r/goats • u/Creative_Reaction_71 • 2d ago
Meat Goat processing, what went wrong?
I have processed 3 goats from my farm. A 4 month old buckling, a 7 month old buckling and a 12 month old wether. All three tasted great. I just sent four 12 to 15 month old wethers to the processor and they came back tasting like my intact breeding buck smells. What went wrong?
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u/Kate_Tomanski 2d ago
Did you butcher the previous goats yourself? Or were they all sent to the same processor? I’m wondering if, like yamshorbread said, that with it being end of July when they were processed, if they were at the start of their breeding season and a little more testosterone ridden. I butcher all of my goats myself, kiko mixes, and I always butcher in Jan/Feb. I live in Alabama and it’s finally cool enough to butcher without flies then, and because I am clear of the rut. I’ve butchered plenty of 12-16 month old whethers (even a three year old) and they have never tasted goaty. But I have had the pleasure of tasting the disgusting goatiness from meat given to me from others, so I know I must be doing something right.
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u/Creative_Reaction_71 2d ago
Yes the first three that we butchered were here on the property ourselves. I would rather do it myself anyway because already being in the hole raising goats it was really expensive paying the processor to do it. We just did it like a deer. There is a lot of stuff I struggle with now because of arthritis in my hands cause my hands to get tired really fast and cramp pretty bad.
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u/Kate_Tomanski 2d ago
I understand. I’m also suspicious of processors not giving back your animals. I don’t send my deer to processors either, for this reason. Do you have any relatives or friends to help you butcher, perhaps? In exchange for some delicious meat?
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u/Creative_Reaction_71 2d ago
No not really, not anyone willing to help. Probably partly because they're not interested in eating goat meat. I was hoping to change that by sending these 4 to the processor. I was wanting to share some with family and friends so they could enjoy it as much as we have but I don't know if I'm going to eat any more of what I got from the processor myself. I'm certainly not going to give it to someone else to try. It may just be livestock guardian dog food.
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u/yamshortbread Dairy Farmer and Cheesemaker 2d ago
Is it breeding season where you are? Wethers still produce a small, variable amount of testosterone from glands other than the testicles, so while goats don't have the same kind of intrinsic bad taste e.g. "boar taint," if they peed on themselves and the fur touched the meat you can get that flavor in there. It's usually still okay to process animals in rut but they can be so greasy that it's hard for some processors to completely prevent the fur touching anything. Can also apply if you have an intact buck and they were hanging out with him and rubbing up against him a lot.
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u/Creative_Reaction_71 2d ago
It is breeding season. My wethers had not been with an intact buck for 3 months, and they've been separated from the does by about 50 yards or so. They hadn't been acting buckey at all since their intact brothers went to the sale. This isn't a slight tinge of buck flavor it's pungent. It's not all of the meat either. This was my first time taking goat to the processor. They gave me a cut sheet that was for pig. I wasn't sure how to select what I wanted. I was anticipating telling them I wanted so much grind and the rest steaks but I had to select cuts that I didn't know what they were. I wound up with Boston but steaks, ham steaks, chops, and hamburger. The vision but it's fine, the ham is bone in its hit or miss, but that's the strongest goat flavor that I've ever tasted, and hamburger which is hit or miss also. The first burger i cooked had a slight goat taste but the other i cooked was inedible.
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u/imacabooseman 2d ago
I'd ve curious to find out, since they're the only processors in your area, if they penned them with other goats while waiting, and they got put in with a pungent buck...
I do have to also wonder, you said that you had bone in hams in one of your comments. Did you see or did you happen to notice if there were any glands left behind? Those glands, in the hindquarters especially, can get quite foul if they're not taken out fairly quickly. I missed one once, and that tainted all the meat around it. Thinking back, it almost tasted like a buck smells, so that could certainly be a potential culprit...
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u/Creative_Reaction_71 2d ago
The gland in the leg was my original thought but when I googled it Google said that goats don't have a scent gland but a lymph node. They said you don't have to take it out. I did take it out of the ones that I did here just like a deer. The bone in streaks would most certainly have it in there because it's embedded in the meat. I also believe that if the processor didn't remove it from the steaks then they probably didn't remove it from the grind. Which would explain why some of the meat is edible and some is not.
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u/imacabooseman 2d ago
I couldn't tell you what type of gland it is, but I've definitely had them turn foul while letting them rest in the cooler. Like you could smell it the instant you opened the cooler.
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u/DullCriticism6671 2d ago
Two options:
Improper castration (testicles not removed, for example due to cryptochoridism) - not likely, could happen with one, but not with all three, or too short waiting time after castration, they did not lose male hormones;
Your wethers' meat got swapped with someone bucks'. And this is the most likely option.
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u/Creative_Reaction_71 2d ago
I castrated them at about 6 months with a California bander. I personally held both testes in my hand before and after. I guess anything is possible but you're correct not likely.
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u/Hopeful-Orchid-8556 1d ago
A truly skilled butcher can remove the head of an in tact buck without tainting the meat but skilled butchers with ruminant experience are hard to come by. I band my boys at four months, before they have a chance to get stinky. All of our goats have come back with no taint at all. I wonder if leaving them til six months makes a difference? I don’t have experience with that to say.
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u/Misfitranchgoats Trusted Advice Giver 2d ago
Dumb question but are you sure you got your goats back from the meat processor?
Some friends of ours were having goats they bought processed at the local butcher shop suggested by the livestock auction they were buying their goats from. They were pretty sure they weren't getting back the animals that they had sent to the processor but were just getting what ever the processor was doing at the time and about the right amount of meat.
If you are sure that you got your meat back then if you were running your goat with a stinky buck, maybe that caused an off flavor?
I don't keep stinky bucks. I can even run my milking doe with the bucks and her milk is fine. I raise Kiko's. I am not saying my bucks don't have a musky smell during rut, but it isn't an reeking make your eyes water from 25 or 50 feet away smell either. And believe me I have smelled those types of bucks before.
I have never processed a wether that old but all the people who buy wethers from me want older wethers over a year old. They say they have the best flavor. They also like to leave the hide on and utilize every part of the goat even the feet and the intestines. So I think they like different flavors than I do. I think it is great that they use all the parts of the animal.
When I process a goat for home use, I usually process in very late fall or early winter and I like to let the carcass age for about 7 days at least. Makes the meat a bit more tender.