Hello everyone! :)
Now I know that most of you will be a little weary about reading this post from the title, but I'm not going to go into a ton of detail about what we do because I know that is something most people don't want to hear about. But I want to share my feelings on it and how I've grown as a person because of it.
We have to butcher every time a donated cow or horse, sometimes mule, comes into the facility. If the animal isn't dead already, we have corrals that we put it into with hay and water until Derek comes home from work or has a free moment. He is the one who puts down the animals and about a week ago, we had four horses that were donated from one man that were all in the corrals, and another was dropped off as we were out there. So in total, five animals that needed to be put down. These horses were old, had bad legs, etc. I usually am never near the area when Derek does this, but I happened to be out there helping unload the fifth horse that was dropped off. Since I was there, and I knew it was a lot of work, I decided to stay and ensure the other horses didn't spook and knock over the fences/gates as Derek led the others away. I think it was a good thing I was there because one of the horses was pretty worked up anyway, so I was able to shut the gate to keep that one in. Derek talked to me after to make sure I was okay, having witnessed all of it, and I really appreciated that he did that. It was a lot to take in at once and while I was doing it, I was fine. No emotion. But after the fact, while he was talking to me, it hit me and I got a little teary seeing all the horses. But they were all for the cats. Nothing wasted.
So that's part of the before butchering section of this process. Once the animal is dead, I hop on the tractor (pictures of me on the tractor below) and get it into position where I can chain it up. Either I do everything myself, or the other intern Candice helps with this part. She'll be butchering the next cow or horse we get so I hope she's been paying attention to everything I've been showing her. ;) Once we get the chains attached, the bucket is rotated and the animal is raised and I drive it over to the pit. The pit is exactly as it sounds. We butcher over there because it makes it easier when we gut the animal, for the guts to fall right into the pit. Believe me, you don't want that stuff just sitting in a pile on the ground. Just the smell is bad enough. Even when I misjudge the distance and I have to kind of kick the guts into the pit, it's nasty.
Casually driving the tractor. Don't mind the gloves, I thought a gut was going to explode on me so I had taken precautions. That smell will never leave you if it gets on you.
I'm not going to go into detail about each step but you first start with cutting the legs and then you get the shoulder and chunks from those. Then you do the other side. Once we have the legs off and loaded into the gator and the guts out, we drive the tractor carefully back to the freezer where we take an axe and take the head off, so that the big cats like Chompers, Kanapalli, Solano, etc. can enjoy them. It's funny but different cats like different chunks of meat better than others. Some prefer legs or shoulders, others like heads. Some also prefer cow to horse, but I guess that's like how people prefer red meat to chicken. But some cats also don't like chicken. We're similar, is all I'm trying to say. Everyone has different tastes.
Anyway, If we're feeding that night, we usually just leave everything in the gator and pull things from the freezer to get ready for feed. But if it is just a normal day and we just had a cow to butcher, we unload the gator of all the meat and load it all into the freezer, different parts go in different sections of the freezer. Shoulders with shoulders, legs with legs, etc. I'll go into more detail about feed day in another post.
However, here is a picture of me up on the bucket about to push a body into the Babies' enclosure, while they hungrily wait below. Fun, huh?
It actually is quite fun. Feeding makes you use your "CARE muscles" like whoa. After each feed night, my entire body aches. Especially when I'm up in the bucket by myself. I am the one responsible for lifting each piece of meat out of the bucket, and over the fence. Let me tell you...horse heads are heavy. Like really heavy. I finally figured out a good method for getting them over, but man, did I struggle the first time I was up there.
At first when I watched Rachel butcher, I was terrified. I never thought I'd be able to do what she did, it looked so complicated and she was super awesome at it, so it looked really clean. When I started, it obviously was no where as clean as hers, so I got a bit discouraged. This made me hesitant to do what I knew was next and I constantly was looking for affirmation that I was doing it correctly. I have a tendency of over-thinking...a lot. This hinders butchering quite a bit and it was Derek who shook me of that. He called me out on it. He constantly said to me, "You're making this more complicated." or "You're over-thinking." etc. I knew I was, but hearing someone else say it made me just want to power through it and just do it. He also made me feel better about just going at it by asking me what I was doing. "Butchering." Then he said, "that's right. Butchering. You can't mess it up." Just realizing that, was SUPER helpful because yeah, it may not be the cleanest and the hip joint might not be perfectly separated from the meat but if you end up with four legs, two shoulders, and chunks, you did it correctly. Doesn't matter how pretty it is getting there.
Gutting, however, it a bit of a different story in that if you mess it up, you could and probably would be covered in poop, pee, and lots of other unpleasant things. Things that smell raunchy and that smell literally doesn't go away for hours. The key to gutting it to first cut slits in the ribs to let out the gases and to make everything descend into the ribcage so they fall out easier. Then once you get through the layer of fur and skin, little tiny cuts are your best friend. Thin cuts made with the middle of your knife is what you need to get through the layers of muscle and fat. You really do not want to rush gutting if you aren't familiar with it. Even now, I've gutted quite a few and I still take my time gutting. I take no chances with it. The two things that are most important when butchering are: tension and a sharp knife. If you cut the tension with your sharp knife, then a lot of your work is done for you. The weight of the animal will help you if you just cut that tension.
Another thing you have to be weary of while butchering and gutting is blood. If you nick an artery while cutting, you're getting a steady stream of blood shooting at you. While gutting, blood and sometimes other stuff drips from the mouth and the other day I got dripped on consistently while gutting. It wasn't the most pleasant sensation especially since I was wearing a tank top. Yum.
Okay, I hope it wasn't too gross for you! But this is an almost daily part of my life now. I have gotten pretty comfortable with it, in that I no longer feel a sense of dread when I know I need to butcher something. I think of it more like, 'Oh, there's some kitty food I need to go prepare.' If that makes sense. :)
Here are some happy pictures for you to enjoy!
I was stretching my sore hip and leg one morning during chores and Candice decided to document.
Raven sunning herself.
Have a great night!
