Part 1

LAMB Slaughtering, Cutting, Preserving, and Cooking on the Farm

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE FARMERS’ BULLETIN NUMBER 2264 PREPARED BY AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH SERVICE

CONTENTS

Selection and care of animal before slaughter 3 Preparing for slaughter 4 Slaughter 6 Chilling the carcass 21 Cutting 22 Freezing and frozen storage 38 Meat cookery 38 Preserving lamb pelts 40

PRECAUTIONS

The Law

The Federal Meat Inspection Act requires that all meat which is to be sold or traded for human consumption must be slaughtered under inspection in an approved facility under the supervision of a State or USDA meat inspector. A person can slaughter his animals outside such a facility only for use by him, members of his household, his nonpaying guests and employees. He is not allowed to sell any portion of the carcass. For more details about these regulations, consult your county extension agent or write to the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, United States Department of Agriculture, Washington D.C. 20250.

This bulletin supersedes Farmers’ Bulletin 2152, “Slaughtering, Cutting, and Processing Lamb and Mutton on the Farm.”

Washington, D.C. Issued August 1977

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Washington, D.C. 20402 Stock No. 001-000-03709-9

Lamb Slaughtering, Cutting, Preserving and Cooking on the Farm

By H. Russell Cross, Research Food Technologist, Curtis Green, Meat Marketing Specialist, William R. Jones, Extension Meat Specialist, Roger L. West, Associate Professor, Meat Science, and Anthony W. Kotula, Chief, Meat Science Research Laboratory, (Photographs by Donald K. Rough and Terry K. O’Driscoll)

Meat Science Research Laboratory, Northeastern Region, Agricultural Research Service, Beltsville, MD. 20705.

Standardization Branch, Livestock Division, Agricultural Marketing Service, Washington, D.C. 20250.

Cooperative Extension Service, Auburn University, Auburn, AL. 36830.

Department of Animal Science, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL. 32611.

Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, Northeastern Region, Agricultural Research Service, Beltsville, MD. 20705.

SELECTION AND CARE OF ANIMAL BEFORE SLAUGHTER

Several factors should be considered before slaughtering a lamb for home consumption. The most important considerations are health, care of the animal prior to slaughter, kind of animal (lamb or mutton), and expected meat yield.

Health

One should take care that an unhealthy animal is not selected for slaughter. At the time of selection, look for signs of sickness such as fever, increased breathing rate and diarrhea. Animals suspected of being unhealthy should be treated by a veterinarian until the animal is returned to a healthy state.

Animal Care

To obtain high-quality meat, it is important to exercise proper care of the animal prior to slaughter. Pen the animal in a clean, dry place the day before slaughtering. Restrict the animal from feed 24 hours prior to slaughter, but provide access to water at all times. Withholding feed results in greater ease of evisceration (because the gastrointestinal tract is smaller) and minimizes the migration of ingested bacteria from the gastrointestinal tract into the blood stream. Access to water enhances complete bleeding, results in brighter colored lean in the carcass, and enhances pelt removal.

Animal Type and Meat Yield

Animal age will have a sufficient effect on the palatability of the cooked product. Carcasses from sheep are classed as lamb (12 to 14 months or less), yearling mutton (14 to 24 months), or mutton (over 2 years) on the basis of differences that occur in the development of their muscular and skeletal systems. Differences in palatability between the lamb and mutton meat are substantial. Meat from mutton carcasses has a very intense flavor which is undesirable to some individuals. Mutton is seldom marketed as retail cuts but rather as soup stock or in further processed meat items.

A meat-type lamb carcass, when cut and trimmed according to the methods described later, will yield over 70 percent of its carcass weight in major trimmed cuts. Expected yields of retail cuts from a yield grade 2 (trim) and a yield grade 4 (wasty) carcass are presented in table 1.

TABLE 1—Comparison of yield of retail cuts between USDA yield 2 and yield grade 4 lamb carcasses ------------------------------------------------------------------ Percentage of carcass weight

Closely trimmed --------------------------------- retail cuts Yield grade 2 Yield grade 4 ------------------------------------------------------------------ Leg, short cut.................... 22.2 19.4 Sirloin........................... 6.4 5.8 Short loin........................ 10.1 9.5 Rack.............................. 7.9 7.5 Shoulder.......................... 23.8 21.6 Neck.............................. 2.1 1.9 Breast............................ 9.8 9.8 Foreshank......................... 3.4 3.2 Flank (boneless stew)............. 2.3 2.3 Kidney............................ 0.5 0.5 Fat............................... 8.2 15.4 Bone.............................. 3.3 3.1 --------------------------------- Total......................... 100.0 100.0 ------------------------------------------------------------------ Adapted from Smith, King, and Carpenter, 1975.