Ghost
Well-known member
WARNING: this post includes the subject of butchering an animal.
WARNING: long, more of a rant rather than informative
There is the old saying "third times a charm", well in my case it was not true! I recently butchered a guinea pig, this is my third time for that task, and it was more tedious and time consuming than the second. I was able to get a bit over thirteen ounce of caucus with some good tasting meat, so not a total loss. But, I was expecting it to be quicker and easier. I was also planning on taking lots of photos, so that I could post a how-to in the meat-rabbit section. Things went not so good, I will not be using it for instructional purposes. However, there were a few things that did go right and I will be adding that to my existing GP processing thread.
I'm trying to analyze were things went wrong. It seems like everything got started off on the wrong foot. I knew in September, David's heard was having a hard time meeting demands. However, winter is a better time, so I was thinking in a month or so things would tick up. The herd was more productive in Nov/Dec. During that time, a few larger boars were eliminated from the heard. I wanted them, but they went to feed David's animals. It was not until Wednesday, I learned that a GP would be available for me. I checked over my equipment and everything seemed in order. Friday would be the day I would do the deed.
I live on a friend's land near her daughter and grand children. They have a manufactured home all on the same plot of land. My friend knows about my rabbit experience. When I called my friend, she was sick from work. I did not tell her about fixing cuy on Friday. My friend rents me a shed. The space behind the shed is hidden from the houses, that is where I decided to work. Her daughter wanted to barrow my friend's flatbed trailer. I thought that's fine, it's far away. I wanted to be completely finished before the kids got off school. Well David was, "Since your coming on Friday to get the GP, can I pay you to do some stuff for me". Well that took longer than expected. I still got back to my place with a live GP before the kids were home.
I watched the hog butcher vid (linked other posts) Wednesday evening. While it is excellently filmed and skillfully preformed, it is not really an instructional video. The man does not explain what he is doing or what to watch-out for. He just preforms and makes it look easy. Still, I should have watched again Friday before starting, but I felt pressed for time.
My thoughts were, "I've done this twice before, It should not take too long". That might have been me first mistake, over confidence. I wanted to tryout some new techniques, even so, I was thinking I know how to do this. Well I tried out my new stationary bolt dispatcher (other posts), it was mounted improperly causing it to slip on my first attempt. I bruised the poor GP's head. I put the GP back in the box and changed how the dispatcher was mounted. After the adjustment, I was able to quickly and effectively dispatch the GP (I will post an update on the stationary bolt dispatcher).
Straight-off-the-bat, I made a major goof, I was only trying to cut the skin, I opened the abdomen. Even worse I pierced the stomach. (I don't like to withhold feedings, and in a herd, it would mean hours of separating the condemned animal from the herd). I used the seem ripper for the first cut. I chose the seem ripper, because I wanted to limit the depth of cut. I knew the seem ripper was not fool-proof, but I still relied to heavy on the tool instead of skill. Thus resulting in a large gash in the abdomen. This is the first time on a rabbit or GP that this happened for me.
I hung the carcass from an overhang on the backside on my shed. Because of the first goof and other issues the skinning was taking forever. I heard the family of my friend's daughter come home. I heard them hooking the trailer to there truck. I thought, "good they can't see me, they will hook-up the trailer and leave". I worked quietly with most of the skin off, only that anal-genital patch was on and I was still having a difficult time figuring out what to do next. As I was struggling, I heard the trailer moving, but instead of leaving it started getting closer and closer. I sort of panicked and tossed my bloody gloves behind the shed.
Is it turned out they needed to air-up the tires, my friend's shop has a the contractor style air tank in it. The shop was within visual range of the hanging carcass. I was able to play it cool as the dad was airing up the tires, kids were in the truck out of view. I don't talk to the (divorced) dad much, but I'm sure he or his friends have been on a deer hunting trip or two. Still, I'm a bit nervous. I went inside my shed and started shuffling stuff around. There was other clutter from his angle, so I'm not sure he saw the carcass, he was mostly interested in airing all four tires, two of which were very flat. If he did see, I hope he just though I was skinning a squirrel and not the neighbor's dog.
After what seemed like an eternity they finally left, I get back to work. Fortunately it takes a long time for rigor mortis to set in with guinea pigs. (I remember on a dead feeder, it took almost two hours to start getting stiff even in a warm room, One hour did not notice any stiffness). After all this I was just wanting the task to be over. While I was in the shed, my friend's "lap dog" got really interested in the blood and guts. Fortunately the carcass was well out of reach. Somewhere along the line, I decided I was not going to save the organs, so the dog got those.
Somehow, I was able to finish and get the carcass oven-ready, I was sure to give it a good washing especially after the stomach piercing. I packed-in papertowel to control the ooze, but some still got on the meat. When I was finally able to eat the cuy, I was just glad it was over. Wanting to get things over rather than cleaning my blades and fish hooks, I decided to just toss them out. I did save my hard to find exacto 23 blade. Also, I used up a lot more consumables like gloves and plastic than wanted to.
Not sure what was the instigating issue that tripped me up. I suppose it was my over confidence and my worrying about the time crunch. Maybe not having my work at a comfortable level when doing the first cut could have been an issue. When I did GP #1 I tried case skinning which doesn't work well with GPs. Then after joining RT, I found that open skinning was the way to go. As I remember #2 was easier than #1. In neither 1 or 2 did I prematurely open the abdomen or damage the GI tract. GP #1 was tricky because I was expecting to butcher the GP the same way as a rabbit. As an aside, I found skinning a squirrel quite similar to a rabbit. I'm not sure what took longer GP #1 or GP #3, but GB #3 seemed more frustrating, because I was expecting things to move quickly and they did not.
