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Post by elkhound on Apr 4, 2015 18:49:21 GMT
a local rancher i know will have lamb for sale out of field. he has both hair and wool sheep. do any of you notice difference in taste of these?
most of my meat comes from the wilds but i am expanding my diet a bit. price is $2 a pound. do you think this is a decent price?
if you do your own butchering how long do you hang carcass before cutting it up?
any advice is welcome...thanks.
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Post by bergere on Apr 4, 2015 21:30:59 GMT
It really depends on how the sheep are raised. I have had wool sheep that were outstanding and hair sheep.. that were... not to my taste. And everyone has different tastes.
Here, you have to go at least 2 1/2 hours away to buy lamb. The wethers I bought were $150.00 each for a 35 and 45lb 2 month old. He said they weighed more, but I weighed them when I got home. So $2.00lb sounds good to me.
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Post by elkhound on Apr 4, 2015 21:43:14 GMT
thats one thing i like is he has a set of certified scales on farm and only 15 miles away.he likes to sell at 100# and first ones will be ready about end of june.
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Post by bergere on Apr 4, 2015 23:14:18 GMT
If they are 100lbs at $2.00lb... that is a really good price! You could always get one wool and one hair and see which you like best.
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Post by elkhound on Apr 5, 2015 0:02:08 GMT
thats a great idea.my best friend and i wanted to get one and split it.by getting both types we both can see which we like best .that would be a great side by side comparison.
ETA;...i will dig out my old 1940 butcher book and read through it to see if they have advice about hang times etc.
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Post by Bear Foot Farm on Apr 5, 2015 0:34:33 GMT
Lamb usually isn't aged
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Post by bergere on Apr 5, 2015 11:00:05 GMT
I had mine aged, but I can't remember how long.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 7, 2015 14:50:07 GMT
Our butcher ages lamb the same as beef, 1 week. The younger the lamb the less that's necessary. I did one myself this year, and I just aged it as much as was convenient. (I drained one day, skinned one day, then butchered 1/3 of the carcass each day, tried to get it done before the weather turned.) You have enough cold space to age it in June?
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Post by Deleted on Apr 7, 2015 14:53:47 GMT
As for flavor, the oldest breeds have the best flavors. Newer breeds were bred more for ease of management, lambing rates, feed conversion ratios, etc... There's both hair and wool sheep in both categories, so without a breed label I'd agree with the try them both option. Make sure you label the packages so you don't get them mixed up.
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Post by bergere on Apr 7, 2015 15:16:03 GMT
The best tasting sheep I ever had, was an older Black Welsh Mountain Ram. It was sooo mild and tender, just nice over all flavor. No Rammy or wool taste at all.
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Post by bergere on Apr 7, 2015 15:16:34 GMT
Sorry DP again
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Post by katievt on Apr 7, 2015 15:29:09 GMT
The flavor has to do with the breed. Generally, the finer the fleece on the sheep, the stronger the meat is. That is the reason lamb can have a bad rap - supermarket lamb comes primarily from Australia where they have millions of fine-fleeced Merinos.
My parents raise Border Leicesters. They are a long-wool breed, so the wool is relatively coarse. Still lovely to use, but you wouldn't make undershirts out of it! They have very mild meat. We've eaten 3 year old rams that taste like 6 month old lambs.
I think getting half & half is a good idea! And $2.00 a pound seems like a great price!
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Post by Deleted on Apr 7, 2015 15:40:57 GMT
The best tasting sheep I ever had, was an older Black Welsh Mountain Ram. It was sooo mild and tender, just nice over all flavor. No Rammy or wool taste at all. If I ever become wealthy enough to buy a second farm property, it's going to have Black Welsh on it. Either that or we'll segment it up and run a three breed mule system... I love the Cotswolds, but I love variety too!
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Post by bergere on Apr 7, 2015 18:53:26 GMT
KatieVt... The black welsh mountain I had way back when, was before they brought semen in. Breed was dying out back then. Anyway.. Is an old and smaller heritage breed. Fleece is pretty cool, but not soft. Would be good for hard wearing things like rugs and such. Could be why it tasted so good.
That would be a wild cross dlskidmore, BWM and Cotswold.
I did some crossing with BWM and my Brecknock Hill Cheviots(now called mini cheviots) Really liked the cross, easy to handle and halter train. Of course by that time, I had culled out all the hard to deal with animals.
