# Can you eat a buck?



## Laura Workman (May 10, 2002)

As some of you know by now, I have a buck I'd rather not keep. He's about a year and a half old. He's never been used for breeding, but has been with breeding bucks. The boys aren't stinky yet this year, but they're thinking about it. 

Has anyone ever eaten an 18-month-old buck? I had a ram that age, and he was delicious, no funky, musky flavor at all. Are goats the same way, especially out of season, or am I looking at LOTS of sausage, or worse, digging a big hole, if I slaughter my buck?


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## okgoatgal2 (May 28, 2002)

you can castrate him and give him another 6 months, then make ground out of him. i once didn't castrate a pig (um...first time mistake, potbelly pig) and that meat was barely edible, even the sausage. i had to cook it then eat it the next day b/c of the smell....don't know about a goat buck-never ate one of them-i always wethered them or ate old does.


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## Laura Workman (May 10, 2002)

Yeah, I'd like to avoid putting him through the trauma of castration as an adult if he'd still be relatively edible without castration, like the ram was. Has anyone actually tried a grown buck?


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## magwa (Apr 1, 2005)

I read they smell how they tastes,and bucks are STINKY!!!!!!!!!!!! :stars:


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## trnubian (Mar 19, 2005)

I would not try and butcher him. Bucks after the age of four months tend to carry a not so great flavor. Even if he is not in rutt now, he has been before, last year, and hormones are in his system. 

Do you have a sale barn around you? If you do, just take him there the day of the sale. that way, you get rid of him, you don't have to butcher and taste nasy buck meat, and you'll get some money out of him. All, plusses in my opinion.


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## AnnaS (Nov 29, 2003)

I had curried goat at an Indian restaurant and you could smell and taste the buckiness through the curry spices. Blech.

Big smelly bucks bring a premium at the auctions here. There are many ethnic groups that prefer a flavorful goat meat. You might rather have some cash than a bunch of pepperoni your does find mysterious and fascinating.


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## MAC (Apr 18, 2003)

We get more money for bucklings over weathers...maybe because those nuts sell for $20 a pound at a couple shops I've been in. Couldn't be any gamier than a deer, except for the weathered deer, of course. Especially since you said he wasn't pumping out the stench yet. Your'e in the best position to know if he's full of antibiotics, worms, etc. You won't know that with an animal you buy.


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## SherrieC (Aug 24, 2002)

If you butcher a buck take great care to not let his glands touch the meat or his hair touch the meat, remember to let him hang a night or two, and season him with Sweet Marjoram, and Greek Oregano... delicious..


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## KellyHill (May 8, 2004)

Dh and I butchered a buck at about 18 months. The meat was nice and tender, but there was a slight bucky flavor. we used b-b-q sauce to try and cover it up. It worked pretty well. If he's not stinky yet I'd try it. 

My Lamancha buck is STINKY!! The rut has begun here!


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## Vicki McGaugh TX Nubians (May 6, 2002)

Buck smell does not permeate into the meat, nor does it go through the udder wall and make the milk bucky. It's 100% in the preperation of the udder for milking, the smell in the barn the milk is setting in, the cleanliness of the hands or milking equipment....or the quality of butchering technique. Like Sherrie said, keep the hair off the buck at skinning.

I am a very unwasteful person, I have only buried 2 does in 19 years of having goats. And this has included three bucks over 8 years old, butchered, and ground for sausage. One buck, just turned 10 and found to be sterile, was butchered (my then BIL) from the West Indies. He hangs them and then slits their throat to collect the blood (when we butcher ourselves older stock is shot and then hung, young stock has their head macheted off) and then uses vinegar to wash the hide. The water hose is running throughout the butcher and be it a 3 month old kid or this 10 year old buck, cleanliness is key. After butchering he cuts them into manageable sizes, wraps in plastic and puts into icechest for 2 days, changing out the ice. The meat is then jerked (boild with spices) than barbequed. It's the only way I like goat meat, way too dry anyway else for me. Although I do love the loin (cut into medallions, pounded flat and chicken fried quickly). All the goat meat we save for ourselves is mixed with pork (a fatty pork roast is best) and usually deer, for breakfast sausage. 

Only with full grown bucks does he not skin the head and use it because when skinning the head is really a skin and pick, impossible to be clean enough when dealing with bucks in rut. And once older Nubian bucks are sort of in a perpetual state of rut.

When you see someone from another culture butcher, it really showed us how wasteful we really were, other than the hooves from the hock/knee down, and some of the intestine, and bucks heads, all other parts of the goat including the blood is used. A small trash bag of things are walked out and buried in the woods..when we butcher a wheelbarrow is used to wheel off the intestines, stomach, hide. Vicki


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