Butchering A Lamb

Last week I butchered a lamb.

The animal was the right size but it was a bit lean, hardly any fat on it all all, just under a year old and only fed on grass.

I've done a bit of amateur butchery in the past and I have tackled animals bigger than this. I was surprised by how straight forward it was to butcher a lamb, I found the whole process really interesting. 

I did it using a YouTube video, Dawn recommended Scott Rea and I wasn't disappointed, it was really clear and straight froward, took me a few hours but I know the next one would be half the time. 

Fillet and leg

Breaking  the carcass down. After this point everything seemed easy.

All joints are weighed out and bags are labelled for the freezer, 

Breast jointed boned out and rolled. Need to learn the proper knots though! 

After jointing the animal up there was a bag of trimmings. I wasn't sure what to do with it, we've still got plenty of beef mince in the freezer and Cottage and Shepard's pie aren't that different in taste. Then my wife mentioned lamb burgers! 

I got the mincer out and fed it all through (the mincer has turned out to be a good investment).

Then I chopped up loads of rosemary and garlic mixed with salt and pepper and added it to my mince mix. 

I made the burgers with a burger making press, each is separated by some grease proof paper, it's good because when they go in the freezer you can then break off as many as you like. 

I can't wait to try these when we have a BBQ in the summer! 

So some more meat added to the freezer, we've already eaten half a shoulder I boned out, that did us for a roast and a really good lamb stir fry. I've also had devilled kidneys on toast and liver in onion gravy.

Who else has butchered a whole animal?

Did you enjoy the process? I found that I learnt so much about the animal and where the cuts were from.