Post by tripleh on Mar 6, 2008 22:48:36 GMT -5
Thank Goodness for guardian angels! Last Friday I decided to butcher a 3 yo bullock we had. Since I normally do the butchering on our place and we also needed to go pick up some more horse hay in a town 2 1/2 hours drive away, I thought we could kill two birds with one stone if I stayed home and butchered the bullock while my husband went to pick up the hay. Thankfully he decided to stay home so as to give me a hand if I needed it... he hates being gone when I butcher.
The bullock was a good sized chap... but I did not realize quite how big he was until I had him on the ground and had stated skinning him! My hubby was was knife sharpener as I sure needed one! That bullocks hide was the thickest I have run across in a long time! Anyway, to make a long story shorter, when he was hanging hoisted up from the loader on our big tractor, with his head off, his neck stump almost touched the ground! I took him over to our butcher shop where I normally split the carcass into 1/4's before bringing them inside to hang in the cooler. I was up on a step ladder between the carcass and the tractor, almost standing on the tractor bonnet, with my sawzall running as I was splitting him down the spine.
Thankfully Darrell came around the corner of the shop and noticed my heavy stainless hooks that I had through the hocks of the beast, attached to a chain on the tractor loader, were straightening out! Another few minutes and they would have been straight enough to slip out the links of the chain and the carcass would have come down... squashing me between it and the tractor! We managed to get the carcass down on the ground... on clean sheets of course... and I was able to section him up enough to allow us to get him in the cooler... but my heart was in my throat I can tell you! We figure he weighed around 1100 lbs on the rail. I was so exhausted I did not even bother to weigh the parts as we placed him in the cooler!
This was a great lesson that no matter how many times you have followed the same routine when butchering, (or anything else for that matter!) it is all too easy to get a little complacent about your equipmnet... in future I will definitely be double checking things! I really feel this was one more time when my dear angel was watching over me...
Rose
The bullock was a good sized chap... but I did not realize quite how big he was until I had him on the ground and had stated skinning him! My hubby was was knife sharpener as I sure needed one! That bullocks hide was the thickest I have run across in a long time! Anyway, to make a long story shorter, when he was hanging hoisted up from the loader on our big tractor, with his head off, his neck stump almost touched the ground! I took him over to our butcher shop where I normally split the carcass into 1/4's before bringing them inside to hang in the cooler. I was up on a step ladder between the carcass and the tractor, almost standing on the tractor bonnet, with my sawzall running as I was splitting him down the spine.
Thankfully Darrell came around the corner of the shop and noticed my heavy stainless hooks that I had through the hocks of the beast, attached to a chain on the tractor loader, were straightening out! Another few minutes and they would have been straight enough to slip out the links of the chain and the carcass would have come down... squashing me between it and the tractor! We managed to get the carcass down on the ground... on clean sheets of course... and I was able to section him up enough to allow us to get him in the cooler... but my heart was in my throat I can tell you! We figure he weighed around 1100 lbs on the rail. I was so exhausted I did not even bother to weigh the parts as we placed him in the cooler!
This was a great lesson that no matter how many times you have followed the same routine when butchering, (or anything else for that matter!) it is all too easy to get a little complacent about your equipmnet... in future I will definitely be double checking things! I really feel this was one more time when my dear angel was watching over me...
Rose