Sooo..we went to butcher a cow yesterday. I’ve never assisted butchering anything larger than a racoon, and believe me, it’s a lot more backbreaking to do a cow than a racoon! The hide alone weighs over 50 lbs, and the guts weighed so much it was incredible.

Omasum

We cut open several stomachs. One to get out the tripe, the other to see the amazing folds that the farmer told us we’d find. One had little fingers like grass in it, it was quite neat. The tripe one was FULL of grass. Well maybe not full, but there must have been 5 gallons of grass in there, looking almost like it had just been mowed and mixed with a little water. Quite incredible for a city girl like me! Actually I’m not quite a city girl, and I guess butchering a cow moves me closer to the country girl status ;)

Above is a picture of the omasum.  See all those folds! It’s incredible. I also found here that they sell salted omasum, so it must be edible. Visit this site for more anatomy pictures of cow stomachs and other animal organs.

A cow has four stomachs; the rumen, reticulum, omasum and the abomasum. I knew cows had four stomachs but I didn’t really pay attention till I had seen the stomachs come out of a cow. Here’s a site about the digestive process of a cow.

The hide is really neat. I think someone’s going to get a rug :D We also got the eyes for dissection purposes, and intestines for sausage. Anyone got a recipe? I know they need to be scraped down and the meat needs to be seasoned, but I’m not sure with what, exactly.

Definitely visit this blog for more info about our butchering exerience.

Posted by Bonnie under agriculture, food, learning, outdoors