Pig Killer Cleaver-Blade

bbforstr said:
Typically animals are killed with a low caliber penetrating device administered in the correct location. It's fast and humane. Because It's fast, it keeps the adrenaline level low, (adrenaline is bad for meat flavor). I believe the large cleaver would have been used for butchering purposes. Now days, the killing instrument is probably pneumatic. If you've seen the movie "No Country for Old Men", you know what I mean.

I've heard bison are very hard to kill. Thick skulls I guess. Kind of like some of you guys.

Later

Brent
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It is not possible to taste adrenaline in the meat no matter how much is present.

I am not really sure what "humane" means, but if you sever the carotid arteries with a knife, death comes fast (within seconds) and is almost painless. Same effect as if you would manually stop the heart, Mongol style.
 
That this chemical is tasteless, of course has only a small relationship to weather or not stress prior killing a pig effects the condition of the meat but it seems to be implied in the claim, adrenaline has no taste. Taking the condition of the meat as intended for human consumption as the only consideration then, does stress during the slaughter have any consequence, or is that only an idea that serves the self interest of the consumer? "Lets make the killing humane so we can gorge ourself in good conscious". Something like that.

E.DB.
 
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KingKoma,
I do not in fact eat organs or spine personally. Some do, I prefer not to. There are diseases that can be transmitted via CNS fluids- brain and spinal fluids. Introduction of any bacteria to the meat should be limited especially if meat will be aged.

My beliefs and guidelines. I do not make up rules for others.

Bill
 
lmalterna said:
KingKoma,
I do not in fact eat organs or spine personally. Some do, I prefer not to. There are diseases that can be transmitted via CNS fluids- brain and spinal fluids. Introduction of any bacteria to the meat should be limited especially if meat will be aged.

My beliefs and guidelines. I do not make up rules for others.

Bill
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Your missing out on a world of flavors and textures. Some of it may take some getting used to but its so worth it.

That it "could" be "some" disease is not really enough to discourage me from partaking in some delicious brains.
 
Ernest DuBois said:
That this chemical is tasteless, of course has only a small relationship to weather or not stress prior killing a pig effects the condition of the meat but it seems to be implied in the claim, adrenaline has no taste. Taking the condition of the meat as intended for human consumption as the only consideration then, does stress during the slaughter have any consequence, or is that only an idea that serves the self interest of the consumer? "Lets make the killing humane so we can gorge ourself in good conscious". Something like that.

E.DB.
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I have never heard a hunter say, when not dropping the animal on impact, "oh no, now its going to taste all stressed out!" I guess you could double-blind it to find out, but since the process of killing the animal is so short, Im having a hard time seeing how it could effect the properties of the body except for the release of chemicals and they are only ever present in trace amounts.

I still dont know what "humane" means
 
Humane dispatch of an animal is any method that minimizes the discomfort and stress of the animal during its final moments.
 
Ernest DuBois said:
That this chemical is tasteless, of course has only a small relationship to weather or not stress prior killing a pig effects the condition of the meat but it seems to be implied in the claim, adrenaline has no taste. Taking the condition of the meat as intended for human consumption as the only consideration then, does stress during the slaughter have any consequence, or is that only an idea that serves the self interest of the consumer? "Lets make the killing humane so we can gorge ourself in good conscious". Something like that.

E.DB.
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It was not my meaning to imply anything except that it is not possible to taste adrenaline in meat. Though, I should clarify that I do not, in fact, know this as I have no idea what adrenaline taste like.

"does stress during the slaughter have any consequence"? Do you mean morally? If that is the case then you, Sir, are on a slippery slope to an incredibly boring discussion.
 
Square_peg said:
What are its medicinal uses? Do you and/or your mother have experience using turpentine medicinally?

WebMD doesn't speak highly of it.
http://www.webmd.com/vitamins-suppl...entId=508&activeIngredientName=TURPENTINE OIL
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I do indeed have personal experience with turpentine, as would all southern pine dwellers my age. Turpentine is the finest topical anti-biotic ever devised. Not only is it not painful, it’s soothing.

When I was a kid, my grandparents had this big, two-door Cadillac. This would be about ’67, but the car was old even then. The doors were HUGE. I was pulling the door closed and somehow got my big toe in the corner of it. As you can imagine, my toe was crushed. It was not a happy moment. MY grandmother had no conception of going to a doctor. She just hauled me into the bathroom, washed it off, and doused it with turpentine.
The effect is immediate. I guess it’s because it’s oil. It just coats everything and feels so warm and soothing. Every couple of house, we’d douse it again. I remember begging for it, but my grandmother would only let me use it occasionally. Just for a couple of seconds, all the pain was washed away. I never got an infection and the wounds healed remarkably fast. This is only one occasion. Everybody I knew had a bottle in their cabinet.
I don’t care what Web MD says. Long before there were anti-biotic drugs, there was turpentine. South Georgia is, and was, poor. We had a lot of logging, turpentine, and farm work up until recently. As you can imagine, wounds were frequent and bad. I never once heard of anyone dying of infection, but I have heard of a lot of terrible wounds that were treated without doctors.
 
Ernest DuBois said:
I think the complete version of the sentence is reasonably clear.

E.DB.
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I made a claim "you cant taste adrenaline in meat". You state that this implies that stress does in no way effect the meat. This is not true, all that is meant is "you cant taste adrenaline in meat".

What have I miss-read?

