Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire goat - it's what's for supper

Oh, what to do on these long cold winter days. Not a problem. We raise a few meat goats for eating and for sale. A couple days ago I killed 2 young bucks for the freezer. Today we're cutting them while it's cold and windy outside.

Goat is one meat you don't want to hang for more than 3 days. It loses moisture very fast and the meat will be dry and more stringy if you let it hang too long.

I keep our young males as bucks instead of castrating them, for a couple of reasons. Bucks grow faster with a higher % of meat instead of fat. As long as you kill them before they're a year old, they won't be strong. These 2 are 10 mo. old. The other reason is that we have registered Boer goats and we sell those we don't eat. It's quit difficult to tell at a young age which of the buck kids will turn into good breeders or will be table fare. By keeping them intact, I can delay that decision for 7 or 8 months and make a better choice. Last year we had one that we'd intended to eat but as he got older, he really started shaping up. We sold him for a breeder for triple what he'd have been worth as meat.

Do you feed them a "finishing ration" before you slaughter them?

Ed

So what's the process from start to finish with these? Is it basically like doing venison? Do you get mostly the same cuts?

At least you raise them for something different than the montanans.

What's the flavor like, if I may ask?

We do the same thing for our ram lambs.

To answer several questions at once:
we give them a little grain but not much. Goats are browsers like deer and the fatten nicely on just grass or hay.

The flavor is sort of between beef and lamb - not as mild as beef and not as strong as lamb. The meat doesn't marble like beef so you have to cook it right to prevent it from drying out too much..kind of like venison.

Butchering is exactly like doing a deer except for the actually killing. Most deer won't hold still long enough for me to shoot them in the back of the head with a .22. Since I do them at home and the corpse is still warm, they're an ideal candidate for air skinning. It really makes the hide come off easily. (google 'air skinning' for more info) The cuts are the same as a deer, just smaller since we kill them at about 80 to 90 lb. live.

What time is supper?

I've killed and eaten moee than I could count. Usually in the field, we simply too the back legs if a kill, wrapped them in foil with a few strips of bacon and buried them in the coals of the evening fire witb some spuds also wrapped in foil as well.

Browns like chicken and the meat is tender and falls off the bone. Never cooked it domestically, always "bush tucker".

Trivia item: Goat is the most widely eaten red meat in the world. It is not proscribed by any religion, thrives in hard environments, and is easy to raise.

Cabrito (kid goat) roasted over mesquite is my absolute favorite meat of all time.

One of my neighbors has started raising goats. Looks like I'm going to have to go visit him.

Ed

I've read that 65% of the world's red meat is goat. They can thrive in places where no other meat animals can survive. They're just starting to really catch on in the US, mainly because of the Mexican and eastern immigrants.

If you want to try it, check craiglist for someone with a goat to sell. Most people will say that they're for weed eaters or pets only, not for eating. If it dies of lead poisoning on your way home, so be it. Handle the meat just like deer except don't hang it for more than 3 days so it won't dry out too much. Pet goats are usually a lot cheaper than meat goats. I guess the owners don't value them for what they're valuable for.

I kill them with a 22 to the 1st vertebra behind the skull, aimed so it crushes the vertebra and angles forward into the back of the skull. They go down really fast. They'll kick a bit after they're dead, like a chicken with it's head cut off, but that doesn't hurt anything. The kicking always freaks out my wife so I give them an unneeded 2d round behind the ear after they're dead. They still kick, but it makes her feel better.

Idaho goat herder

Man, that picture wakes up a memory!

I was visiting Sweden on a shoestring budget, and was staying at a friend's place to save money. My friend had a family emergency come up, so he asked another friend of his if they could host this total stranger for a couple of nights.

The friends warned that they were picking up 2 free-range goats which had just been custom killed, and they were butchering that night -- and they thought that a dead critter might upset some people but I was welcome if I wanted to come.

Well, of course a dead critter is no problem for me, so I just washed my hands and waded right into helping cut up the meat. The whole job was even on a kitchen table much like in the picture!

It was quite fun, and a great way to meet a new couple. We ate some goat the next night too and it was great.

Anyway, I had not thought of this "goat on a kitchen table" for years, but your picture of a partially-dismembered goat on a kitchen table brought it all back, so thanks for posting it!

John

We have eaten a lot of goats over the years here too. Cabrito is also one of my favorites, as is mesquite smoked chicken. I initially got some goats to assist in clearing some mountain land, but soon learned that the buck could escape any fencing that I could afford at the time. He finally got on my last nerve and I got my "dandruff up" (I know it's dander, but I heard an old mountain man say this once, and it stuck), slaughtered the buck, and enjoyed eating him.

I have found that cooking goat
in the ground", as we cook bar-b-que, helps tp keep it moist and finger-licking good. It also makes great chili, IMO.

I know a couple people around here that raise goats and sell every one of the bucks to the muzzies from the city. They get a really good dollar for it too by setting up a kill shed so the buyers can kill them according to their religion and my friends clean up after them. I've considered it myself but I'd probably have to get rid of the pigs, and I just love bacon too dam much to care about supplying the muzzies.

So...about twice the size of a Texas deer?

That looks like good clean meat.

You can tell paratagas doesnt know what hes talking about...


He has confused goats with sheep....


Sheesh.......

Good one

bada boom!


grin