WARNING: long, more of a rant rather than informative
There is the old saying "third times a charm", well in my case it was not true! I recently butchered a guinea pig, this is my third time for that task, and it was more tedious and time consuming than the second. I was able to get a bit over thirteen ounce of caucus with some good tasting meat, so not a total loss. But, I was expecting it to be quicker and easier. I was also planning on taking lots of photos, so that I could post a how-to in the meat-rabbit section. Things went not so good, I will not be using it for instructional purposes. However, there were a few things that did go right and I will be adding that to my existing GP processing thread.
I'm trying to analyze were things went wrong. It seems like everything got started off on the wrong foot. I knew in September, David's heard was having a hard time meeting demands. However, winter is a better time, so I was thinking in a month or so things would tick up. The herd was more productive in Nov/Dec. During that time, a few larger boars were eliminated from the heard. I wanted them, but they went to feed David's animals. It was not until Wednesday, I learned that a GP would be available for me. I checked over my equipment and everything seemed in order. Friday would be the day I would do the deed.
I live on a friend's land near her daughter and grand children. They have a manufactured home all on the same plot of land. My friend knows about my rabbit experience. When I called my friend, she was sick from work. I did not tell her about fixing cuy on Friday. My friend rents me a shed. The space behind the shed is hidden from the houses, that is where I decided to work. Her daughter wanted to barrow my friend's flatbed trailer. I thought that's fine, it's far away. I wanted to be completely finished before the kids got off school. Well David was, "Since your coming on Friday to get the GP, can I pay you to do some stuff for me". Well that took longer than expected. I still got back to my place with a live GP before the kids were home.
I watched the hog butcher vid (linked other posts) Wednesday evening. While it is excellently filmed and skillfully preformed, it is not really an instructional video. The man does not explain what he is doing or what to watch-out for. He just preforms and makes it look easy. Still, I should have watched again Friday before starting, but I felt pressed for time.
My thoughts were, "I've done this twice before, It should not take too long". That might have been me first mistake, over confidence. I wanted to tryout some new techniques, even so, I was thinking I know how to do this. Well I tried out my new stationary bolt dispatcher (other posts), it was mounted improperly causing it to slip on my first attempt. I bruised the poor GP's head. I put the GP back in the box and changed how the dispatcher was mounted. After the adjustment, I was able to quickly and effectively dispatch the GP (I will post an update on the stationary bolt dispatcher).
Straight-off-the-bat, I made a major goof, I was only trying to cut the skin, I opened the abdomen. Even worse I pierced the stomach. (I don't like to withhold feedings, and in a herd, it would mean hours of separating the condemned animal from the herd). I used the seem ripper for the first cut. I chose the seem ripper, because I wanted to limit the depth of cut. I knew the seem ripper was not fool-proof, but I still relied to heavy on the tool instead of skill. Thus resulting in a large gash in the abdomen. This is the first time on a rabbit or GP that this happened for me.
I hung the carcass from an overhang on the backside on my shed. Because of the first goof and other issues the skinning was taking forever. I heard the family of my friend's daughter come home. I heard them hooking the trailer to there truck. I thought, "good they can't see me, they will hook-up the trailer and leave". I worked quietly with most of the skin off, only that anal-genital patch was on and I was still having a difficult time figuring out what to do next. As I was struggling, I heard the trailer moving, but instead of leaving it started getting closer and closer. I sort of panicked and tossed my bloody gloves behind the shed.
Is it turned out they needed to air-up the tires, my friend's shop has a the contractor style air tank in it. The shop was within visual range of the hanging carcass. I was able to play it cool as the dad was airing up the tires, kids were in the truck out of view. I don't talk to the (divorced) dad much, but I'm sure he or his friends have been on a deer hunting trip or two. Still, I'm a bit nervous. I went inside my shed and started shuffling stuff around. There was other clutter from his angle, so I'm not sure he saw the carcass, he was mostly interested in airing all four tires, two of which were very flat. If he did see, I hope he just though I was skinning a squirrel and not the neighbor's dog.
After what seemed like an eternity they finally left, I get back to work. Fortunately it takes a long time for rigor mortis to set in with guinea pigs. (I remember on a dead feeder, it took almost two hours to start getting stiff even in a warm room, One hour did not notice any stiffness). After all this I was just wanting the task to be over. While I was in the shed, my friend's "lap dog" got really interested in the blood and guts. Fortunately the carcass was well out of reach. Somewhere along the line, I decided I was not going to save the organs, so the dog got those.
Somehow, I was able to finish and get the carcass oven-ready, I was sure to give it a good washing especially after the stomach piercing. I packed-in papertowel to control the ooze, but some still got on the meat. When I was finally able to eat the cuy, I was just glad it was over. Wanting to get things over rather than cleaning my blades and fish hooks, I decided to just toss them out. I did save my hard to find exacto 23 blade. Also, I used up a lot more consumables like gloves and plastic than wanted to.
Not sure what was the instigating issue that tripped me up. I suppose it was my over confidence and my worrying about the time crunch. Maybe not having my work at a comfortable level when doing the first cut could have been an issue. When I did GP #1 I tried case skinning which doesn't work well with GPs. Then after joining RT, I found that open skinning was the way to go. As I remember #2 was easier than #1. In neither 1 or 2 did I prematurely open the abdomen or damage the GI tract. GP #1 was tricky because I was expecting to butcher the GP the same way as a rabbit. As an aside, I found skinning a squirrel quite similar to a rabbit. I'm not sure what took longer GP #1 or GP #3, but GB #3 seemed more frustrating, because I was expecting things to move quickly and they did not.
