Butchering Poultry, Rabbit, Lamb, Goat, and Pork: The Comprehensive Photographic Guide to Humane Slaughtering and Butchering

by Adam Danforth

Slaughter and butcher your own animals safely and humanely with this award-winning guide. Providing detailed photography of every step of the process, Adam Danforth shows you everything you need to know to butcher poultry, rabbit, lamb, goat, and pork. Learn how to create the proper slaughtering conditions, break the meat down, and produce flavorful cuts of meat. Stressing proper food safety at all times, Danforth provides expert advice on necessary tools and helpful tips on freezing and packaging. Enjoy the delicious satisfaction that comes with butchering your own meat.

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking, Nonfiction, Food, Reference, Agriculture, How To

456 pages, Paperback

First published December 3, 2013

Reviews

[Stephen Simpson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very solid book.

If I were to assemble a collection of books to have on hand in case of societal collapse, this would definitely be a good candidate (along with books on foraging, canning, etc.). The book is quite thorough and, I think, practical given its stated intent.

I also applaud the author for being focused on sanitation and humane slaughter.

That said, I have a few issues with it.

First, I don't think you can really learn slaughtering and butchering by books. That's not a fault in the book, but just the nature of the skills, and it may be my own issue (maybe some people pick up manual tasks by book better than I do). I absolutely think this book would be helpful, but I think I'd make a lot of mistakes the first few times I tried.

Second, the author's comments on sanitation in commercial food production are a little overblown. I'm not any fan of industrial food production, and there certainly are plenty of incidences of contamination, but we're not exactly back in Upton Sinclair's time either.

Maybe not the most practical book in a normal day-to-day life, but a very good book on the subject, and something I wish a lot more people would read (if you can't bear to see where your food comes from and how it gets there, maybe you shouldn't eat it...).

[An · Rating 3 out of 5]

So why would a vegetarian like me read this book? Great question. It caught my eye in a rack at Tractor Supply. I've heard many vegans claim there is no such thing as humane slaughter and I've never seen a how-to slaughter guide which was concerned about humane animal treatment. So I decided to read it and give the book the benefit of the doubt. Did the book convince me to eat meat? Nope. Did the way the book suggested killing the animals put me at ease as something I had no ethical qualms about doing for any reason? Not quite. But overall, I was impressed. Besides being through, explaining well with lots of pictures, and emphasizing cleanliness, it is clear that Danforth truly cares about not causing unnecessary pain, and that was so heartening to read in a world of factory slaughterhouses where cruelty is the rule. If you need or choose to learn how to slaughter, Danforth's book is the one to read for anyone who cares about animals, cleanliness or clear instruction.

[Fernleaf · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is hands-down the BEST single resource for home-butchering that I have come across. With detailed breakdowns of the process and techniques for both slaughtering and butchering poultry, rabbits, goats/sheep and pigs. Opening chapters discuss tools, general procedure, safety and technique while later chapters detail particular animal types with step-by-step color photos.

Whether you are a complete novice starting at square one, looking for tips, or brushing up this book (and it's very reasonable price tag for the content,) will be a gem. I reach for it before every butchering day just to refresh my mind, and have loved it.

[Jennisse · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent resource. Very informative, easy to follow. Respectful. From someone that purchased this book to learn how to butcher my own chickens - which would be the first animal I had ever killed - I felt reassured that I would be able to harvest my own food compently. I have since used his book to harvest an aggressive rooster sooner than I expected and was able to do so humanely. I will refer back to the book for more insight as I gain experience or decide to expand my farm. I highly recommend for beginners - and I would imagine that even seasoned hunters or farmers might learn a better or more efficient way of humanely slaughtering.

[Raelene · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is EXCELLENT. Clear, precise, and uncomplicated, with excellent photos and step by step directions, but also plenty of theory, anatomy, and preparation advice, it does such a good job of giving home butchers the confidence and skills to successfully and humanely dispatch their animals and produce fresh, homegrown meat. Can’t recommend enough.

