Processing Lamb

Warning!  This blog post contains pictures of meat processing....some may find the pictures graphic and/or offensive.  If you do not wish to view pictures of this nature....move on to another page now please.

Raising our own food, buying local food, and humane slaughter techniques are very important issues for us.  We have a homesteading friend that raises sheep, and for 3 years now we buy at least one lamb each fall to process.  This year we bought 3....2 for ourselves and one for a dear friend. 

After years of home processing, this year we broke down and spent the money on a new toy tool.  In years past it seems that when we could find a meat bandsaw at a reasonable price, we just didn't have the money to spend.  Last week my dear husband bought me this beauty....

The bandsaw is a luxury indeed....and enabled us to cut many more chops from the carcass than what we have ever been able to do in the past.  Considering that lamb chops are probably our favorite cut of meat, this is a real treat indeed.

Last chance warning....the following includes step by step photos of breaking down a lamb carcass.

First we begin with the lambs.  These 3 are wethered spring lambs that have been raised without stress or cruelty.  I have no idea what breed they are other than tasty.

We use a .22 to shoot/stun the lamb, cut the neck to allow it to bleed out, then hoist it up using a gambrel hook and pully.  Then we skin and eviscerate it, and thoroughly wash the carcass with cool water.  I don't take pictures of this process because our primary concern is to focus on doing the job as quickly as possible.  When the carcass is ready to bring into the house for breaking down, it looks like this....

At this point we have removed the front feet at the pasterns, the tail, and the head.  The next step is to bring it into the house and break it down....

starting with removing the skin and feet from the rear legs, and removing the neck.  We use a sawzall for most of the bone cutting....

 Next we remove the belly meat.  Usually this would be ground into sausage but we will turn it into bacon for our non pork eating friends...

Next the rear end is removed.  The whole carcass could be split into halves at this point, but since I have a hard time getting a good straight cut on the whole length...I have found that working in sections is easiest for me.

This is when the carcass is transformed into beautiful cuts of meat that would not be possible without the band saw.  I split the rear and then cut it into shanks, roasts, and chops....

Since I'm not formally trained in meat cutting....and I'm working with a brand new piece of equipment...I took each one individually and just cut into the pieces that are convenient for us.  Here's another rear that I've cut...

The next section was the loin area.  I could have removed the loins whole, but then I would have risked cutting into meat and not getting a nice whole piece of meat.  Plus that would have meant that bone would have been wasted.  So I decided to cut the loin section into saddle chops....

Next I removed each front leg at the shoulder.  Since my son came in to town to help with the whole process, I got him to debone the shoulders for me while I cut a few shank chops....

Last we have the chest cavity.  First we split it using the sawzall, then cut the chops from the ribs and cleaned up the rib rack.  This picture shows the cuts that we were able to achieve....

• Boneless shoulder roast
• Shoulder roast with the long bone
• Rib chops
• Center cut chops
• 2 rib racks

 Of course we have a few misc cuts left from cleaning up the ribs, plus the neck.  These are all packaged and we'll use them for soups and stews.

So was it worth the luxury of spending the money on the band saw?  OH YEA!  Take another look at these beauties...

It took 2 days of hard work to go from hoof to neatly packaged portions.....and I'm looking forward to having fresh lamb all year long!