Cow Butchering at Home
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Cow butchering at home is worth the effort as long as you follow some precautions. Learn some tips and tricks to make the process easier.
People who raise cattle generally harvest some of their animals for the family table. It may be a steer they selected and fed, but often the ideal butcher animal is a heifer that didn’t become pregnant or a 2-year-old cow with a calf and did not breed back. An old cow that comes up open can be a candidate for hamburger. No matter how old and thin she is, a “hamburger” cow provides a lot of burger and has excellent tenderloin or back-strap — the strip of meat along the backbone.
Occasionally, a cow needs to be butchered on short notice due to injury or another circumstance. Suppose it suffers irreparable injury or dies shortly before you find it. In that case, the meat can be salvaged if you act quickly — unless you recently gave it medication or a vaccine that would make it unfit for human consumption.
Planning Ahead Before Cow Butchering
Schedule the cow butchering so that any vaccinations or medications are given well beforehand. Check labels to know the withdrawal time — the amount of time that must elapse so the drug or vaccine is completely eliminated from the body. If butchered too soon, there may be residues in the meat. If the animal develops a problem that needs treatment with antibiotics or other drugs, postpone cow butchering until the animal is recovered and the drug is long gone from body tissues.
To have your animal commercially processed, you will schedule it for a specific day and time. The custom butcher will bring his truck to your place and kill the animal, or you can haul it to the processing facility. It’s easier to have the butcher come to your site; also, the animal will be less stressed if it can stay in its familiar environment. However, not all custom meat processors are set up to come to your farm.
The animal will be easier to butcher if it does not have a full gut. It’s best to withhold feed for 12 hours before slaughter. If the animal is on pasture, it won’t eat much during the night, so plan an early morning butcher time.
Handling the Animal Before Killing
Try to keep the animal calm. If you must bring it in from a pasture or move it to a different pen, do it without excitement. If you must haul it to the butchering place, load it quietly and calmly. A stressed, excited animal produces adrenalin, which goes through the body and makes the meat tough.
If the animal is butchered at home, put it in a pen that won’t be used for other livestock right away. The smell of blood is upsetting to cattle; they snort and bellow, and a bull may become aggressive. Cover the blood-soaked area with dirt if you have to butcher in a pen or pasture. Even a few shovelfuls spread over the blood will help it break down quickly, so it will no longer be a problem.
It is beneficial to learn how to kill, hang, gut, skin, and process your own animals. Not only is it less stressful for them, not having to be hauled to an unfamiliar location or be confronted by a stranger or butcher truck coming to the corral and smelling of blood, but more convenient for you since you can do it on your schedule or when it needs to be done. There are not enough custom butchers or processing facilities in most regions, and many of them are booked two years ahead. This won’t work if you have an emergency where an animal must be processed immediately.
If you have a cool room or an insulated shed, you can butcher an animal any time of year; the insulated room will be cool in summer (especially if you have an air conditioner or cooling unit) and will keep the carcass from freezing in winter. Otherwise, pick a time when the weather will be cool enough to cool out the carcass (if it’s too warm, the meat will spoil) and not too cold. A frozen carcass is difficult to deal with!
Cow Butchering: Killing
The goal is an instant, humane death. The animal should be in a confined but familiar place, so it is not upset and moving around or trying to get out when you shoot it. A headshot is best, with the bullet going into the brain. Looking at the animal from the front, think of an imaginary line between ear and eye. Where those two lines cross (in the center of the forehead, above the eyes, and below the ears) is the best spot to aim since that’s where the brain is located. If you hit that spot, the animal will immediately drop. Quickly cut the jugular vein with a sharp, clean knife while the heart still beats to bleed out.
Moving the carcass to a better area.
If you killed and bled out the animal in a corral or pen, you’ll probably want to move it to another place to dress it out, so the guts won’t be in the corral. If you have a tractor and loader, you can lift the animal and take it somewhere else, where it won’t matter if there’s a gut pile to attract scavengers.
After you remove the guts, you can also skin the animal, leave the skin and head with the guts (or save the skin for tanning) and take the carcass to where you want to hang and cool it out. It’s easier to gut an animal if it is hanging up rather than on the ground, but sometimes you have no choice (as when butchering a cow that has to be humanely killed out on a big range pasture where you can’t get to her with a tractor and loader).
You can still get the guts out with the animal on the ground, but it works best if you have the help of gravity, with the hind end a bit downhill, if possible, especially if it’s a large animal. With an elk, for instance, out on the mountain, you’d try to get the back end downhill and the head uphill.
With a tractor loader, it’s a lot easier. You can hook onto the animal and raise it — hanging it by the hind legs or by the head. There are advantages to hanging it by the head initially, especially a large animal because gravity is in your favor. The guts are at the rear of the body; you won‘t have the ribcage holding everything in while it’s hanging.
Proper Tools for Cow Butchering
Make sure you have the proper tools — a clean, sharp knife and something called a Wyoming knife, skinning knife, or gut hook. This has a smooth, curved backing and a handle that goes between your fingers. Once you’ve made a hole through the hide — into the peritoneal cavity — close to the brisket (between the front legs, with the animal hanging from its head) — put two fingers into the hole so you can slip the knife in. Then you can run the knife down the midline of the belly, with your fingers alongside the knife but away from the edges, to guide it. Your fingers are underneath the hide, holding it away from the gut membrane. The smooth end of the knife won’t puncture the gut, and you can cut down the animal’s midline, like unzipping a coat. This is one advantage of hanging it by the head.
If you don’t have a Wyoming knife/gut hook, a regular sharp knife will work but it takes more finesse and care not to cut your fingers or nick the guts and make a mess! Some people using a straight blade start at the pelvis and go up toward the brisket, with two fingers under the skin on either side of the knife — with a finger width between the hide and the guts to help keep the blade from nicking the guts.
Best way to remove the guts when cow butchering.
Before you raise the animal, however, first cut around the anus. This is easier to do when the animal is still on the ground. You want to have that loose so that everything will come loose when you take the guts out. Using a sharp knife, cut all the membranes that hold the external openings and make sure they are loose so you can pull them out with the guts. Once you have the anus cut loose, tie a string around it tightly so nothing will spill out when pulling the guts out of the carcass. And don’t nick the bladder with your knife!
Quickly run the knife down the midline to the pelvis. The quicker, the better because the weight and pressure of the guts will start them coming out. Suppose you already have the membranes at the rear end detached. In that case, you can pull everything out through the big hole you’ve made down the center of the belly and keep the carcass very clean if you’ve been careful not to nick any of the membrane surrounding the stomachs, intestines, bladder, etc.
Even with a game animal on the ground, hunters usually cut everything loose at the hind end so that when they pull the guts out, this is already loose and free. You want to do it before you hang an animal; otherwise, you’ll have all the weight of the guts hanging against you, and you are standing on your head underneath, trying to do it if the animal is hanging from the head. Sometimes it takes a bit of effort on a large animal because you must reach farther up to cut it loose.
You want to get everything out intact, and away from the carcass. Then you need to reach back inside to cut loose the lungs, heart, esophagus, etc. With two people, a helper can hold one side of the ribcage more open. If you are working alone, there is a tool that unfolds, and you can lock it open, keeping the ribs farther apart to make it easier for you to get those tissues out.
If you want to save the heart and liver, put those in a cool place or in a bucket of cold saltwater. Salt helps draw the blood out quicker.
After you have killed and gutted the animal, the next step is to skin, since hide and hair are insulating and holding heat in. The goal is to get the carcass chilled out quickly; the meat will keep improving until you can process it.
How to Properly Remove the Skin.
To skin the animal, it’s often easier if it’s hanging by the hind legs. If you gutted it with the animal hanging by the head (easier to gut it), and you are using a tractor and loader, you can lower the animal, switch to the hind legs, and raise it up again.
First, cut the legs cut off at the knees and hocks to remove the feet. It’s easy to make a slit in the hollow area of the hock joint and to put a rope or hook through for hanging. It’s handy to have a small saw (bone saw, dehorning saw, or Sawzsall) for taking the legs off, taking the head off, or splitting the carcass in half.
When skinning, start at the hocks, cutting a circle around them. Peel the hide down from there after cutting along the inside of the leg — a slit toward the inside of the pelvis. Then you can pull the hide off around the leg, one leg at a time.
Then start skinning down off the rump and back. You can do the front legs as you get toward the shoulders, cutting around each knee joint. Come up the inside of the front leg toward the armpit to peel the hide around both sides of each leg. Then you can skin the neck to the head.
Finishing the skinning and removing the head.
At that point, it’s easy to cut the head off, and the entire skin is gone, attached to the head. There is a joint at the base of the skull you can break loose, even if you don’t have a saw. If you have a good knife to cut through the neck and connective tissue’s thick muscles, you can swivel, twist the head, and pop that joint apart. If you don’t know where that joint is, move the head from side to side, and you can see where that pivot joint is located. Make a circular cut all the way around through those muscles, and you can snap the head off without having to saw through those bones.
With hide and head removed, you now want to hang the carcass in a cool place to chill out. The hide can be saved for tanning if you wish.
Cow butchering: Keeping the carcass clean and dry.
Make sure the carcass stays clean. If you had to drag the animal or there was any material from the guts accidentally spilled on the carcass, wipe it off as quickly and thoroughly as possible, using water only if necessary and very sparingly. Meat tends to absorb water and spoils more readily if it is very wet, though you can quickly rinse the inside of the ribcage to remove blood residue after removing the heart and lungs. However, the less water you get on the carcass outside, the better.
In fly season, you must protect the hanging carcass, or flies will lay eggs in the meat. Old cotton sheets work well as a first layer of protection because cotton absorbs moisture, and safety pins can hold the sheets in place. Then seal any openings (around the legs and neck) with duct tape to keep the flies out.
Avoid covering it with a tarp, plastic, or any material that traps moisture and creates condensation, with the risk of spoilage and mold. A tarp or anything waterproof can be put around it as a final layer if it has to hang outside (rather than in a barn or shed) and it might rain.