Regarding the question of do stress have any effect on the animal, I will note that the effects acute stress has on humans is in no way obvious and you have to go into reasonable high detail to find them. The effects are so small and short lived that its hard for me to imagine how they could influence the eating experience.
 
I think the adrenaline causes lactic acid to build up in the muscles, especially if the animal is fighting or running. That's the advantage to an instant kill whether in hunting or meat processing. It would be the lactic acid that causes the flavor to deteriorate. I still think the cleaver is for butchering.
 
As others have said the clever is not for slaughtering but a butchers tool for dealing with the carcase.

Some methods that some people will use to slaughter animals is nothing short of barbaric. I have travelled in countries where animals are tortured to death because some races think the adrenaline improves the taste of the meat.

Most of our meat is slaughtered and butchered here by Mary and myself. We both will not tolerate cruelty.

If for example we are slaughtering sheep for the freezer...the animal/s will be penned over night to empty-out. In the morning I will let the sheep out onto good grass. When their heads are down grazing (and before they have eaten very much) I dispatch them from behind and at close range with a bullet to the brain, then bleed them immediately. There is no fear, no pain and defiantly no screaming. It's just like turn out the light.

I have slaughtered many animals in my lifetime... but only ever for meat, never for fun. I take no pleasure from it. Just another job that needs to be done from time to time.

regards...Frank
 
I agree with you Frank. 99.9% of processed meat is done properly, at least in "civilized" countries. It's a little harder with wild game because of the vagaries of shooting an animal. Your method sounds like very low stress for the animals. It' the instantaneous part that is most important.

Great comment.
 
Uath said:
I do indeed have personal experience with turpentine, as would all southern pine dwellers my age. Turpentine is the finest topical anti-biotic ever devised. Not only is it not painful, it’s soothing.
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Thanks, Uath. I appreciate your first hand experience.
 
Frank-New Zealand said:
If for example we are slaughtering sheep for the freezer...the animal/s will be penned over night to empty-out. In the morning I will let the sheep out onto good grass. When their heads are down grazing (and before they have eaten very much) I dispatch them from behind and at close range with a bullet to the brain, then bleed them immediately. There is no fear, no pain and defiantly no screaming. It's just like turn out the light.

I have slaughtered many animals in my lifetime... but only ever for meat, never for fun. I take no pleasure from it. Just another job that needs to be done from time to time.
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That's the way it should be done. Thanks, Frank.
 
While the comments are wide ranging and some even outrageous, not to mention having little to do with cleavers and knives and stuff, personally I have no problem with a deviation like this. I do have a personal interest though in getting a grip on the nature the slaughter, not for any high hifalutin' causes or anything but for practical matters which because of where I live and the nature of the inter net as a medium used by the spies, I won't go into. Lets say it's an effort at narrowing down probabilities
I'm starting to agree with what I think I can make of the position of Kingkoma that as for the subjective quality of the, ok, the meat then, stress related to the slaughter has no meaningful effect and the idea that it does is more bound up in myth and folklore - neither of which I discount or even disregard - myth and folklore that is.

E.DB.
 
I'm curious--does anyone know of stunning methods used in the pre-gunpowder age in Europe or elsewhere? Were there, for instance, specialized hammers or the like? I raise meat rabbits so dispatch is super easy when they hit the 5lb processing weight--left the hindquarters to present the back of the head and give them a firm blow of a bludgeon and it's an instant lights-out. When we have to dispatch 8lb.-plus seniors, though, I use a pellet rifle to the back of the skull with the barrel aligned with the nose. They're just too heavy to hold properly at that point and getting a clean one-hit instant kill is too difficult since the connective tissues of the spine/neck muscles are too toughened up by that age.

Just makes me wonder what folks used to do when they were concerned with rapid dispatch. Back in the middle ages pigs were common livestock--many an illustrated book or tapestry shows farmers shaking acorns from oak trees as food for their pigs. How the heck did they slaughter them in that time period, for instance?
 
FortyTwoBlades said:
I'm curious--does anyone know of stunning methods used in the pre-gunpowder age in Europe or elsewhere? Were there, for instance, specialized hammers or the like? I raise meat rabbits so dispatch is super easy when they hit the 5lb processing weight--left the hindquarters to present the back of the head and give them a firm blow of a bludgeon and it's an instant lights-out. When we have to dispatch 8lb.-plus seniors, though, I use a pellet rifle to the back of the skull with the barrel aligned with the nose. They're just too heavy to hold properly at that point and getting a clean one-hit instant kill is too difficult since the connective tissues of the spine/neck muscles are too toughened up by that age.

Just makes me wonder what folks used to do when they were concerned with rapid dispatch. Back in the middle ages pigs were common livestock--many an illustrated book or tapestry shows farmers shaking acorns from oak trees as food for their pigs. How the heck did they slaughter them in that time period, for instance?
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It was not uncommon to kill pigs by hoisting them up by their hind legs and either cutting the throat or stabbing through the heart. This is also by far the most common way I have seen animals too large for neck breaking slaughtered outside of slaughter houses.

One note on "humane dispatch": If I were to be slaughtered and got to choose the method, one thing I would not like to have done to me is having my brain destroyed as there is an incredible array of processes in it during death. I would much prefer one clean cut across the neck, severing the carotid arteries. The pain of the cut would be negligible as evident by first hand accounts by people that have had it done to them and by the reactions of animals having it done to them, and death would be almost immediate, within a couple of seconds.
 
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