Process them!

We finally did it. We worked up the nerve to slaughter our first kid goat. Saturday we thought out our list of supplies. A sharp new knife. Rope to hang the carcass. A bucket of water for rinsing hands and knife. A hose to wash off the inevitable hair. A fan to control flies. A wheelbarrow full of hay to catch blood and entrails. The .22 rifle and 4 cartridges (after my taking 3 shots to kill a raccoon last fall I wasn't about to depend on my marksmanship).

While feeding the goats a special meal of hay and oats, I snuck up on my victim. I this case it was 12's kid. He was the biggest of this years kids. 26" in girth, which translates to roughly 61lbs of goat it's amazing he was only born in January. A lot of milk grass and hay went into that goat.

While he was nibbling at some oats with the other goats, I grabbed him by the rear leg, picked him up and carried him to a stall. Many of our goats are used to being handled. He wasn't one of those. So he fought and struggled. Somehow he gouged my arm drawing blood. The first round goes to him.

I locked him in a barn stall for later. Our plan was to get up at about 6 and do the deed while it was still cool. Cool means 77 degrees at dawn in Texas this time of year. So naturally we got started at the crack of 10am. We had watched a few YouTube videos about goat skinning. This helped prepare us for what was to come.

We lured the herd to the driveway which needed trimming, one of the few areas we have left where there is come green grass, and locked them in. They are used to this, we do it several times a year so I can avoid mowing it and they get full bellies. A win win for everyone. So with the goats out of the way I was free to proceed with:

Step 1. Kill a goat. This is something I had never done before. Well, not intentionally. It required some thinking through. How would I immobilize the kid? Since he doesn't like to be handled, he isn't likely to stand there while I put a bullet in his head. I opted to snap a collar on him and tie a lead to the bars of the stall. Then I put down a dish of grain thinking he would bend down to eat the grain while doing that I could take aim. However, he was too nervous to eat. Making sure that Kristi was safe in case of an errant shot, I aimed and fired while he was in a quiet moment. The first shot was a good one and he died instantly. I loaded him on the wheelbarrow and took him to the back yard for:

Step 2. String him up. I had prepared an area for the skinning by throwing a rope over a suitable tree branch. I used an old broom handle to mount the carcass. A cut is made between the bone and the Achilles tendon and the broom handle is inserted into that cut. This makes it easy to spread the goats legs and make all the parts more accessible. The pole is then tied up at the ends to the rope and the goat is raised to a good working height. I positioned the wheelbarrow under the goat to catch the blood and offal. That will make a good addition to our compost.

Step 3. Bleeding the goat. I made a cut in the goat's neck and fortunately I got the jugular on the first try. The blood began to drain into the hay in the wheelbarrow. I removed the head and let it fall into the wheelbarrow too. A layer of hay went over this.

Step 4. Skinning the goat. This takes some time and since this was my first time, it took a while. We didn't look at the clock before we started, but by the times the photos were taken, the whole process took from about 10 am to 11:07 to complete. Not bad for a couple of newbies!

I used a new, very sharp Chicago Cutlery 5" boning knife. This knife has a high carbon blade which holds an edge better and is easier to sharpen than a stainless steel blade. This is the knife that Chicago Cutlery made its reputation on. First thing I did was cut all the way around the anus.

I pulled out a few inches of the colon and put a tie wrap around the tube. I cut off the anus itself and put it in the wheelbarrow. That part has a lot of bacteria and could taint the carcass. With that done I can proceed to skinning. I cut up the inside of the legs under the skin, taking care not to cut the meat. Then across the bottom through where the anus was. I removed the tail.

At this point I could alternate pulling downward on the skin and loosening with the knife until I was basically turning the goat inside out. There was some fiddly work at the legs and neck and then the skin was off. Kristi was spraying the carcass with water to help remove hair.

Step 5. Disemboweling. This is another one of those processes that isn't really fun, but it's a part of home butchering. Working from the hole where the anus was, I slid the knife in between the anal opening and the membrane and slit down exposing the innards. There were a LOT of innards. This was a well fed goat. working along the backbone I cut and snipped all the spots that were holding the viscera in place. Suddenly out it all came PLOP into the wheelbarrow. I had to reach way down inside to cut through the trachea and a couple more snips and it was all out.

