Homesteaders Kill, Skin and Gut Their Own Lamb (on Farm)

6 o'clock. I was lucky I just caught it turning. Let's do— be doing chores by 6:30, little animals, and then hopefully butchering by 7:30 so we can get one done before we're milking. Yep, that sound good?

Yeah.

You know, normally I get really stressed out on butchering days. I'm really stressed out, but I'm thinking, why am I stressed out? This is like the best day of our year. There's a lot to do, there's a lot that could go wrong. Uh, we really don't There's probably gonna be a lot fall through the cracks because we're gonna be so busy with the butchering. And but you cannot buy this. This is 100% grass-fed lamb. No antibiotics, no dewormers, no none of that. No grain ever. I'm not sure you can buy that, and maybe if you could, it would certainly be expensive, and it might even be coming from New Zealand. How are the tortillas going? So I thought, why not burn it up? What better way to celebrate than to make the kids a big old breakfast? We're all gonna be working hard today. Here you guys go. How's your burritos? Good. That's a good start. Delicious. Good. Probably not gonna drink enough today. So let's make sure we get super hydrated. Thanks, Redmond's Relight. Hot water first. Cold water. We have to milk. 8:30 is the goal. We can be a little late if we need to be. Do you guys think that I could go find all the supplies? There's not many. Sheep butchering is so simple. While you guys do the little animal chores. Okay, skinning knife, sharp knife. This is my saw over here. I don't think so. This is our field notes, which include— I just watched, I watched my own, uh, course on how to on-farm kill, skin, and eviscerate a sheep. As I watch the video, I made notes. I have 40 points, and because I watched the video, I'll know what these notes mean. But I can just put this one piece of— and I made it fit on one piece of paper, and it'll go on a clipboard. This is just our supplies. Knives, check. Out of respect for the community guidelines at YouTube, we will not be showing the butchering. It's against the rules, but it's very important, and many of you are going to want to do it yourself. So we're going to put the actual—

Papa, you need to come help me find my cowboy boots!

And as you can tell, this YouTube video is kind of going to be the behind the scenes of a butchering. Can you go find your cowboy boots?

I want you to come with me. I'm scared.

Mr. Brown, where are your shoes? He's been doing good. Until butchering day. I'm getting cloths. Brandon taught me— Brandon, the Farmstead Meatsmith, he did a work— we filmed a workshop here for Abundance Plus on how to do this, and he taught me you get cloths to separate. When once you separate some of the skin and meat, you put cloths to keep the skin off the meat. He has a method where, uh, your hands or the hide never touch the meat. Unclean. Are you looking for your shoes? So this YouTube video is behind the scenes, but if you're interested in actually doing a butchering and you want to see a video of the breakdown, you want to see how we've done it today, if you want that class from Brandon Sheard step by step, two different cameras, cinematic footage, and you want the step-by-step notes Papa, we have— Then get in Abundance Plus. The Brandon Sheard class, which will have these notes in it, is called— you'll need to know the name of it so you can find it in Abundance Plus. It's called Sheep Butchering. Okay, Sheep Butchering. Enjoy this free content on YouTube behind the scenes. And if you want the real stuff, you want to do this yourself uncensored, Abundance Plus, that's at abundanceplus.com. Or you can get it on any app. All right, Mr. Brown, let's find your boots. Because one day he will find his own boots, meaning he will grow up. And I better cherish these moments. I should add to that supplies list the kids' shoes, and then you don't get stressed out about it. It's just on the to-do list. All right, are those your shoes? Can you wear those shoes? Those are Lily's, but can you wear them? Where did you think they you think these cowboy boots were? Okay, is that you looking for boots? Yeah. Or is that you riding other people's bikes? Why do you think it's here?

Look at me. Look in that spin.

Is this a fool's errand? Why do you think they're in the stalls?

Because the sign said they're somewhere.

If I were cowboy boots, I wouldn't be in the stall. Can you just go get your rubber boots? I'm wearing rubber boots. Sit out here at their dirt pile. That's where I'd be if I was cowboy boots. Mom today said she's gonna take over the layer hens. She's on it. What's some terribly happy birds? I said terribly happy, not unhappy. These guys are loving it. Best life now. Look, they've already cleared out around the tomatoes or peppers. What a terribly happy life for that little boy.

I know, right?

You want me to take him?

Yeah, I got him.

Okay. What y'all doing?

Do you want to take them?

Are you doing this so that's getting some exercise?

Maybe we're gonna move this.

Let's go say the chickens— chickens will spread this.

Well, I know, but I don't want the manure to get too heavy under.

Yeah, it's kind of hard to move this thing around.

That's what we were just thinking we would.

