Lambing

The first of ewes in lamb will soon have finished lambing and its been quite sucessful so far compared to last year when we lost litterally hundreds of lambs to the forces of nature, the cold, crows, foxes and eagles. This year by comparison we have only loss a hand full. Amanda and Jude witnessed one ewe giving birth to 4 lambs... Ben and I past by one night and found one by itself which we picked up and relocated nearer the flock hoping that it would find its mother.

Vegetarians look away now.

Eight of our lambs were sent off last week and slaughtered and after a number of days hanging they were ready to be picked up and butchered. We took them back to Callemondah our property near Ararat where we have a small facility for cutting up the carcass. This was my first time at dissecting a full beast and after a couple it all seemed relatively straight forward.

We experimented with a couple of cuts, but generally ended up with, loin chops, a rack, a shoulder, a leg, shanks and some chump chops and the lambs belly or flank from each half a lamb.

With the bones cut from the belly I brought them back to Greenvale where several litres of Lambstock was made.  Some of the flanks were trimmed of the fat and this will be made into mince if I can ever find the parts for my mincer which are somewhere still in a box we are yet to unpack from our move.

I think next time Ill ask for the offal which had been discarded prior to us picking up the carcasses.