Aside: We are very interested in making our own goat cheeses. There are age-old stories about shepherds storing the mornings milking in goats stomachs and, by the time they're ready to drink the milk, all they get is a fine liquid substance (whey). As the shepherd traveled he would notice that the milk turned to chunks. The chunks tasted good and the love of cheese was born. Goats stomachs contain natural enzymes that comprise rennet. Rennet supplies bacteria that helps an unweaned kid goat to digest his mothers milk. Rennet is necessary in cheese making. What this is leading up to is that when the stomachs (4) of the goat were removed we collected a nice piece of the fourth stomach to be made into rennet for our cheese-making. At this moment it has been cleaned and is heavily salted in a bowl to dry. When the stomach piece is dried, the whole thing will be rinsed and then placed in whey or with vinegar to create a whole bunch of rennet, with which we'll make (Uh, Kristi will make) cheese.

Step 6. The carcass was once again hosed off and is now in a cooler with ice to rest for 24 hours. Once the meat has relaxed, we'll cut it up into usable pieces and run it through our vacuum sealer for freezing.

Paneer Tikki

Latest news: The Paneer Tikki worked very well (needs salt) and I tried it with goat milk, thinking, what the heck... might as well try to make goat cheese. I've never been able to master the putting of the cheese in containers to let them sit forever, so this method works very, very well... and it's tasty! As soon as Geraldine is old enough to breed and then freshened, we're going to have a bunch of goat milk to make cheese with.. and now that I know I can get it through a simpler method, it will be easy!

The one thing that I didn't understand at first is that the curd, in goat cheese, is half the size of the smallest flea and I added a little too much lime juice (didn't have any lemons on hand) because I thought the curds should be bigger. But when I strained the milk through cheesecloth, all the individual curds and coagulated nicely. Oh, this is dangerously good...

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I discovered a recipe for a simple cheese called, "Paneer Tikki" in Flatbreads and Flavors. This book has all sorts of great recipes collected by two people who traveled to different countries seeking flatbreads and local flavors. Excellent book.

Paneer Tikki is made with regular, store-bought, two-percent milk and lemon juice. That's IT.. there's nothing more to it.

Then the pulled pork from yesterday's adventures (Mike starting the Boston butt and me finishing it.. seems to work well.. low temps (between 200 and 300) with hickory)..

Meat, cheese... hmmm..

Enough for today.

Birds and Bees and D.H. Lawrence, oh, my!

I have been reading, for about the 20th time, Lady Chatterly's Lover. One might think that it's the erotic nature that draws me back repeatedly, but what I find myself realizing is that each time I read it, I learn something else, am in a different mind frame to FIND that something else, and enjoy it just as much as the first time I read it. Lawrence, once banned in the U.S. for his risque' novel, wasn't like the crude, but rudimentary Henry Miller at all.. he wrote about a woman's orgasm, wrote words that still resound today in their wisdom.

But enough of that and back to the birds and bees... We have a pile of hickory branches that need to be cut down, but that, it seems, will be put on the back burner, now. What Mike discovered Saturday morning was that a Bewick's Wren baby was under all the branches. It must have just come out to learn to fly, which means the egg would have hatched about three weeks ago or so. We saw the bird as it attempted to fly into the house and reached a window, then dropped to the ground. It made its way back to the hickory pile and Mike captured a beautiful photo of it.

Ah, the bees... yes, we finally opened the hive again, this being week 9 in our beekeeping extravaganza... we have had success, but the bees are not filling out the entire hive as we thought they would. We know the queen is busy because there are lots of eggs in the hive and we took pictures that we captured with Picasa and exploded them... finally seeing the queen in all her long glory, with the telltale white spot on her head. She's been very busy.

The goats are hungry. No rain and little to eat.. I clip branches for them from our forested area every other day or so - and they eat lots of hay, but I really, really wish it would rain.

Brooster the mean rooster - RIP and good riddance.