[Pankaj Goyal · Rating 4 out of 5]

The inclusion of meat as a regular part of diet not only determined the behavioural patterns of the early hominids but also directed the course of human evolution. While the precise path through which the earliest tool technologies emerged is not known, the experimental studies show that a majority of these stone tools were clearly developed for hunting and butchering of the animals. Even if it was easy enough to kill a creature for the earlier hominids, the real problem lied in how to get through the skin and divide up the meat. This led to the emergence of various types of stone tools. While a number of these tools were crude and unsophisticated, these solved the major problems of skinning and dividing up the meat. Gradually we see a refinement in these stone tools as these tools have become smaller but better. At a later stage of human evolution, these stone tools are replaced by the metal tools which took the butchering to another level. Now, humans had the advantage of having so many types of sophisticated tools and these metal tools slowly but surely modified the ways the humans used to butcher an animal earlier on. However, while meat is an important part of diet of many people today, how many of us know the correct way to butcher an animal? It is on this background; this book can be cherished and valued.

The book tells us how to prepare animals for slaughter, how to set up a slaughtering and butchering area, and how to select the tools and equipment one will need to ensure a successful slaughtering. Most importantly, this book tells us how to stun and bleed the animal with the certainty that they experience the least amount of pain and discomfort in these final moments of their life. However, this book is not only about telling us the ins and outs of slaughtering but the bulk of this book focuses on the resulting carcasses. Each animal has been treated separately and a wide range of approaches has been explained to break down the carcass and also for cutting. This helps readers to maximise the usage of different carcass we process. While all animals share similar anatomical structures, it is always better to understand shapes of different animals and most importantly the intersection of muscles and the plane of connective tissues. An entire chapter in the book has been devoted to food safety and what people can do to preserve the meat. The book also explains how slaughtering affects the quality of the meat produced. It makes the readers ensure to that the meat they produce is nourishing.

The author has done a great job. Each and every step of the butchering process has been explained with the help of photographs, which definitely add quality to the book. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to have a better understanding of meat science.

(I received this book from Storey Publishing through NetGalley. The book is expected to release on 11th March 2014)

[Kat Heatherington · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hands down the best book on the topic I have ever encountered. I live on a small farm, where we have been processing our own poultry for 10 years, however, we are about to process our first goat, and though my partners in farming have done this before at other farms, I needed more references. The photography is the best animal-processing photography I have ever seen, very clean, clear, and highly informative. The field is dominated by step-by-step farm blogs with casual, badly-lit snapshots of messy animal-processing scenes - the author here worked with a professional photography team to get fantastic shots of absolutely everything you need to know - with good lighting, good camera angles, and a tidy, organized processing set-up.

Likewise, the text is highly informative. There's a lot of theory, analysis, anatomy, and other background information, well-organized and wrapped around a hefty step-by-step slaughtering & butchering guide for each type of animal. I feel so much better prepared going into this process. I'll come back and update this review after we go through our first experience with this book as a guide.

I'm really stoked about having a step-by-step flowchart on hand while we do this work!

ETA: we actually read to each other aloud the directions in this text while doing the work, and it was *extremely* helpful.

[M T White · Rating 5 out of 5]

I used this book page by page to butcher my goats, chickens (despite having previous experience doing so with chickens), other poultry, rabbits, deer (gleaned from the goat section), and even a rattlesnake (once you get the idea, it can be applied to other animals fairly easily, snake was like one long chicken or rabbit back haha.

It is absolutely indispensable for someone just starting out. We have pigs to butcher soon, and I don't know, might have to buy a lamb just to use every single part.

I have a 1400 pound holstein steer that needs to meet (meat?) his maker, and I look forward to purchasing the beef book, although I'm sure with the knowledge from this book I could get by, just wouldn't have all the perfect beef cuts.

This is THE book.

[John Hobbs · Rating 5 out of 5]

The photos and instructions in this book are amazing, and oddly beautiful given the subject matter.

Best modern butchering and processing book I've ever seen.

[Sheldon Frith · Rating 5 out of 5]

We were able to butcher and pack a batch of meat chickens with basically no experience using only the instructions in this book, and the end result was VERY professional and high quality.

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

educational, i will be referencing this frequently for tips.

[TJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

This format really worked for me.

[Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great resource. Very informative, easy-to-follow, thoughtful photographs. Helped me with learning different techniques for the processing of my chickens.

[Kenny Noland · Rating 5 out of 5]

And informational and educational journey. Presented in an intelligent and straightforward way. If anyone has even a remote interest in butchering their own meat, they should own this book. It is full of really great, step-by-step pictures of the processes described. And, if you're not interested in processing animals, are a vegan, or just cant stomach pictures of internal organs, then please don't open this book. Really, really great job Mr. Danforth. THE book on slaughtering and butchering.

[Micah McCarty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five gloriously informative stars.