Rick: What y ou described is typical of bleeding to death. The reason for shooting them in the head is that it stops the central nervous system reaction and stuns or paralyzes the animal prior to draining the blood from the body. When you cause the bleeding to death syndrome you allow the adrenaline response to engage and create a very tough meat. Before the use of the powder actuated and later air actuated bolts that penetrate into the brain stem, a large mallet was used, and the animal was knocked out. The latest method of large animals is two large high voltage electrodes that shock the brain out of commission.
There is nothing pretty about that part of slaughter. I maintained a packing plant in OKC for a few months after college while trying to find a job... Cecil in OKla Rick Krach wrote: > I have a couple of unusual questions today. First one is about butchering > lambs, actually the killing of them. For years I have always shot them > before cutting their throats, but yesterday I tried just holding the lamb > and having a friend slit his throat. I was so surprised to see that it > acted like a chicken with its head cut off. It took forever to settle down > and I've never seen that happen with an animal which was shot first. Was > this just a strange case, or have any of you seen that happen regularly. If > it's for real, I wonder what people did when slaughtering animals for six > thousand years before guns were invented! > > Second question: I've not had a chance to taste the animals yet because > I've sold all the lambs, but the person I'm selling them to tells me that > the lambs which were both 1/2 blackbelly and 3/4 blackbelly just did not > taste quite as clean and good as the 100% blackbelly. The other part was > Dorper/St. Croix, and I thought I'd been told that that mix would taste > pretty much the same! These mixed breed lambs were slightly bigger, > however, but if they don't taste the same, I might as well quit raising > them. > > Rick Krach > Auburn, California > (530) 889-1488 > > > _______________________________________________ > This message is from the blackbelly mailing list > Visit the list's homepage at %http://www.blackbellysheep.info > llysheep.info > > _______________________________________________ This message is from the blackbelly mailing list Visit the list's homepage at %http://www.blackbellysheep.info
