Recommend methods to slaughter sheep and goat... and how to select good ones

[goodsamaritan]

Hi,  I have gotten into buying whole live sheep and goat and I need your global inputs on the best methods and why and how to slaughter sheep and goat.

Also how to select good ones, the age, sex, weight, size.

For example 2 weeks ago I got a male goat, some 1.5 yrs old and 36 kilos live weight.

The slaughter method I chose was slitting his throat, otherwise, their usual method was hammering their heads.

But with throat slitting I could not get the blood to be drained for eating.

My theory is that hammering heads is very stressful for the animal.

Pictures and videos may help.

There are some livestock raisers here in my country who enclose goats in pens and give them grass and feeds and antibiotics.  Gross.  How to identify really grass fed ones, find healthy ones.


2 photos attached.  The white goat 36 kilos live weight.  And the torching process of removing all the hair so the skin can be cooked for eating.

[zaidi]

I once saw it on youtube about the pigs. Perhaps it will also work for the goats/sheep.

Please watch it from 3 minutes. This method seems to be good one as it is easily doable in homes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpyhzdOwZV8

[jessica]

Put sheep on their sides and gently but firmly hold their head so that they are looking at their own tails.  They shouldn't move or struggle, you don't have to slit their throat, jus locate the artiery on he side of thermneck wand make and use the kinds to make an 1 inch puncture directly where the blood flow is, you can use a few quart jars to capture the blood as it pulses out.  Death by small wound and blood loss usually just results in them going unconscious with the least amount of pain.  They will start to twitch and convulse but this is not Due to pain, it is due to blood loss creating an electrolyte imbalance in the body.  If they aren't bleeding out quick enough, turn the head and repeat the small puncture wound to the artery in the neck.

[van]

I just had my four remaining goats put down and butchered.   If you're not going to use the brain,   a bullet to the forehead is the quickest most humane way for them to go.   This farmer who came to my farm to put them down brought a deer rifle, but had only a few bullets left.   Thus he had to slit their throats for the last three.   I can tell you the one who got the bullet never  knew what happened.  And the ones that bled to death appeared to go through quite an ordeal.   as to whether  or not they knew they were dying, I don't know for sure.    But I will always use  a bullet in the future.  I would also consider in buying a stun gun as used in meat processing plants here.  It's a large Gun like instrument that uses a cartridge, that pushes out a rod at the end into the animals forehead.   The rod only comes out about an inch or so, and then retracts back.  Thus you don't have to worry about a bullet exiting the head and hurting someone.   It also leaves most of the brain intact.  If I had more animals to do, I would invest in one.  I doubt they are very expensive.

[eveheart]

The family farm where I buy sheep uses a contraption that "hugs" the side of the sheep and turns the sheep on its side. They do let customers help in the slaughter, if the customer so desires. The slaughter was very dignified. I never saw anything there that made me feel that the sheep was suffering too much. This farm follows halal traditions, and I like the grateful, reverent rituals, even though I am not of the Muslim religion.

Maybe you can assist at some farms that use different styles of slaughter. You learn more with hands-on than watching videos, but Youtube has excellent videos of all styles of slaughter.

Here's a Youtube showing how easily sheep and goats are restrained with a good technique: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeNJHw4MoT4 - around minute 6+. This is about equal to the lack of struggle that I see at the farm I buy from. (I do not mean you to infer that it is necessary to say Arabic religious words to cause the animal to surrender.)

[jessica]

That's pretty much how I have helped get animals down for slaughter, just sitting in them to restrain them a bit for when they are stabbed in the neck, they jump a little but settle back down, they only start twitching about when enough blood drains out, by them they have lost consciousness.

I think saber tooth did a video of a similar slaughter technique? Or it was on one of those shows he did. 

As for choosing good livestock, if your farmer doesn't let you see his fields, his barns etc He is either extremely busy and you need to work around that schedule, paranoid or doing something you won't approve of.