  If I'm not willing to do all the things that need doing to eat something, I don't feel like I have the right to eat it.  On the other hand, I'm not quite there yet.  I can't quite bring myself to actually cut off the head/slit the throat/pull the trigger.  Every other step I will do.  Last year I even stood right by my husband while he killed the sheep . . . but I did cry.  I still ate them, though.  And they were tasty.  And all the other steps I helped with fully, carrying them to the place we hang them, hanging them, skinning and gutting, cutting up, freezing, preparing.  Same with chickens, I'll do everything after they stop moving, if my husband will just do that one hardest step.  It's not ideal, but it's the best I've got so far. 

In our situation I'm the primary caretaker, because I'm the only one here in the summers, when all the little ones are being born (or bought) and raised.  I get more emotionally invested.  I try to maintain a bit of distance, but I'm not perfect . . . this is the reason we haven't gotten a pig yet, because they're too cute and smart.  I'm starting to worry that goats might be the same way.  We keep the goats for milk, but we're going to have to do something with all the kids.  If we have a buckling I'll try to make a point of thinking of him as food all along, and we'll see if I can do it when the time comes (let him be killed and eat him, I mean, not actually do him in myself).  I hope I can, because I'm not fooling myself that taking him to auction would be a kinder course of action.

And yes, goat meat (chevon) is very tasty.  It's funny, some people say it tastes stronger that beef, but it tastes much better than beef to me . . . less heavy or something.  Whenever we had it in Morocco, you could tell that the people who prepared it were all coy, trying not to let us know that it was goat, but it was good . . . it was hard to convince them that we knew and didn't mind.

Anyway, I think it's something you need to decide for yourself, if that's bad or not.  We can give our opinions, but we're not you or your conscience!

[QueenEsther]

Oh wow, I have never had goat - in fact, have never butchered an animal, but feel like I will have to get used to this one day in a full fledge farming lifestyle. Honestly, it was interesting reading each post here on this thread, but it literally made me feel faint in some ways. Crazy, I know. And I'm with Hykue: I feel if you aren't willing to do what it takes to actually get the meat to the table in the first place, then maybe you aren't 'worthy' to eat it [or at least, it looks hypocritcal, doesn't it?]. However, I've never been in the situation to do that or not. Possibly soon, though!

[hildare]

a little embarrassed to post yet again, don't want it to be all about meeeee, but:  you are right, those of you who urge me to participate more fully in the pasture-to-table process.  i'm going to work on that, and it's been an internal struggle for me all the while.  otoh, i don't 'get' to do many of the other farm tasks i actually have the yearning to do, such as work in the garden a whole lot.  we have a sort of division of labor thing going on in our household, too, which is something else that's difficult for me.  i woh and my dh is a sahd.  and our dd is under 2 and is high needs/spirited or whatnot...add that to my 40 hour work week plus around an hour-and-a-half commute four days a week... and so my main tasks on the weekends are childcare, housekeeping repair and more childcare.  dd misses me during the week and we do things to work around it, like cosleep, but she pretty much demands full and constant attention when i'm home.  we live too far out in the sticks to have much in the way of help, nor would i sacrifice the dd time to just work on housework etc.  if we did.  so the outdoor/farm/garden tasks fall to dh, as he can get that done on the weekend.  dh does all the cooking during the week, too.  maybe i will be inclined to participate when dd grows a little and is less demanding, or i can take actual days off (gasp).  none of that is an excuse but it sure does make life difficult.  do you guys mind me asking about your particular distribution of labor within your households?  how do you even find the time to do stuff?  and please read that tone as me asking for advice or ideas and not anything defensive or whatever.  right now, if dh didn't do most of that stuff, it wouldn't get done at all.  which makes me unhappy but that's what we have going right now.  tell me how you do it otherwise? 

d

[Chicky2]

Well, my dh works an hour away, and then at least a couple of Saturdays per month.  So most of the daily stuff gets done by myself and the kids.  The big stuff gets done in the evenings and on the weekends (things I can't lift, etc.).  It NEVER seems like enough gets done!  I def. see where you have some time issues I do not have.  That must be really tough sometimes. 

[forestrymom]

Just for the record, you can eat the girls too. I mean, I try to find good homes for my girls, as milkers, but you CAN eat them. And I think you should participate too. I do get attached to our livestock, so I don't actually kill them, but I help skin, gut and cut them up. :)

[Hykue]

Sorry, I didn't see this for a long time . . . I don't know if you were referring to me or not, but I DON'T feel like we get it all done around here, not at all.  The summer is the time when most everything needs doing outside (because in the winter everything comes to a dead stop except watering and feeding the livestock), and my husband is away all summer.  Mostly my version of getting everything done looks more like damage control, to me.  And then I start to feel inadequate and get even less done because it's so depressing . . . so I wish you'd gotten more answers.  No-one has ever answered me either when I ask how they get it all done . . . and I don't even have a kid yet!  Anyway, some days in the summer I have gotten up in the morning, gone outside before breakfast, and worked (only coming inside when I got really hungry) for about 14 hours.  It doesn't happen much, but it has happened.  And it's not like at that point everything was done . . . it just got dark.  I think learning a system that works for you helps - the woman I bought my first sheep from told me that she took about 5 years before she really started to feel like she had it together at their place.  That made me feel a lot better.  I'm only starting my third summer here, so I'm still working things out.  Some things, like watering the garden, I'm learning good systems for - my dad has a cool setup with permanent pipe running to each row in the garden (I'll have it running to each bed), with soaker hoses coming off of it.  When he needs to water, he just opens the valves that lead to the row that needs it, turns on the water and the faucet timer, and walks away.  I like that system, and I plan to adopt it.  I think it's the little things like that that make the difference, overall.

As for the current division of labor, I don't know that I have anything useful to say about that.  I think it's just difficult to find time for kids, work, livestock, and garden.  Some smaller subset is doable, but when all of those need a lot of time, it's just hard.  One of my neighbors seems to have it all together . . . but she's lived at her current place for quite a few years, and her daughter is 12, and her grandson (who she's looking after) is expected to conform to a schedule.  Maybe that's why she can do it, I don't know.  Another neighbor moved in at the same time as us, and they have two young kids, and their farm is always in flux, like ours - they build a fence when they simply can't wait any longer because their horses are always in the road, their house is even slightly messier than mine (and that's really, truly, saying a lot), and they are still working out how to keep their chickens safe from foxes.  It's a work in progress, in other words.

So, I have commiseration, and stories of others in the same boat, but not much in the way of practical advice.  My husband thinks that the key is to come up with systems that require a minimum of work on our part - like the watering system for the garden, maybe automatic waterers for the critters, those kind of things.  We're definitely not there yet.  I'm still hoping someone else will chime in with some kind of magic solution.