Need help picking a slaughtering knife!

i have a ten inch. probably a bit shorter due to sharpening over all these years, but around that. i would be curious how much the longer blade would hamper maneuverability, and how much it would add to wrist fatigue when working long hours. could be minimal, just don't have first hand knowledge.
 
I use a an older wood handled Dexter #32910 10" butcher knife with a long upswept belly. The newer version simliar would be the Dexter-Russell S132N-10.
 
Old hickory, Green River, or Ontario butcher knives all have similar shapes and materials. They work very well and cheap.
 
If it's just a thin sharp throat-cutter that he wants, I'll bet a long fish-fileting knife would work great.
 
A very popular model with meat cutter.

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Moose
 
blt2go said:
the old hickory knives are excellent. easy to sharpen and take a pretty good lick to dull beyond use. i've used one that came from a local packing house over 30 years ago. put up 20 chickens with it just last spring and a feral hog this winter. brother used it for his first deer this winter.
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Agreed. Those old school thin carbon blades from Old Hickory -- and also Dexter -- are amazing. :thumbup:
 
Nader Elhayek said:
Hahah, "never judge a blade by its pic". Do you know how thin it is? Cant seem to locate that info
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You know--I bet if you emailed a retailer that has them they'd be able to tell you. They'd likely get back to you faster than the company themselves.
 
tyr_shadowblade said:
Look at David Farmer's bigger blades in the Knifemaker's For Sale Fixed Blades section. He makes a lot of long, pointy, screaming sharp blades from thin L6 sawblade steel. He takes custom orders and is very reasonably priced. He can fix you up with exactly what you need. :thumbup:
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His knives will definitely fill your need. They don't come much thinner or sharper.
 
Why not just a machete? they come in various sizes and styles, put a nice razor convex edge and you got yourself a long, sharp, thin knife. Many countries used machetes for meat processing in the past.
 
You don't need a huge honking knife to slaughter a goat - you just need a very sharp knife. I've seen many whitetail deer and goats dressed out from start to finish with just a Case Trapper.

A friend of mine who raises goats uses a 6" Dexter Russell boning knife that looks like the one below. It is thin, cheap, and easy as hell to sharpen to a razor's edge.

boning-knife.jpg
 
Lot of suggestions, thank you everyone. Ill keep you updated on which I pull the trigger on
 
I think that would be....overkill. *rimshot* :D

::ducks thrown objects::
 
ermm... i'm going to try and play know-it-all here. by "thin," he means blade width. you don't slit a livestock's neck across as with people. you stab the neck to reach the jugular. i've seen this with hogs and cattle. hogs have thick fatty necks so the blade goes far in. with cattle, the hide is tough and the jugular is also far in. the only livestock you can slit near-superfically are fowl.

therefore, you need a blade at least 7" long, pointy, thin (less than 1 1/2 inch width), with good finger guards (your hand can disappear inside the carcass,) and sharp enough on the upsweep end to cut arteries inside.

hope i got the requirement right.
 
hank_rearden said:
ermm...
therefore, you need a blade at least 7" long, pointy, thin (less than 1 1/2 inch width), with good finger guards (your hand can disappear inside the carcass,) and sharp enough on the upsweep end to cut arteries inside.

hope i got the requirement right.
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hank_rearden said:
ermm... i'm going to try and play know-it-all here. by "thin," he means blade width. you don't slit a livestock's neck across as with people. you stab the neck to reach the jugular. i've seen this with hogs and cattle. hogs have thick fatty necks so the blade goes far in. with cattle, the hide is tough and the jugular is also far in. the only livestock you can slit near-superfically are fowl.

therefore, you need a blade at least 7" long, pointy, thin (less than 1 1/2 inch width), with good finger guards (your hand can disappear inside the carcass,) and sharp enough on the upsweep end to cut arteries inside.

hope i got the requirement right.
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I believe the OP said the animals to be slaughtered were sheep/goats? But if that's the method of slaughter then what about this? Mora even calls it a "slaughtering knife"

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Exsanguination itself is not an acceptable way to euthanasia any animal although farm/food animals are not covered under the animal welfare act so you can pretty much do what you want with them... although I'd like to note that they do feel pain and fear.


On another note, I would hope that everyone have a chance or be force to actually slaughter all animals they eat humanely so that can understand where that meat came from and what scarifices were made to allow them to keep on living. Meat does not come from a supermarket, presliced and ground up on a foam plate! It come from an animal and they are raised by farmers which nearly kill themselves while going broke to bring you that meat. Also, if you ever ate any organic meat, your probably eating a sick animals. The fact is that antibiotics do work and there are withdraw times that should be followed so that the meat you get isn't loaded with what ever a good farmer would use to help keep his animals healthy!
 
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goats have tough necks. they're stabbed, not slit. although some people i've watched stab the animals forward into the heart.
 
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