After Saturday's ordeal with three unwanted goats, we still had a ton of work to do and the thought of doing it kept us IN bed and not really wanting to start the day.

Then I heard the wretched squeal of a hurting animal. We have a brand new dog, another Great Pyrenese and one we rescued from some nasty folks in Bastrop who, if they didn't abuse it, came close to it. The way the man handled the dog spoke worlds about why the dog cowered in a corner of their horse trailer and feared humans. He was flea-infested and sticker-bur saturated, not to mention smelling of oil that came from a cart that was also inside the horse trailer. This man didn't deserve to have a dog or any of the other creatures, including the horses and goats they owned.

The dog was born to one of his livestock guardian Pyrenese and the man said he found it in the field. He thought coyotes had gotten the rest of the puppies. He advertised this puppy on Craig's list claiming that the dog was 8 months old. When we saw it and what it looked like, I watched Mike's face and read it as "I don't think so" but he asked me quietly if I wanted it and I was adamant about it. Yes. I wanted it. If nothing else, to save the creature from this horrid human being. We paid 75.00 for it.

We've had the dog, which is really about 8 WEEKS old (not 8 months) since last Monday. As soon as we brought it home, we proceeded to terrorize it by bathing it and giving it food (it didn't recognize what a container was and tried to eat the container instead of the food). Then we put him into a stall for a few days with lots of food and water. We let him out on Thursday and he found a cozy, hidden place behind the shed and under some wood piles to hide and sleep. Unfortunately, we didn't know this and spent an entire evening trying to find him on the 15 acres. After a few hours of this Mike and I were pretty depressed about losing it and around sundown, I wanted to check one last time, to see if we'd just missed it... and sure enough, I saw him coming out from behind the shed. We fed him more, but we didn't put him back in a stall. The next day, he did the same thing and again, we thought he disappeared. Just before evening, he came out again from his hiding place. (who WOULDN'T want to hide during these hot Texas summer days?)

Fast forward to Sunday morning. We didn't want to get out of bed, but I heard this yelp from the barnyard and looked out the bedroom window to see Brooster attacking the poor puppy (who's literally no bigger than a bread basket.) Brooster reared up and rolled the puppy on his back and then attacked again.

This isn't the first time Brooster had attacked creatures and we thought he'd grow out of it, but he didn't. We can't have a mean rooster because we have some many docile creatures and young goats. He's even attacked Barbecue, our older Great Pyrenese. This rooster, though, is a little funny and would often put his head in a corner of the barn, talking to himself and stomping his feet.

Mike and I get dressed quickly, go to the barnyard and go through the ordeal of capturing Brooster. Mike wrung his neck and although that's normally my job (wringing chickens' necks), I think it was good for him to do it.

But then this means it's chicken processing time. We get to try out the new chicken plucker that he built for me. I killed another roo that we raised just for eating. If you think this is cruel, examine your eating habits and discover where the chicken you eat comes from. You'd understand WHY we want to raise and eat our own birds. It's healthier and the chickens are fed better and not treated inhumanely.

Anyway, when you process chickens, you have to let them sit a few days in ice to let the meat relax. We tried killing one of the birds and eating it fresh, but were very disappointed in the small size and quality of the bird. We have around 40 of these birds and now do not know if they'll be good enough to supply us with chicken for the year. Having to go back to store-bought chicken? Yuck. Yuck.

So Brooster is no more. And now the animals will feel more comfortable in the barnyard and maybe this little puppy, who's been bashed by humans, goats and a rooster, will survive and thrive. He's still around. Maybe he'll stay. I'm definitely giving him a piece of chicken when Brooster's ready to barbecue.

Stupid Goat Tricks

Saturday morning might have turned out to be okay - maybe a little hot, except for the unwanted goats that everyone kept trying to herd into our property... "Hey! You have goats! These must be yours!". The first time was around 8:30, when we go outside to start the morning and I see, in the distance, three goats coming toward the inside gate (about a tenth of a mile from the outside gate) and a car that is parked behind them. Someone is trying, I thought, to tell us that the fences are bad and we have goats that got out.