Oh man, I was hoping you were gonna go find some shoes. I ordered more grain but not on time. Okay, come here. Come bring that to me. We have some duck food left right now. I know, but tomorrow you'll need— tomorrow you'll be out of grain, of food for them. Yeah, it's probably not coming till Monday. Shoot, it's Wednesday. We're butchering two of the pigs, uh, Friday and Saturday. We have some skim, but those can be— that can be for our breeders. So what we can do is is leave your full bucket over there and let's add some duck feed to our mix. We'll fill that bucket tomorrow. We'll use that. Okay, are those his boots? Dang it, those are Lily's boots. This is what we're gonna have. He's gonna have to settle for his rubber boots. Gideon, I found your rubber boots. He said he didn't want them. Well, um, why don't you wear the rubber boots Until you find the cowboy boots. You cannot go in socks, bro. You got to go barefoot or go get those rubber boots on. Please, you're gonna make the right decision. All right, well, it's up to you. You make— you make the right decision or the wrong decision. There's always consequences. For the right decision are generally good consequences, and for bad decisions, generally bad consequences. We've got our hoist. Oh, this is where I would hope your chainsaw would be and the gambrel. This is not the gambrel we want. We have a much better one now. If you're really wanting to do this, I'll leave the tools, the link to all my supplies, which isn't much, like 5 or 6, in the show notes on the sheep butchering video. Let's get a clean bucket, boots, and gambrel. I kind of snuck that part in there. You, you be in charge of the boots. I'll get the other things. He wants to go to Grandma's. Yeah, after he discovered some new toys. But I'm thinking, I'm thinking the boy's got to wear boots if he's wanting to go to Grandma's.

And my boots are cold.

Well, there's a clean bucket. Holy moly, perfectly clean. The knives were here, so it's probably, it's probably where the Gambrel is. I think it's in the corn crib. That's where we used to keep butchering stuff a long time ago before we turned into a people barn. Getting— you're supposed to be in the house with boots on.

But I only have one.

I'm sorry, bro. There's a glove right there, right there beside the bookshelf. You better crawl. You better not step on our floor with those shoes. Mom went in there, but she didn't come out as fast as I would like. She found it here.

The bone saw's in the loft. I know it's in there.

Are you sure?

I, I remember putting it—

what's all this cardboard? I don't know. All right, well, there's the bone saw right there, babe.

Yeah.

Oh, and the gambrel.

The bone saw? Oh, obviously there it is. Bone saw was something different.

Get in. You're coming in handy. I'm glad you chose your boots. There we go. We're getting the trailer out of here. It's probably not completely in the way, but it'd be nice to have it removed. Let's add this to our list too, Lily. A couple of 4x4 chucks to brace the lamb while we deal with the back legs before we hang it. Look at Gideon, he's real serious. He's real concerned. You can see his eyes are poking through. What have you been born into? A mess. And it just got more complicated in a good way. The graders here continue to make our— turn some forests into pastures from our grazing land. We are going to try alfalfa and hooking them. But if that doesn't work, we're gonna use this gate and corner them. We really need to go talk to him and make sure he knows what to do. Why is he getting in his truck? His machine? Yeah, we could milk and get that over with and then see how much time we have. And you guys could start milking while I go do the deal with Fred because you guys can't do it. Yeah, I like that. I can get Willie over there for them and they can do it, and then I can Go handle them. You guys are milking, and then if we have time to do a sheep before lunch, we'll do it, and then we'll break for lunch and do another one in the afternoon.

Or just do two in a row in the afternoon. We can eat early lunch.

That's true. We should do that because we're gonna have a big dinner tonight.

Yeah, company dinner. A really big one.

Isn't that fun? We have a company dinner. First time. First time. I cannot wait. Okay. It's gonna be fun. It's a surprise for these kids. They know it's a bocce, but they have no idea what bocce is. Here's an experience that y'all know nothing about coming tonight. All right, that's a good plan. All right, Fred's cleared this. We got a burn pile of stumps, we got branches for wood chips. We're gonna go all the way up to the access road and he's going to clear along it, nook and cranny. We're talking about nooks and crannies, but we just gained That's almost— that'd be a paddock this time of year. So that'd be a paddock 2, 3 times. That's 3 weeks of grazing in a year. You'll notice somebody's going to be missing today and for a long time, and that is Arun. Arun will be preparing to go back to India and then we'll be going to India for an extended period of time. That's his home. So if anybody's wondering where Arun is We are thankful for his time here, but the time is over and he's going home. Uh, I thought there was some ribbon or something in here. That's— if you find spray paint, that'll work. I bet it's some tape. Yeah, here it is. We're gonna mark that big oak, just have space between that oak and that walnut, and then we're clearing all this. We're gonna have our view back, babe.

