# Hair sheep butchering lesson!



## francismilker (Jan 12, 2006)

I was in the process of catching some sheep the other day to take to the sale. While most of the hairsheep we have are farely easy to get penned with the use of a feed bucket, one wasn't. After numerous attempts at getting her caught, I gave up and decided to catch her with a .22 bullet. (After all, I've been dying to butcher one of these critters and try some sheep meat.)

So, I put her down and started the field dressing process. I thought to myself, "this can't be much different than a deer." Boy was I wrong. While in theory it was the same, it was a much harder task. Truth is, she was probably way to mature and large for prime butchering. I'd guess her to be 150lbs or so. I started skinning and discovered I couldn't just cut around the legs, neck, and anus and then pull it off like I do deer. It was shave it off every inch of the way. And talk about fat. This ewe had at least 3 inches of fat between her hide and carcass. As well, she had a HUGE amount of fat inside the stomach cavity when I gutted her. 

Seriously, I'd guess her to have lost two thirds at least of her body weight with skinning and gutting. Most beef render at or around 55% meat from the original liveweight. After boning, she might be doing well to render 30%. 

Is this normal? Or, did I just butcher a critter that was way past her prime?


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## Bearfootfarm (Jul 13, 2006)

> This ewe had at least* 3 inches of fat *between her hide and carcass


I think this is the biggest problem.
Sounds like she was overfed


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## littlebitfarm (Mar 21, 2005)

Mine typically have about 1/2" of fat under the skin. The older sheep do have a fair amount of fat around the organs that isn't there in the younger animals.

Kathie


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## KSALguy (Feb 14, 2006)

sounds like you just had an older animal that had been liveing very well lol, we used to butcher our Barbado sheep and it was not near that hard to do and not near that much fat,


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## Shoupie (Mar 21, 2009)

Yes sheep have the worst dress out percentage of all domestic stock(or at least they're at the bottom.) I believe its around 60-70% but I'm too lazy to look it up right now. Usually that's attributed to a heavy fleece though.

We usually have a very easy time skinning mine, the butcher just gets it started and then hoists them up on a electric motor lift and it peels off. I usually take them in when they're around 8-10months though and they're suffolks.


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## francismilker (Jan 12, 2006)

I've actually skinned deer and goats in the past without doing anything more than making a few cuts around legs, neck, and anus and then just pulling it off without even needing the knife again. This wasn't the case. I literally had to cut every square millimeter of hide off that critter. 

She was very, very fat and all off of grass alone. I don't feed my hairsheep. They are 100% grass fed year round. In fact, with only 14 head total and 80 acres of grass/brush/trees for them to browse, I figure if they can't make it on their own I don't want them. I would say they see an occasional feed bucket when I need to catch them or they might possibly stick their heads through and rob some feed from a trough, but not often. They just do extremely well on grass and browse alone.


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## KSALguy (Feb 14, 2006)

had this ewe been very productive in raiseing her lambs? maybe she was putting it all into fat rather than what her job should have been?


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## francismilker (Jan 12, 2006)

Actually, she was barren. She had never lambed. I bought her from a guy that had bought her as a newborn and she'd never been exposed. She was extremely too flighty for me and was teaching my gentler ones bad habits. She was absolutely the most faral critter I've ever owned. (She acted as if she'd never seen a human before and even stomped and flagged her tail like a whitetail deer does.)

She was going to the sale barn but only made it to the dinner plate. For what I had in her, I'm taking a real loss on her due to her meat is going to be shoeleather tough and twangy I'm sure. We're not real big roasts people and prefer the steak cutlets and hamburger from deer and goats. I don't think by the looks of her carcass we'll be very impressed with what she produces.


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## Jcran (Jan 4, 2006)

Summer sausage?


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## PNP Katahdins (Oct 28, 2008)

Another vote for summer sausage! Works for us. Our processor was real happy with our two batches of sausage culls. They took out the steaks and chops because we like them, and used the rest. The dogs get any leftovers.

Barren ewes put on a lot of fat. The next one should probably be shipped rather than shot. I know you did try to do that.

Peg


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## PNP Katahdins (Oct 28, 2008)

Forgot to say that we use roasts for vegetable soup as well as for cooking as roasts. In fact, lamb roast sounds like a good idea for Thanksgiving.

Peg


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## KIT.S (Oct 8, 2008)

We canned most of the last old lady we butchered. She wasn't barren - she lambed 6 and 8 lambs at a time (Finnsheep), but couldn't raise a single one on her own. I guess she figured once they were outside her, she was finished.
Anyway, we made broth out of the bones with veggies, then cubed and canned the bigger meat (thigh, shoulder) with the broth. The backstrap and ribs were actually quite tender and excellent flavor.
We have two more old ladies past lambing, and they're going to be canned too, but the first one, above, didn't give much meat at all. I was amazed how little. Probably only a dozen quarts and 10 pounds burger. She also was fatty. Didn't get nursed, so she just put on the weight.
Kit


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## francismilker (Jan 12, 2006)

Canning meat......................takes me back to staying with grandma as a kid. She can everything and sealed the head of the jar off with grease.


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## francismilker (Jan 12, 2006)

I took five pounds of the meat to a friend of mine that is pretty salty at making deer summer sausage. We'll see how the family likes sheep summer sausage. Thanks for the suggestion.


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## redroving (Sep 28, 2005)

Don't automatically classify her as tough or canned meat only yet. Hair sheep have great meat and can be eaten older with no issues of toughness. Keep the legs and good chops and make the rest into burger. I make everything with our burger (had a great meatloaf the other day). We have hair sheep crosses and we eat up to 4 year olds (even rams) with no tough or gamey flavor.:gaptooth:


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## francismilker (Jan 12, 2006)

UPDATE! I ate some backstrap steaks last night and it was as delicious a piece of steak I've ever had. I serious, too old and barren or not, this ewe provided me some awesome meat.


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## mawalla (Oct 28, 2002)

Good to hear that she was good for something!


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## francismilker (Jan 12, 2006)

Made chili last night with the ground and it was great!


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## Hairsheep (Aug 13, 2012)

This is good information to know...Hair Sheep could then be a walking food storage for many years!
Thanks for the post!


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## bknthesdle (Mar 27, 2011)

I had a year and a half old katahdin ram that I didn't need. He was around 120 lbs...give or take some. (that was my guess, not sure what he really weighed) Some friends wanted to try the hair sheep meat. They were astounded as to how good he was. Unlike your gal, they said he was the leanest meat they'd ever had. Said he tasted like a tender beef. Made me look forward to trying one for myself one day. 

I was also told that a 100 lb lamb would maybe generate about 35-40 lbs of meat after butchering.


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