How To Butcher A Goat

I came across this article on How To Butcher A Goat, and thought it was well worth sharing. My husband and I have talked about the possibility of raising goats for meat in the future, so I was curious as to how exactly the butchering process was done. If you’d like to see a detailed step-by-step “how to” on this, check out the post on A Homesteading Neophyte.

It’s not for the squeamish.

I have to admit, I was already somewhat turned off from the idea at the very first picture she shows of a dead goat bleeding out. I love my goat Mocha. And even if we raised them for meat I’m afraid I’d be too attached to all of my goats to slaughter one.

But what I thought was the most interesting little tid bit shared was in the comments section where she went on to add that the final product was about a 35 lb carcass… not very much meat. It sounds like it probably isn’t worth the cost of raising the goats for that small amount of meat.

So, as of now, I think we’ve decided to only raise milk goats. I am curious about what goat’s meat (or Chevon) tastes like though. Maybe we’ll try one just to say we did… I’ll let you know if we get that far!

8 thoughts on “How To Butcher A Goat”

  1. This stuff doesn’t bother my husband and I as long as I don’t have to see it until its skinned. My husband raised pigs while he was a boy and now is currently a hunter. If its something we raised I can’t see it until after its skinned (which right now is nothing as we live in an apartment), if its something that he brings home from the woods I’m generally the one that is cleaning it in my kitchen sink (except venison). I never thought of butchering goats though, I’ve always just seen them as a way of getting milk.

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  2. Raising our own meat has been really rewarding. I’m not sure that I’m ready to do it myself though. It is easy to be disconnected when it comes back in tidy white packages. I think I could do it though to feed my family. Chickens are easy but a larger animal seems daunting.

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  3. My son’s 4-H leader (who sells her goats for meat) told me that Taco Bell uses goat meat. When a taco or such says “meat” it means a mix of chevon and beef. I wouldn’t bet my life on it but it does make for an interesting trip south of the border!

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  4. My mom prefers goat milk over cow’s milk in taste. Also, she has always had a few issues with milk upsetting her stomach, but not with goat’s milk. You should try it!

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  5. My mother’s family raised goats when she was a child. How they did it was, you breed the nannies, if the baby is a boy he becomes meat, girl becomes a milker. They never kept billies on their farm. She says the billies taint the flavor of the milk because the nannies release hormones to attract the billies. She grew up with all her aunts and uncles having farms within 20 miles of them, so she never dealt with the slaughtering. I assume it happened at someone else’s farm, or they were friends with the local butcher, who would slaughter for trade. When I was younger, my parents just sold the boy goats. They knew they would be slaughtered, but it was easier to sell them than to deal with 4 kids crying that Spice was killed and we were eating him for dinner.

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  6. Kendra, actually there is a big market for goat meat and alot of times you could raise them to sell for meat and the buyer is responsible for butchering. Goat meat if cooked right is good – it is not one of my favorites but it’s good if barbecued.

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  7. We are SO out of touch with where our food comes from these days. It’s really hard to think of eating an animal we raise. I’m no different. My first experience was with letting broody hens hatch out babies – and ending up with 17 extra roosters in one year….. It wasn’t fun, but it was nice and oddly satisfying to have 17 chickens in the freezer. Chickens that were well fed, well cared for, and that lived a wonderful life. I suspect most people would starve if they had to raise, care for, butcher, and process their own meat. It’s not for the faint of heart. But if a person eats meat, he/she should understand what they are eating and where it came from. It’s not easy. And I believe it never should be. I would worry about the person that gave it no thought.

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