I take my golf cart to the first gate and realize that these aren't our goats! Someone has dropped them off and just assumed we'd take them. With feed prices so high, it's easy to see why people who can't afford to feed their animals would want to dump them. These were two very large billy goats and a female Boer goat in heat. I get to the folks standing at the outside gate and we do the introductions. They're neighbors. The goats, at this time, have traveled down the driveway toward Mike, who's looking a little perplexed.

We manage to get them out the gate and close it, so they can't come back, but the electric fences are not working properly and we have to monitor them, so they're not tempted. Goats are herd animals and they've seen our herd and want to join them. The goats that were dropped off look very healthy, but we can't allow them to interact with our own herd because looks can be deceiving. Also, one billy goat per herd is pretty standard and I am willing to bet that these just got two old for the owners who probably bought them for their kids or as roping dummies. Yes, the thought makes me sick, animals purchased for the pleasure of torturing them. Some of our neighbors have this mindset. We do not.

So, the goats, with the help of a car that came along ("do you want us to move them to the gate so you can get them back in?") "No! they're not ours... if you could just herd them further along, someone might claim them..."

Fine. So they're gone. Or so I thought. Next thing I know, I'm hearing a sheriff's car horn and seeing flashing lights an hour after the goat ordeal. Then I see the three goats. AGAIN. They've been herded back into our property. The sheriff actually opened the gate to let them in! Another man, who has stopped to help the sheriff herd the goats into our gate, stands by them. I'm in my cart, shouting, "No... no! These aren't ours... Don't... no!" Waving my hands, etc...

The sheriff has the audacity to ask me if I'm the one that put them 'out' as if out into the street. I tell him that they were dumped at our place, but they're not ours. The guy with him named Cal, says that he'll take the goats, but he has some errands to run and is towing a long trailer at the moment.

Fine. We try to keep the goats in the driveway until the guy comes back to claim them. The sheriff is gone, now, and we've got the goats. Cal says that he has about 15 acres and the only thing that gets dropped off at his place are mangy dogs.

It's a LONG time before Cal returns and at this point, we've decided to shoot the goats and are looking at tanning procedures on the web. Goat skin can come in handy or we could sell it.

In the meantime, two of the goats, the female and one male have escaped the driveway and are mingling with our herd. We capture them in the barn and herd them into stalls, each in their own and right next to each other.

About 2:00 pm, we're out working fences to make sure this doesn't happen again and to keep our goats on the inside of the fence. We're up near the street and Cal shows up, pulls up along side and says that he's having all kinds of problems, but that he still wants the goats. We tell him that we've got a cage (mike made it) and that the cage will hold the animals and he can take them now if he wants. We knew the hardest one to get will be the one in the driveway because it can and will still go through the fence, but it must have been shocked because it not only didn't go through the fence, it was a little wary of it. This worked nicely to our advantage.

The chickens that we had in the cage on the lawn (fattening them up for slaughter), had to be moved. That was my job. We had three red roos and one barred rock roo that was being mean - this was Brooster, the female rooster. I put the three red roos in the shed (where we feed the cats - who will probably never forgive me) and let out Brooster. He'd been in the cage terrorizing the three red roos for a few days and he's easy to catch (pretty stupid), so I let him out to forage.

The cage was fastened to Cal's trailer and we got the two goats from the barn in (although they didn't want to go). I jokingly said, "hey, you want two more?" Cal said sure, he'd take a few more - he got 8's older wether and 215's older wether. These are (castrated) males that are too old for eating, so we gave them to him.

It ruined our day, but turned out slightly better than it could have. We got rid of two useless wethers - a present, no doubt, for one of Cal's daughters whose birthday was that day.

It was a long day and maybe people don't realize what a burden it is for weekend farmers who don't have the time to deal with their castoffs. It's just rude to dump animals on others when you don't want them, whether it's mangy dogs or unwanted livestock. If it happens again, I'm going to get a nice goatskin rug out of it. I've been learning a lot about tanning a hide and I'd rather it be yours than some poor, unwanted pet that your kid outgrew.