Goat

It all started when we saw a sign at the farmers market saying "Meat Goats- $100."

Next thing you know  I have an entire goat carcase sitting on my kitchen counter.  I am not one to turn down reasonably priced local meat for both me and the dog.  We spoke with the farmer who was happy to kill and skin the goat.  He also was gracious enough to give us the head and all of the guts in a bag for the dogs.  There are really no words to describe this journey, so I shall do it with pictures.  I have omitted the really gross stuff.

The counter after being sanitized with bleach.

Cutting and organizational tools.

We started with the bag o' organs.  It was frozen in two week
supplies for Copley, this is one of the packs.

After we were done with the organs we re bleached
the counters before starting on the goat.

Some of the prime cuts of "people meat" being trimmed.

Back, neck and pelvis bones for the dog's chewing pleasure.

Finally all packed we have: People meat- several lbs of stew
meat, two shoulders,two racks of ribs and scraps for stock +
Dog Meat- Several poundsof meaty meat, liver, lung, heart,
kidney, spleen, tripe, stomach, lots of meaty bones
to chew on and a head (not shown).

The first cooking project- goat stock with farmers market
veggies and fresh sage from the herb garden.

One question I have been asking myself after all this is "Why don't people eat more goat meat?"  Or more specifically "Where do all the baby milk goats go?"  As you may (or may not) know milk animals are constantly pregnant.  Be it a cow, goat, sheep, whatever, if you want milk from that animal you need it to have babies to stimulate lactation.  When the baby animal is born it usually is removed from it's mother (with varying degrees of humaine-ness, think before you eat veal) so the milk is all available for the farmer to harvest and sell.  Some smaller and more ethical farms allow the animals to stay with their mothers, loosing out on some milk but keeping things a little more natural before the babies are sent to slaughter.  Either way there are lots of baby goats out there being born to milk goat mothers.  A few of the female animals are kept around to become milk goats themselves and even fewer males are kept around to keep the females pregnant.  With goat cheese being so popular there must be lots of little goats sent to slaughter.  WHERE DO THEY GO?!?!  You can't buy goat meat at the supermarket, you don't even see goat meat in dog food.  That is particularly puzzling with the new "novel meat" anti-allergy craze in dog food.  If I can get emu meat dog food, why can't I get goat?

This puzzle is still unsolved, so if you know where the baby goats go, please let me know.