Aging the carcass.
How long you hang and age a carcass before processing and packaging when cow butchering depends partly on the weather and your preference. If you don’t have a cool room and the weather is warm, process it before it spoils. The internal temperature of the round and other thick muscles should be lowered to 40 to 45 degrees Fahrenheit within 24 hours after slaughter. The sooner, the better. Failure to do so may result in “sour” meat.
Meat can be cut and packaged as soon as it has chilled out. You can cut it up the next day if need be, though many people feel it has better flavor if aged a while. The muscles undergo progressive changes that affect tenderness, and the chemical breakdown of certain muscles (and fat) results in a more intense flavor and aroma. These changes are desirable to many folks, but sour flavors and aromas can develop during the aging process if conditions aren’t just right — due to microbial growth, rancidity of fat, and adsorption of any off-odors in the chill room — excessive aging results in more shrinkage and trim loss.
If the carcass hangs very long, there will be an outer “rind” of dried surface. If you were able to keep the carcass very clean when you butchered the animal, you can just trim that off, and everything underneath is perfectly clean.
Will aging the carcass longer help make it tender?
The longer the aging, however, the harder and thicker the outer rind will be, which must be trimmed off. Remove any dried or discolored surface areas. None of these trimmings should be mixed with the trimmings for ground beef.
Tenderness problems cannot be solved simply by aging. Less-tender cuts, such as shank, neck, etc. can be ground for hamburger. For other cuts, more improvement in tenderness is achieved by correct cooking than by aging. Cuts should be identified and labeled correctly so proper cooking procedures can be used.
Processing and packaging
When cutting it up, ensure no hair is on any of the meat. If some hair is still stuck to the carcass after it has aged, before you start processing, you can use a little torch or Bunsen burner to singe the hair off, being careful not to burn the meat.
It’s easiest to handle a large carcass in quarters for processing. If you don’t have a meat room, you can do it in a clean area in your barn, garage, or kitchen, with a cutting board on a workbench, counter, or table. Have the work area cool.
It helps to have several washcloths that you frequently rinse to wipe your knives and cutting board. When you get done with a quarter, wash the board completely before you start on another. It helps to have a second board to put meat on once you get it boned off the quarter. Put the pieces on a different board (or freezer paper laid on your counter) and thoroughly clean the cutting board before bringing in another quarter.
If you have insulated coolers and ice, you can put the packages on ice to start chilling the meat more thoroughly before you put it in the freezer. If you put too much meat in a freezer at once, it may work the freezer too hard to bring the temperature down enough to freeze it. It helps to spread it around in the freezer; it will cool and freeze faster than in one big pile.
What cuts of meat do you want?
The cuts you make will partly depend on the age of the animal (an older animal that might not be very tender can be utilized as hamburger and a few roasts rather than a lot of steaks) and your preferences. With a young, tender animal, you can make steaks from the big muscles of the rump; otherwise, those will be roasts. Even an older animal can provide steaks from the tenderloin along the backbone. There is an inner and outer tenderloin. Back towards the pelvis, there is a smaller inner tenderloin. This inner loin is really tender, even from an old animal, and can make small steaks or chops.
Some people like to bake or barbeque ribs, and if there is a fair amount of meat on the ribs, you might want to package them rather than just taking the meat off the bones for hamburger. If you have room in your freezer, you can make several packages of ribs. A Sawzall is handy for cutting along the backbone at the top of the ribcage and splitting the ribs into sections. You can also remove the breastbone that holds the ribcage together at the bottom to reduce the bulk of bone in the packages.
The more white sinew you remove from the muscles, the better, especially when grinding hamburger. That gristly tissue clogs up the grinder, and you’ll have to take it apart and clean it out more often. Also, make sure you don’t put any bones through the grinder. If you use a saw, make sure you haven’t accidentally nicked a bone or have any bone sawdust in the meat that will be going into the burger.
What is the best way to package butchered meat?
For packaging, you can use freezer paper and tape, but many people now prefer vacuum-sealable bags even though they are more expensive, but the meat tends to keep longer without freezer burn. If you are in a hurry, freezer Ziploc bags work about as well, especially for hamburger when you need to process a lot in a short time. If you are doing it by yourself, sealing bags takes longer than stuffing ground meat into Ziploc bags.
When you seal the Ziplock bag, flatten the hamburger and get all the air out, fold the flap back over the package, and seal it. Don’t leave any meat on the seal, or it won’t close tight. Flattening the hamburger inside the bags makes for easy storage.
Label the bags or freezer-paper packages, telling what cut it is (roast, steak, tenderloin, burger, etc.), what it is (elk, deer, beef, lamb), and the date. Then when digging through your freezer you can select what you want and use the oldest meat first — so you don’t end up with some packages that are several years old. Processed cleanly and properly and kept solidly frozen, the meat will keep many years in the freezer.
Originally published in the May/June 2023 issue of Countryside and Small Stock Journal and regularly vetted for accuracy.