I know, I'm very excited.

We're gonna gain so much pasture. We really are a little bit a little bit straight from here over here, up a little bit, maybe 75 feet before it gets too steep. We can gain. All right, let's check on the kids. How's it going? You're on the hind milk for Phyllis. Have you milked Flossy at all?

Halfway.

Half of her.

Okay, good. Okay, she's hopefully not gonna kick me. All right, she's good. Jonah's getting the land— the sheep back in with the calves. Now that the, the little girls are gone— the little boys— do you want to document them, uh, coming? Oh wow, she just stepped out. Really? They never locked us down. That's okay, we were almost done. The calf will get the rest. Well, we ended up not putting the sheep separate yet. It was proven to be a difficulty. Not a big difficulty, but it's like we don't have to do that today. We can do that another day, and we're gonna have— we, we're gonna have enough problems. Hodgepodge at lunch today. I did cut up some fresh onions and garlic and fried them, and now I'm gonna, uh, fry that chicken right in there. It's leftover chicken.

I can be your piggy.

Yep, you're cleaning up the bones. I just cut that chicken up into chunks. Oh, I should put this in. We've got some fish going. Heat up the sausage and chicken. The normal people like broccoli. Oh, these Dutch babies, that would be a good little dessert. And then we'll fry some rice. Red Mints. Wow, it's 10:15. We've already lived a lot of life. Got our chicken heated up, our rice, some salmon. Dutch baby's looking good. Hey, I feel like if we could start by 10:30 our next appointment, 12:30, with Jacob the trainer. We could casually get one, and then maybe after Jacob, one more.

Let's do both.

I don't think we would be able to do two in one hour. It'd be pressing. Can't never go to— but we, we could see. I mean, let's see how fast we do the first one. But yeah, look what arrived while I was cooking. Our AC for our cool room. Our cool room's working though lately. I know.

Well, it hasn't for when it breaks.

Hasn't frozen up, but now we're prepared if it does freeze up. If people want to know how much it costs, there it is. What? $123 yearly energy cost to keep it going. That's not bad. It's a 15,000— that's $10 a month. 15,000 BTU. Auntie Anne went to Cracker Barrel for, for Papa. Oh, and she's thinking about me.

So yeah.

Oh, she's thinking about me. Oh my word, this might be a crazy chicken lady if I have a chicken on my clothing or a chicken head that's whiter than my body. Ain't nobody crazier chicken lady than me. There you go, that's next level. And thanks, I think I make this chicken shirt look good. It is finally time, we got an hour and 20 minutes. That's close, that's close, but let's try it. They are out of grass. Why don't we move them? That'll distract them and we'll get some alfalfa in there and see if we can't just catch them. Okay, we've got them very distracted on fresh grass. Boys are still figuring out the girls, it looks like. We're gonna try to hook them. YouTube viewers, I'll get some time lapses for you. Abundance Plus. We got a drone in the air, the GoPro on my head. We've got my main camera here, and we got a second camera over there. We're really gonna do this up. I'm gonna catch him and put him on the ground and then let him calm down a little bit. Here you go. Get his legs out. Okay, I'm gonna cut right on the Adam's apple. We're done with the first one. It seems very little. Jonah said, aren't you proud? This is, this is a proud moment. We grew this meat. They're washing up the barrel, and I'm sure we're gonna probably fit— we'll fit at least half of them in there. How long'd that take? 2 and a half hours. Jacob came and went, our trainer. Well, we're gonna have to have a hard stop at 4 to get ready for this party. I think we can do another one. What do you guys think? It's time. It's gonna be a fun reward after a long day. Time out, hold on a minute. We're about to go party with our staff, a wonderful, amazing hibachi dinner on farm. Absolutely crazy. Our first staff party ever. Super excited. I want to give it more credit, attention, and get you guys more content. So how about a bonus video this weekend, this Saturday? And then you guys will get to meet some of the amazing folks that are behind what we do. The Justin Rhodes brand, Abundant Permaculture, the Abundance Plus app. I cannot wait to share these guys with you. That will come Saturday. In the meantime, be sure to check out the uncensored version. I want to say realistic, or what's the word I'm looking for? The— I guess the realistic— the, the whole picture. Of this harvest. You can find it on Abundance Plus. I'll leave notes down in the show notes on how to find that, or you can just go to Abundance Plus and you can search for sheep butchering or uncensored sheep butchering. We've got the, the vlog footage of us doing it, uh, we'll show that. And then we have a, a really nice class with Brandon Sheard on how to do it. So I think you guys will want to check that out at abundanceplus.com.