October 25, 2010 Killing the Goats

Hello everyone;

We are now officially the cruelest two people on the planet.  Today our goats died and it was a heart-breaking good-bye.

First of all, on Friday we took their mother to another farm to get bred.  We had decided to spare Dolly's life, as she is a great mother, with a calm, good-natured personality.   We agreed to give Dolly to Jeannie and Joel in exchange for them killing and butchering the two kids.  Then we made a deal with the breeders to give them some goat meat in exchange for the use of their buck.  We love this local barter economy!

Well, the two kids had never been away from their mother.  They bawled and called for her until the little female actually lost her voice.  That was heart-breaking enough.  However, after a day or two, it became annoying and we began to want the whole thing over with.

Today, I went out for a final cuddle with the two cutest, friendliest, most lovable goats in the world.  I've been apologizing to them for the past month.  Ray and I have gone over and over it.  Do we want pets or are we going to be farmers?  People all over the world go through what we've just gone through.  And I've been thinking that it's good to be sad about eating meat.  Most people never think about it.  Besides, we had just bought a new freezer for $500, so it was too late to back out.  (So much for free meat!)

Joel and Jeannie came over around 1:00 and loaded them into their truck.  They said to wait ten minutes and then come over and help with the skinning and hanging.  What a sickening feeling.  We got there and there they were with their throats cut, lying on the ground.  After an initial pang, we got at the job.  Joel cut off their back feet with a SawsAll and we started the job of skinning. Once we started, it got easier, especially as we began to see the lovely dark meat.

Joel did an excellent job of taking out the insides.  By that point it was fascinating to look at the lungs, intestines, liver, etc.  We learned a lot.  Once the skinning was done, Joel sawed them in half, down the entire backbone and then we wrapped each half in a cheese cloth bag.  They will hang for a few days and on Friday we will go and cut and wrap them up into chops, roasts, tenderloin and scraps for sausages.

So we passed the farmer's test.  It was awful but I think we can do it again.  Next year we will have sheep.  They don't jump fences and they produce wool as well as meat.  We will try not to get too attached to them.

So if you are in the neighbourhood, come by for a meal of lovely goat meat.  

Bye for now.  Love from Ray and Fern.