My cousin got me to kill and butcher a couple of the 'cull' sheep on her farm.
I shot them using my old Gecado single shot .22
For 'halving' the carcases while they were hanging by the back legs, I used a cheap hard-toothed woodsaw which I had polished with sandpaper to remove the clear plastic coating and other gunk. It performed very well.
I used the Gameskeeper for the initial bleeding etc in the paddock, but once I had the animals strung up I used my Mora Clipper to work around the bones. I'm used to using a Clipper for this sort of thing. I feel that the thinner, pointier blade is well suited to the job. The Gameskeeper, to me, is more of a general purpose knife. Indeed if I had to pick just one of my sheath knives to accompany me in the bush it would be the Gameskeeper. It has sufficient weight to perform small chopping jobs, and it has a good-sized functional blade for general hunting and bushcraft purposes. I love it.
When I go hunting, I don't generally bother about trying to turn my game animals into supermarket cuts including chops. It makes sense to not carry bones around, so I will often just cut the meat off the skeleton. However, I figured my cousin's family would probably be expecting chops, so I took along my Tora kukri (11" blade) in the hope that I could use it to separate the vertebrae into chops. I don't have a decent meat cleaver.
Dang that kukri did a good job. Because it is a relatively heavy blade with a lot of weight forward, I found I could use the blade near the handle to chop with.... and I could start my chopping action maybe only an inch above the joint...... thus allowing relatively good accuracy. With a lighter cleaver I'd be more inclined to start the chopping action with quite a swing which of course reduces accuracy and is likely to put a lot of bone chips into the meat. The kukri penetrated well with just a small chopping action.
I even found that sometimes I could just push the blade of the kukri down through the joint. Once I had cut through the joint, the sharp blade could then be used in a slicing motion to cut through the meat.
I also have a nice 12" (overall) Himalayan Imports Ang Khola kukri. It is a pity I didn't take that one with me to give it a try as well. It is probably a tad lighter than the Tora, but I imagine that it would have still done the job.
Although I've been cutting up animals for years, I'm still not willing to chop a carcase in half lengthwise with an axe or cleaver. It is too easy to wander off the center of the spine, and it is likely that too many sharp bone chips will be created. Perhaps next time I have a carcase that isn't so important I could try using a kukri.
I didnt have a gambel (gambrel, gimbrel, double butcher's hook) to hang the carcases from. So I used two ropes... one tied to each leg. I actually prefer this when halving a carcase. I think it is is more secure. It is a lot more likely that a half carcase will fall on the ground and get dirty if it is hanging on a gambel hook, whereas it is extremely unlikely that my nylon rope tied with a slipped buntline hitch will ever allow the carcase to fall.
Here are the tools:
I shot them using my old Gecado single shot .22
For 'halving' the carcases while they were hanging by the back legs, I used a cheap hard-toothed woodsaw which I had polished with sandpaper to remove the clear plastic coating and other gunk. It performed very well.
I used the Gameskeeper for the initial bleeding etc in the paddock, but once I had the animals strung up I used my Mora Clipper to work around the bones. I'm used to using a Clipper for this sort of thing. I feel that the thinner, pointier blade is well suited to the job. The Gameskeeper, to me, is more of a general purpose knife. Indeed if I had to pick just one of my sheath knives to accompany me in the bush it would be the Gameskeeper. It has sufficient weight to perform small chopping jobs, and it has a good-sized functional blade for general hunting and bushcraft purposes. I love it.
When I go hunting, I don't generally bother about trying to turn my game animals into supermarket cuts including chops. It makes sense to not carry bones around, so I will often just cut the meat off the skeleton. However, I figured my cousin's family would probably be expecting chops, so I took along my Tora kukri (11" blade) in the hope that I could use it to separate the vertebrae into chops. I don't have a decent meat cleaver.
Dang that kukri did a good job. Because it is a relatively heavy blade with a lot of weight forward, I found I could use the blade near the handle to chop with.... and I could start my chopping action maybe only an inch above the joint...... thus allowing relatively good accuracy. With a lighter cleaver I'd be more inclined to start the chopping action with quite a swing which of course reduces accuracy and is likely to put a lot of bone chips into the meat. The kukri penetrated well with just a small chopping action.
I even found that sometimes I could just push the blade of the kukri down through the joint. Once I had cut through the joint, the sharp blade could then be used in a slicing motion to cut through the meat.
I also have a nice 12" (overall) Himalayan Imports Ang Khola kukri. It is a pity I didn't take that one with me to give it a try as well. It is probably a tad lighter than the Tora, but I imagine that it would have still done the job.
Although I've been cutting up animals for years, I'm still not willing to chop a carcase in half lengthwise with an axe or cleaver. It is too easy to wander off the center of the spine, and it is likely that too many sharp bone chips will be created. Perhaps next time I have a carcase that isn't so important I could try using a kukri.
I didnt have a gambel (gambrel, gimbrel, double butcher's hook) to hang the carcases from. So I used two ropes... one tied to each leg. I actually prefer this when halving a carcase. I think it is is more secure. It is a lot more likely that a half carcase will fall on the ground and get dirty if it is hanging on a gambel hook, whereas it is extremely unlikely that my nylon rope tied with a slipped buntline hitch will ever allow the carcase to fall.
Here are the tools: