how to butcher sweetbreads?

[Adora]

Does anybody know how to butcher pancreas, adrenals, thymus, thyroid, ovaries,or anythings else that's nontraditional organ stuff? I have a farmer/butcher in  a csa that will butcher theses things for me, but says he doesn't know how. He raises and butchers cows, pigs, chickens, lambs, and I'm hoping to get a deer and I like to know what I'm looking for ahead of time.
Thanks

[ys]

I've gutted numerous deers and here are things I was able to recover:
 - Liver - by far the largest organ in the cavity (besides stomach)
 - Heart
 - Kidneys - always covered in hard fat, hard to locate in small deers, adrenals would be in there too, very tiny blobs
 - Spleen - looks like extension of the liver
 - Lungs - Usually gets damaged by the bullet fragments or arrow
 - Thyroid - very small blobs in the neck area
 - Testicles

I've never seen thymus, pancreas, and ovaries.  Given enough time I would probably able to locate them.  But those things are so tiny I don't think you'd get much value.  These organs are so small the butcher never sees them especially in smaller animals.  Only large animals like bison or large cow may have glands large enough to be visible.

It takes practice to locate those small glands, just take your time.  You'll need very sharp knife, there are a lot of connective tissues.  Don't cut yourself.  Make sure you don't puncture stomach or intestines, the smell maybe too overwhelming.

Good luck!

[CitrusHigh]

It may be helpful to learn the things you can't eat (like the gall bladder) first, then you can figure out how to eat the rest. Kind of like learning edible wild plants, learn the deadlies first, then everything else is either edible or just irritating.

Here are some books to learn about this kind of stuff...

River  Cottage  Meat  Book,  by  Hugh  Fearnley-Whittingstall;
 The Whole  Beast:  Nose  to  Tail  Eating,  by  Fergus  Henderson;  and
Pork and  Sons,  by  Stéphane  Reynaud
The above were recommended in the book I downloaded off of demonoid.com called...
The Butcher's Guide To Well-Raised meats.... This book was made for us RAFers!

Thanks for spurring me to hunt some of this stuff down Adora! Maybe talk to you this weekend!