Home Butchery 101

I don't usually do so many updates in one week but I have to make an exception today.

Our four original sheep were always a sickly lot. We had no way of transporting the animals so the breeder just sent four sheep in their transport - we didn't get to choose them. Traditionally breeders will always sell their worst animals first - and I think that is what we got. They were a little runty and we assumed that breeder had vaccinated them and drenched them before delivering them. It took one to die before we managed to drench and vaccinate all of them. This morning we only had one of those sheep left, and by morning tea that sheep was lying on her side. I went down and sat her upright and gave her some food and medicine. I've seen this before so I knew the writing was on the wall for her.

At lunchtime Myles took down a knife after seeing she was on her side again. After sitting her upright and getting her a drink, he decided that he was only keeping her alive because he didn't really want the job of killing her. He, in my opinion, decided to do the right thing and put her out of her misery. He told me that he said goodbye, did the deed, and dragged her undercover of the hot sun. He said that doing it was difficult, but thinking about it afterwards was harder - I agree.

We had already asked a vet what we could do with a sick animal - the vet told us that as long as the internal organs aren't eaten everything is fine. So this time rather than bury her we decided to butcher her for dog food. Both Myles and I have naturally not had any experience in this matter, so called the neighbour who had a little experience. He came down with a couple of hooks and sharp knives. Myles volunteered me to help out as he was working in his 'Ivory Tower'.

We strung the sheep up and I learnt how to remove the skin. It reminded me of 'Silence of the Lambs' because the sheep has lost so much weight that the skin came straight off - if you remember the film the serial killer starved the victim so the skin came off easily. I assumed that there would be loads of blood etc but it was pretty clean. So the carcass was left hanging in the tree without a coat - we noticed at that point there wasn't a lot of meat on the old girl. We also noticed we had annoyed a nest of Jack Ants <they bite hard> so had to move the body to one side, and our neighbour removed the internal organs. I have always been able to close my nose off so I can't smell anything, and so I did at this point. Apparently the smell was disgusting and the neighbour struggled not the throw-up. Myles could smell it in his office! It didn't worry me.

I had collected her 'guts' in an old fishing tray. While moving the tray out of the way I was reminded of Luke Callan from Whangarei Boys High. Our then science teacher, Phil Summerhays, had demonstrated how the lungs of a sheep work. He had asked all the boys to stand on the lab benches so we could all have a good look at the sheep's innards. Mr Summerhays then blew down the windpipe, which had been covered with paper-towels, to inflate the lungs. Poor Luke couldn't handle seeing the lungs expand and the heart muscle jump, and pasted out - falling 1.5 metres to the ground. This obviously did not happen to me after seeing the innards of the sheep, both times. Interestingly I just googled Luke and notice he is a pharmacist nowadays - so he must have studied the internal organs a little more.

The carcass was then cut up and what little is left will be fed to the dogs - as I did not want to eat a sick sheep. I think I could do it again - the killing of an animals is much harder than the butchering.