Post by mollymoo on Feb 22, 2017 17:04:48 GMT -5
So we just had three (9-12 month old hair sheep) lambs butchered - they were apparently smaller than the ones that I took same time last year - live weights between 83 and 95lbs - hanging weights all less than 50lbs - and we had them each cut into 2 leg roasts, chops and ground - and the yield was only ~21 lbs of meat each. Last year we got two (back) leg roasts, one shoulder roast, shanks, chops and ground from each lamb we had butchered. The ground was pretty fatty - and the shanks hardly had any meat on them, which is why we changed up the way we had them cut this year(put shanks and extra shoulder into ground in the hope of it being more lean). Last years lambs had a live weight of 100-120 lbs and yielded 40lbs of meat.
I know it's always tempting to blame the butcher for stealing your meat (!) - but I suspect that the reason for the lower than expected yield (compared with last year) was a combination of 1. lambs being on the small side, 2. different way of cutting than last year. Do you all think that's right? Or were we screwed over?!
The other weird (to us) thing about this year's meat is that the chops had absolutely NO fat on them: I thought maybe the butcher had trimmed the fat off - but they assured me the lambs were probably just that lean. Has anyone else had this experience with grassfed lamb chops having no fat along the back? I don't remember graining last years lambs to finish them - but starting to wonder now if I did (haha...one day I'll keep proper farm records...amateur!!).
We have another two ram lambs for butchering next week - that HAVE been grained for the last three weeks, so I guess maybe we'll get the answer to that question in a couple of weeks...but I'd love to hear if anyone else had a similar experience with grass fed lamb!
I know it's always tempting to blame the butcher for stealing your meat (!) - but I suspect that the reason for the lower than expected yield (compared with last year) was a combination of 1. lambs being on the small side, 2. different way of cutting than last year. Do you all think that's right? Or were we screwed over?!
The other weird (to us) thing about this year's meat is that the chops had absolutely NO fat on them: I thought maybe the butcher had trimmed the fat off - but they assured me the lambs were probably just that lean. Has anyone else had this experience with grassfed lamb chops having no fat along the back? I don't remember graining last years lambs to finish them - but starting to wonder now if I did (haha...one day I'll keep proper farm records...amateur!!).
We have another two ram lambs for butchering next week - that HAVE been grained for the last three weeks, so I guess maybe we'll get the answer to that question in a couple of weeks...but I'd love to hear if anyone else had a similar experience with grass fed lamb!