Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire The Butcher

I stumbled upon The Butcher late the the other night on the History Channel. Kinda like the Forged in Fire show, but with butchers. I really liked it. I imagine the vegans who stumbled upon it were yacking up their guts watching them break down an ostrich. Did anyone else see it?

How could that be interesting?

Watched some of one show.

They had for a final showdown a snake,Nutria and I forget the last one.

had to make the most money out of the cuts of meat.

Make them look good at the same time.

The older guy won that showdown.

it wasn't quite like folks making sausage in the back room before it appears in shrink wrapped packaging.

I lived it for 40 years.
Most meat cutters aren't butchers.
Everything comes broken down into primal cuts these days.
Damn few guys know how to take an animal apart, let alone go from freshly killed to field dressed to primals to retail cuts.
There are damn few thing in this world that I truly excell at, but butchering animals is that one thing.
If it has hair, feathers or scales I can kill it, clean it and butcher it well...

Now I'm hungry.

You are my hero.

Just another dumb show on TV........so naturally I watch it.

It comes on right after Forged in Fire and I always watch that.

Hey Sal, can you recommend a Utube channel or other site so us meat hackers can learn to do it right?

I started in 1978 on swinging beef, about 4 yrs before the transition to block ready. It was hard work, but I'm glad I learned it. After 24 yrs of that, I took a hard left down another career road, but still do a bit of moose and deer for myself & friends. All the moose and deer get totally boned out now. Not a band saw in the house.

I enjoyed the work, but the job sucked. Low pay, no overtime or even extra time.

It certainly appears you can. It ain’t bragging if you can do it!

Caught a couple shows as well. Entertaining and educational. Experience seems to pay on that one.

Same year I started.
I worked for 30 years for a great company.
The owner was a big game hunter and we had a great bond.
He let me bring my animals into the store and process them on site, grinders, slicers, tenderizes, those were good times.
I worked a [bleep] of overtime to pay for my hunts.

Put a clock on a pro "anything" with three other guys with prize money and us redknecks will watch

Sal,
You are absolutely right.
And in store meatcutters are getting more scarce.
Chickens come cut, much meat is prepackaged, if you want something,
F/U. You can't even buy a cut up chicken, I buy fryers and cut them.

Even the people in packing plants aren't butcher's, they are disassembly line workers.

Did you do processing, hams, bacons, sausages, baloney.
In your area scrapple, puddin, and souse, probably don't exist.

Places that do all those, are hard on my wallet.

Sal, can you come for a visit, next winter?

I'd be GTG to come help you with some processing as long as it's during our CDN winter.

my grandson put a video on facebook the other day, him doing that in a local supermarket.
told him i was gonna start buying steaks from him, cut the way i like them
i pretty much swore off meat not being able easily to get the stuff i did as a kid where one day it was grazing in a field, the next day hanging in a cold box.
it is a skill.
i could ask what kind of knives you are using?
grandson bought a set of i think called victorinix, same company makes the swiss army knives.

as to pay, in discussion i understand some slots will pay 40k to 50k a year.