The weekend started out with me feeling ill, I had a cold on Friday which wasn't much fun. But on Saturday Steph amd I headed into Masterton to price up curtains (ouch, I didn't realise they were so expensive), and pick up paint for the fish tank stand. Once we got home we brought the lambs in from the paddocks to give them a check over, and select out a few for slaughter soon. We drenched them (which was well timed as we found what look like tape worm in their poo), and selected one for slaughter today, and a couple for us, and the freezer. Whilst we had the lambs up and were smelling like sheep, we also rounded Devilspawn and Winston up. We needed to get Winston off the paddock for 24 hours to "empty him out". Winston and a lamb were put into a pen to spend the night but we ended up seperating them 'cause Winston kept bailing the lamb against the rails and ramming her (in the wrong way!), we didn't think she would survive the night (we knew she wouldn't survive 24 hours, but we needed at least 12!)
We also wormed and trimmed the alpacas feet, yikes....I didn't know alpacas were lap animals, Jamie sits down when you touch his feet, so I ended up sitting underneath him, so as he cushed down, there was still room for Steph to work underneath. After about an hour of wrestling alpacas (Adam was the only one who didn't really care what we were doing), we finished for the day.
Also at some stage in the day, I put the first coat of dark dark blue on the back of the tank stand.
On the new grass front, we already can see shoots growing, so hopefully it won't be long before the paddock is green.
Today, I got up nice and early, and went to back to bed (well Steph did once we got one of the lambs unstuck from some fencing, the same sheep had already been freed yesterday, from the same bit of netting, and later in the day, it got stuck again, that one is for the pot). Whilst Steph was snoozing, I put another coat of paint on the tank stand, it looks really cool, and I also undercoated the doors ready for later on when I paint them grey.
After that we trundled into town to get the pattern name from the warehouse for our curtains, unfortunalty whilst we were in town, Martin (friend from work) came visiting.
Once we got home we started getting ready for the afternoons task, we started off by putting the alpacas down in the bottom paddock with the few lambs that we want to keep seperate for the time being. The 'pacas really enjoyed having the extra space to run around in 'cause they "gamboled gaily" around for a few minutes, until they realised that the stuff they were on was GRASS...
Before:
Winston and lamb
After:
Then Michelle and Joe arrived, and it was time.....Do not read past here if squimish.
After a coffee we wandered down to the pens, and whilst I was collecting the tractor (so has to hoist the carcases up on the FEL) Joe dispatched Winston, because of his strength and his neck muscle it took a fair cut to be effective. When I got there with the tractor he was already culled, and we were just waiting for the muscle reaction to stop (which can take up to five minutes), he was kicking for quite a long time, but definitly dead!.
Once he had settled down, the skinning started, first by removing a strip along the back of a front leg above the elbow, and then freeing the skin all around the leg, and then severing the foot by cutting through the joint and snapping the leg off. This was then done to the other front leg and then two slits up to the throat so as to free the brisket. The back legs were done in a similar fashion. Once we had the back legs skinned, we put him on the meat hooks and hoisted him up on the FEL so as to make the rest of skinning and gutting easier. Skining was basically just punching the skin of the meat (it was surprising hard in places, and required quite a bit of strength). After about 10 minutes we had the fleece of and all that was attached was the head, this was snapped off, and from there on, it just looked like something from a butchers.
Winston skinned
The lamb skinned
What was wasted from the lamb (grusume photo)
The next thing was to gut it, first a cut is made around the anus (very carefully), and it is allowed to fall back into the cavity, then starting just between the back legs a small slit is cut (enough to get your hand in), and then using you hand as a guard (so you don't slice into any thing) the slit down the abdomen is made bigger. The bladder and bowel are removed from the top of the cavity and with the anus it is allowed to drop more towards the lungs etc. Everything at this stage is sitting in a pocket below the cut (a good time to bring a bucket or something to put under the sheep). Then very carefully, again using you hand as a guard, move the knife down until all the insides are hanging outside, then run a knife along the edge of the diaphragm and then delve deep into the chest cavity and pull out the throat etc, then everything should just fall into the bucket, one more cut across the chest where it is still holding on, and there you have one lamb carcass ready for the butcher.
After the initial cut, it is very surprising how little blood there is, except for a small pool in the bottom of the chest cavity, there is basically none. also the other thing that was odd was how much empty space there was inside.
Once I got the insides in the bucket, I hunted through them to dig out the kidney's and heart (Joe found the lambs fry, but I can't seem to remember where that was put, oh well, till the next one). After we had wrapped up the carcases and tidied up, Joe and Micheal left. I prompted removed Winston's head, and threw the fleece in the washing machine,whilst the other fleece was hosed off before salting. Whilst the fleece was being washed, I dug a pit for the offal (unfortataly I think the pit was a bit shallow, so I've thrown a pressure tank on top to stop dogs), the stuff is covered, but it isn't very deep, hopefully it won't smell too badly (being just soft tissue, it should decompose pretty quick.) Now we just have to find a temporary home for the head until nature does it's job (he has an amazing set of horns!).
On Tuesday I will be fleshing Winston's hide and hopefully turning it into a deep rug for the lounge.
Joe did Winston, then I did (euphemism for slaughter and skin) the lamb.
In the evening we dropped the carcases off to a butcher to be turned into sausages, and salami, and also collected 2 bails of hay (as we think we're going to be short of grass this year during winter).
Anyway, I'm also in Wellington now (and feeling surprisingly hungry, how odd). Till later.