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Post by Awnry Abe on Apr 8, 2015 2:20:12 GMT
thats a great idea.my best friend and i wanted to get one and split it.by getting both types we both can see which we like best .that would be a great side by side comparison. ETA;...i will dig out my old 1940 butcher book and read through it to see if they have advice about hang times etc. Just like with fryers, only long enough to let the rigor release.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 8, 2015 2:57:31 GMT
That would be a wild cross dlskidmore, BWM and Cotswold. I think the size difference would be too much. Cotswold sires do produce easy lambs in smaller breeds (small heads for size), but there's got to be limits... If I was doing the mule system, I'd use the Cotswold as the hill breed, the Southdown or Texel as the terminal sire. Not sure what I'd use as the lowland breed, there are several lowland long wool sheep that would make good choices...
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Post by elkhound on Apr 8, 2015 3:16:43 GMT
Our butcher ages lamb the same as beef, 1 week. The younger the lamb the less that's necessary. I did one myself this year, and I just aged it as much as was convenient. (I drained one day, skinned one day, then butchered 1/3 of the carcass each day, tried to get it done before the weather turned.) You have enough cold space to age it in June? i do now...been fixing up my tiny butcher/canning shop so i can harvest early season deer when night temps are still high. i use to have a old pepsi cooler outside that would hold 3 deer quarted but it died a few years ago and was going to be way to expensive to fix. i really miss it so i have fixed a old 1969 GE refrigerator i had,made a butcher cabinet/counter top on wheels.i put my meat bandsaw on wheels a few weeks ago so i can move everything around to be efficient.also fixing it so i can ferment,dry etc. etc. in this same area. i have more cabinets to build. you can see cedar cabinet down in preparing forum section if interested in seeing it. i am revamping my homestead with items i have on hand as i go through cleaning and gleaning.its either going to be turned into functioning items or its going away from here.....stream lining everything. homesteadingfamilies.proboards.com/thread/485/daily-survival-cedar-cabinet
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Post by elkhound on Apr 8, 2015 3:41:26 GMT
since we are talking slaughter.heres a great video.
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Post by bergere on Apr 8, 2015 10:38:42 GMT
Our butcher ages lamb the same as beef, 1 week. The younger the lamb the less that's necessary. I did one myself this year, and I just aged it as much as was convenient. (I drained one day, skinned one day, then butchered 1/3 of the carcass each day, tried to get it done before the weather turned.) You have enough cold space to age it in June? i do know...been fixing up my tiny butcher/canning shop so i can harvest early season deer when night temps are still high. i use to have a old pepsi cooler outside that would hold 3 deer quarted but it died a few years ago and was going to be way to expensive to fix. i really miss it so i have fixed a old 1969 GE refrigerator i had,made a butcher cabinet/counter top on wheels.i put my meat bandsaw on wheels a few weeks ago so i can move everything around to be efficient.also fixing it so i can ferment,dry etc. etc. in this same area. i have more cabinets to build. you can see cedar cabinet down in preparing forum section if interested in seeing it. i am revamping my homestead with items i have on hand as i go through cleaning and gleaning.its either going to be turned into functioning items or its going away from here.....stream lining everything. homesteadingfamilies.proboards.com/thread/485/daily-survival-cedar-cabinetBWM Ram on a Cotswold Ewe.... might be surprised. But ya, my Brecknocks and BWM were the same sizes.
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Post by Awnry Abe on Apr 8, 2015 10:46:30 GMT
I have a two male lambs that were born last July that I just weighed at 92 lbs each. Good timing on that video. Walter Jefferies (Highlands on HT) was featured in a butcher's book on meat and butchering. I have a copy but don't have the title off the top of my head. The author also had DVD videos on butchering lambs. All around good books and videos. And it was also neat to see an HTer "in person".
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Post by Deleted on Apr 8, 2015 12:16:25 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jun 26, 2015 16:04:04 GMT
I find that I prefer the taste of Katahdins. They're a bit milder than the wool sheep I've also enjoyed. Also, we butchered a 2 year old intact ram, and the meat was still tender and mildly flavored.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 2, 2015 13:40:25 GMT
Is the $2/lb live weight or hanging weight? We easily get $3/lb hanging weight for adult culls and at least $5/lb hanging weight for lambs.
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Post by elkhound on Jul 7, 2015 0:33:38 GMT
Is the $2/lb live weight or hanging weight? We easily get $3/lb hanging weight for adult culls and at least $5/lb hanging weight for lambs. $2 live weight.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 8, 2015 14:52:13 GMT
That's not a terrible price. We've been selling our extra lambs for $150/ea this spring and they currently weigh 50-60lbs. That's $2.50-3.00/lb live weight.
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